Effect of an innovative educational program upon self-actualization and psychosocial maturity: A replication and followup

Previous research found that an innovative educational program had a negative effect on its participants' personality development when compared with appropriate controls. The present study attempted to: (1) replicate this unexpected finding by comparing 13 entering freshmen in the following year's program with controls on changes in self-actualization and psychosocial maturity, and (2) follow up the subjects in the original study one year later to assess the permanency of the initial finding. Results indicated that: (1) for the replication, control subjects increased their scores on three out of 19 scales of the inventories while program participants' scores remained the same, and (2) for the followup, when retested one year later, there were no significant differences between the two original groups.