A Study on Learning Motivation of Newly Enrolled Adult Students in Higher Vocational Colleges

China has been vigorously developing vocational education and actively promotes the enrollment expansion of higher vocational education. Some adult candidates can improve their cognition and skills by receiving higher vocational education, which contributes to the iteration of labor force. Existing literature shows that adult learners are different from full-time students from common colleges and universities, and it is of great significance to explore the learning motivation of newly-enrolled adult students. This study takes newly-enrolled adult students who had participated in the expanded enrollment of higher vocational colleges as the research object, and applies the method of questionnaire to quantitatively analyze their learning motivation. Descriptive analysis shows the fundamentals among this group of students that women generally have higher learning motivation than men; the group of age 26 to 35 displays the highest motivation; married people have higher motivation than the unmarried; there are also higher learning motivations revealed in learners with children. The variance analysis presents that different genders lead to the differences in cognitive interest, interpersonal relationship and social service; while childbearing results in differences in career development, external influence and social service. Cluster analysis provides two types of learners, one of which has low average scores and high motivations, the other has high average scores and low motivations. The scores fluctuate sharply in different sub-dimensions, targeted stimulation of learning motivation can be carried out. In-depth research could be taken in further studies, and an enriched sample size may contributes to more accurate results.