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Conscientious Learners, Open Minds: Big Five Personality Traits, Adult Education Participation, and Self-Directed Work Behavior Among Korean Adults

Sun Joo Yoo 1 2 *
1 Design for Learning Lab (Independent research institute), Director, SOUTH KOREA2 Seowon University, Instructor, SOUTH KOREA* Corresponding Author
Educational Point, 3(2), 2026, e170, https://doi.org/10.71176/edup/19633
Publication date: Oct 18, 2026
Research Article
Open Access Open Access
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ABSTRACT

This study examines whether Big Five personality traits are associated with Korean adults' participation in non-formal adult education and their self-directed behavior at work. Personality has long been linked to learning and performance outcomes, yet its role in adult learning participation has rarely been examined with nationally representative, internationally comparable data, and almost never in the Korean context. Using the Korean public-use file from the second cycle of the OECD Survey of Adult Skills (OECD, 2024; N = 6,198), which for the first time included a short-form Big Five measure (BFI-2-XS), this study estimated weighted logistic and linear regression models with Fay's balanced-repeated-replication variance estimation. Openness to experience and emotional stability were positively associated with participation in non-formal education in the preceding twelve months (N = 5,766), net of education, employment status, parental education, age, and gender. Conscientiousness showed a positive association that approached but did not reach conventional statistical significance (p = .053). Among currently employed respondents (N = 4,268), conscientiousness, openness, and extraversion were each positively and significantly associated with self-directed work behavior, defined as the frequency of planning one's own activities and organizing one's own time. These findings extend dispositional theories of adult learning to the Korean context and suggest that human resource development interventions may benefit from attending to individual differences in personality alongside the structural and institutional barriers that have dominated prior explanations of Korea's comparatively low adult learning participation.

KEYWORDS

big five personality traits lifelong learning self-directed learning PIAAC adult education human resource development South Korea

CITATION (APA)

Yoo, S. J. (2026). Conscientious Learners, Open Minds: Big Five Personality Traits, Adult Education Participation, and Self-Directed Work Behavior Among Korean Adults. Educational Point, 3(2), e170. https://doi.org/10.71176/edup/19633
Harvard
Yoo, S. J. (2026). Conscientious Learners, Open Minds: Big Five Personality Traits, Adult Education Participation, and Self-Directed Work Behavior Among Korean Adults. Educational Point, 3(2), e170. https://doi.org/10.71176/edup/19633
Vancouver
Yoo SJ. Conscientious Learners, Open Minds: Big Five Personality Traits, Adult Education Participation, and Self-Directed Work Behavior Among Korean Adults. Educational Point. 2026;3(2):e170. https://doi.org/10.71176/edup/19633
AMA
Yoo SJ. Conscientious Learners, Open Minds: Big Five Personality Traits, Adult Education Participation, and Self-Directed Work Behavior Among Korean Adults. Educational Point. 2026;3(2), e170. https://doi.org/10.71176/edup/19633
Chicago
Yoo, Sun Joo. "Conscientious Learners, Open Minds: Big Five Personality Traits, Adult Education Participation, and Self-Directed Work Behavior Among Korean Adults". Educational Point 2026 3 no. 2 (2026): e170. https://doi.org/10.71176/edup/19633
MLA
Yoo, Sun Joo "Conscientious Learners, Open Minds: Big Five Personality Traits, Adult Education Participation, and Self-Directed Work Behavior Among Korean Adults". Educational Point, vol. 3, no. 2, 2026, e170. https://doi.org/10.71176/edup/19633

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