The effect of a modified LORS techinique on the ego identity formation of adolescent high school students

• Main Author: Sofranko, Edward Roger
• Other Authors: Hollis, Joseph W.
• Format: Others
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: High school students.; Identity (Psychology)
• Online Access: http://cardinalscholar.bsu.edu/handle/handle/180947; http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/296105

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a modified LORS technique on the ego identity formation of adolescent high school students. In order to investigate this relationship, a group of eighty volunteer high school students was randomly divided into an experimental and a control group. The experimental group was further divided into four sub-groups, each consisting of ten members. Both groups completed a battery of personality inventories comprised of 1) the Dignan Ego Identity Scale; 2) the Inventory of Psychosocial Development; and 3) the Personal Orientation Inventory. The group of experimental subjects took part in dramatizing typical adolescent crises, involving situations such as self-consciousness, sexuality, values clarification, vocational choice, and conflict with authority. The situations were designed to utilize the LORS Experiential Technique (Hollis, 1975), and were facilitated by trained process involvers. While the experimental subjects participated in the LORS situations, the control group members continued their regular school schedule. Following the completion of the treatment for the experimental group, both experimental and control group subjects repeated the aforementioned battery of personality tests. Statistical procedures were then applied to the data in order to test hypotheses written concerning the relationship between the variables involved.The analysis of data first required a preliminary test in order to determine whether or not the four experimental sub-groups were sufficiently enough alike that they could be pooled into one group. The results of the preliminary test showed that the four experimental subgroups could be treated statistically as one group. The preliminary testing was followed by a regression analysis to determine whether the covariates were related sufficiently to be useful as covariates. The results yielded an F value of 6.3376 and a P of less than .0001. Using the factors of "sex" and "grade level" as blocking factors, a three-way multivariate analysis of covariance was conducted. With an F value of 6.102 and a P of less than .0001, the major hypothesis concerning the relationship between experimental and control group vector of means was rejected. To determine which of the dependent measures (adjusted covariates) contributed to the overall rejection of the major hypothesis, the univariate F statistics were computed. The F values indicated that all of the dependent measures, except one, contributed to the rejection of the null hypothesis. The one exception was the reduction of identity diffusion as measured by the Inventory of Psychosocial Development.The purposes of the study were, first, to investigate current theory and empirical knowledge about the relationship between ego identity formation in adolescence and a treatment designed to help facilitate this development. A second purpose of this study was to provide data for use by teachers and counselors who work with adolescent high school students. To an important degree, both of these purposes were achieved in the present study.