In the world of education, the 21 century can be defined as the era of lifelong and open education. For today’s people, continuous self-development through lifelong learning is considered critical not just for personal happiness and survival in society but also as a source of competence in knowledge-based society. As the world enters the era of limitless competition with the spread of globalization, people’s interests in human resources are growing and professional education is gaining more importance. The structural transition into



* A thesis submitted to the committee of Graduate School, Chungnam National University in a partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Education conferred in February 2013.
a knowledge-based society and the rise in living standards has contributed to various needs for adult education and an increasing call for learner-oriented leaning activities. To meet such needs, the focus should be on what adult learners consider is practical and what they want to learn in daily lives because adult learners tend to become more passionate and immerse themselves in learning when they feel that they are actively developing their abilities through learning and reaching goals.
In this study, the author i) examined four factors ？ goal orientation, motivation, self-concept and learning flow ？ depending on demographic characteristics of adult learners, ii) analyzed correlations among the factors and iii) identified the effect of goal orientation, motivation and self-concept on learning flow in adult learners by using an empirical method. A survey was conducted on adult learners at the age of 20 or over who were taking lifelong education programs in lifelong education institutions located in Daejeon Metropolitan City, South Chungcheong Provinceor North Chungcheong Province, and the data of 400 of the respondents were used for the study. Goal orientation, motivation and self-concept were independent factors while learning flow was adependent factor. SPSSWIN 20.0 was used to analyze the collected data. First, t-test and one-way ANONVA were performed to examine the differences among the four factors depending on demographic characteristics of adult learners. And then, acorrelation analysis was carried out to find the correlations among the factors. Lastly, amult ip leregression analysis was conducted to analyze the effect of goal orientation, motivation and self-conception earning flow.
The results indicated that lifelong education contributed to the quality of life, social exchange and skill development in adult learners, and that active participation in learning activities influenced the learning flow. It was also found that goal orientation, motivation and self-concept had significant correlations with learning flow and the effect of self-concept was the clearest followed by motivation and goal orientation. In adult learners, it was discovered that the stronger self-concept they had, the better immersed they were in learning. And people with a higher level of education tended to make relatively more efforts in self-development and have more interests in and a stronger sense of achievement from learning compared with the rest.