Plain-language summary
Conflicts can arise in schools when staff members disagree about responsibilities, decisions, communication, resources or how work should be done. The way school leaders respond to these disagreements may affect teachers’ ability to carry out their duties effectively. This project examined four strategies for managing conflict in secondary schools: arbitration, dialogue, effective communication and smoothing. It focused on public secondary school teachers in Obubra Local Government Area of Cross River State, Nigeria.
The study was conducted during the 2017/2018 academic session. It used correlational and factorial research designs and included 222 teachers drawn from a population of 352. Ten public secondary schools were selected to form the sampling frame, and teachers in the selected schools were included through purposive sampling. Data were collected with two researcher-designed questionnaires: the Conflict Management Strategies Questionnaire (CMSQ) and the Secondary School Teachers’ Job Effectiveness Questionnaire (SSTJEQ). The instruments were validated by experts, and their internal consistency was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha. The reported reliability coefficients were .85 for arbitration, .73 for dialogue, .83 for effective communication, .86 for smoothing and .87 for teachers’ job effectiveness.
The results indicated that teachers’ job effectiveness in the study area was significantly high. Arbitration, dialogue and effective communication each had a statistically significant relationship with teachers’ job effectiveness. Smoothing, considered on its own, did not have a statistically significant relationship with job effectiveness. When the four strategies were considered jointly, however, they had a significant combined influence, with effective communication showing the greatest influence among the strategies examined.
The central practical message is that school leaders should not assume that one conflict management approach will be suitable for every disagreement. Arbitration may be useful when an impartial decision is needed; dialogue can help parties explain their concerns and seek understanding; and effective communication can clarify expectations and reduce misunderstandings. Smoothing may have a place in particular circumstances, but the findings of this study did not show a significant individual relationship between smoothing and teachers’ job effectiveness. Principals should therefore consider the nature of each conflict and use an appropriate combination of strategies to support constructive working relationships and teachers’ performance.