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The purpose of this study was to investigate how types of instruction and students' locus of control mediate progress in an undergraduate personal development course. Three factor scores, Satisfaction, People/Security, and Task/Security, from the Life Styles Inventory assessed students' progress. Pretest scores served as the covariate for the 3 (type of instruction) × 2 (locus of control) analysis of covariance. Students in one of the personal development classes had higher factor scores than students in the comparison group. Significant interactions between types of instruction and I-E on two styles factors, People/Security and Task/Security, were found. Under certain conditions a personal development course could exert positive influences on students. The greater impact of the course on internal scorers is consistent with research on counseling.

The primary objective of the present study was to assess the stability and generality of the Level I: Life Styles Inventory's factor structure. The importance of the objective emerged from a discrepancy between the conceptual model and the inventory's derived factor structure. This self-report inventory was constructed to measure 12 thinking patterns or life styles and is used by business managers for organizational and individual development. Analysis of the data from 116 college students yielded a three-factor solution that was similar in communalities, percent variance accounted for, and factor pattern coefficients to those from the one previous study. The factors were People/Security, Satisfaction, and Task/Security. Those similarities existed despite differences between the studies in subjects, method of extraction, and sample size. Evidence supported a conclusion for the factor invariance and generality of the inventory.