The Structural Relationship and Moderating Effect of Learning Period among Social Capital, Academic Self-concept, and Academic Enthusiasm Perceived by University Adult Learners

The purpose of this study is to analyze the structural relationship between social capital, academic self-concept, and academic enthusiasm perceived by adult learners at university and the moderating effect in the relationship. The problems of this study are as follows. First, what is the structural relationship among adult social capital, academic self-concept, and academic enthusiasm? Second, what is the mediating effect of the academic self-concept on the relationship between social capital and academic enthusiasm? Third, what is the moderating effect on the relationship among social capital, academic self-concept, and academic enthusiasm according to the learning period? The subjects of this study were 595 adult learners at J University Lifelong Education Center. For the analysis of the structural relationship between variables, SPSS 21.0 and Amos 21.0 programs were used, bootstrapping was conducted to analyze the mediating effect, and multiple group analysis was performed for the moderating effect. The research results perceived by adult learners at university are as follows. First, social capital, academic self-concept, and academic enthusiasm are related, second, academic self-concept mediates the relationship between social capital and academic enthusiasm, and third, the learning period is conformed to moderate the relationship between social capital and academic self-concept. These results suggest that university lifelong education institutions and teachers and instructors should not only consider promoting academic self-concept along with social capital capabilities in the academic process to increase the academic enthusiasm of university adult learners, but also improve the social capital capabilities of short-term learning participants.