Differences in College Education Service Satisfaction and Dropout Intention according to College Adaptation Types by Latent Profile Analysis: Focusing on A University in the Seoul Metropolitan Area

Objectives This study classified college life adaptation types based on student characteristics, relationships with professors, and stability in academic conditions of small university students in the metropolitan area, and then tried to understand the characteristics of each group and to find out the difference in university education service satisfaction and dropout intention according to group type. Methods To this end, data were collected from 526 students from small universities in the metropolitan area, and potential profile analysis of their psychosocial characteristics was conducted. A one-way ANOVA of variance was conducted to find out the difference in university education service satisfaction according to the extracted latent class. Pearson chi-square test and Fisher's exact test were conducted to verify whether the difference between groups was significant in dropout intention. Results As a result of the analysis, six potential profiles were derived according to college life adaptation factors, and depending on the type, they were named as “serious maladjustment,” “vulnerable social and career characteristics,” “internal confusion,” “weak adaptation,” “work-learning parallel,” and “perfect adaptation.” As a result of examining the factors for each potential profile, there were significant differences between groups in university education service satisfaction and dropout intention. Conclusions Based on these results, this study discussed intervention measures to prevent dropouts of small universities in the metropolitan area and suggested follow-up studies by identifying differences in university education service satisfaction and dropout intention according to college life adaptation types.