MacOS – Folder selection in Finder’s column view

I'm running 10.8.4 on a MBA, and I've run into a little inconsistency in Finder's behavior. I have two accounts on my machine, an admin account and a user account. In both accounts I have Finder set to open new windows in the home directory in column view.

If I open a new window and try to select a subfolder with a keystroke (eg. D for Desktop), it only works in the admin account. In the user account it seems to be interacting with the home directory's enclosing folder instead of its subfolders. So if I type S it selects /Users/Shared rather than /Users/user/Spoon.

I know it's a small thing, but it messes with my workflow, and I'd like to know why the inconsistency. Any ideas?

Update: I tracked down the cause, with a little help. Someone recommended I look at System Prefs > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts. I did, and noticed the Full Keyboard Access radio button at the bottom of that page, where you choose whether the Tab button cycles through all controls, or just Text boxes and lists. I remembered that I'd set it to "all controls" in the standard user account, but not in the admin account. Sure enough, changing it back to the default "Text boxes and lists only" fixed the behavior.