A study examined the relationship between the motives and needs of 658 adult students enrolled in a Dutch adult high school program and the curricular and instructional design of an educational reform--an open learning program. The population was all 4,442 adult learners in 3 schools who started an open learning experiment. When the students received their schedule at the beginning of the school year 1989-90, every second or third student (n=1,530) received a questionnaire. The exploratory factor analysis found that the general and social motivation profile was far more important than the instrumental profile. Respondents participated in education again because they were interested in the subjects being taught and they liked the social contacts with peers and teachers. The majority of students chose this type of adult education because of the contacts with fellow students and support from them and teachers. Although the feasibility of an open learning system depends on the desire and ability of students to design their own learning program, most students did not have this ambition and wished to rely on the support of a fixed program guided by the teachers. A major conclusion was that just implementing an open learning program as a curriculum innovation was not enough to improve adult education because of the gap between the requirements of the program and the initial needs of the students. (Appendixes include 10 references and 3 data tables.) (YLB)