Principals’ and Teachers’ Use of Conflict Management Strategies on Secondary Students’ Conflict Resolution in Rivers State- Nigeria

The study was designed to identify the principals’ and teachers’ level of utilization of conflict management strategies: integrating, dominating, compromising and avoiding strategies on secondary students’ conflict resolution and their related implications in the internal school administration. Four research questions and four hypotheses addressed the study. The instrument used for the generation of data was the Secondary Students and Conflict Management Strategies Questionnaire (SECONSQ). A sample of 7 principals and 147 teachers were randomly selected from a target population of 14 principals and 294 teachers in Government Junior Secondary Schools in Port Harcourt Local Government Area of Rivers State. Tables were constructed, frequency counts, percentage and means computed to provide answers to the research questions. The results revealed that the principals uses the integrating and compromising strategies more frequently than the teachers;the teachers level in the use of avoiding strategies is higher than that of the principals, and teachers tends to overlook to a large extent the use of dominating strategies in the management of students’ conflict. Based on these findings the paper concluded that school managers are beginning to understand the legal implications associated in their administrative duties bordering on students’ management. It was thus recommended that, relevant institutional frameworks should be appropriately put in place to enable the principals and teachers further appreciate the emerging ideas and innovations concerning students’ conflicts management in schools. Keywords: Principal, Teacher, Conflict, Conflict resolution, Conflict management, Conflict strategy