Effective Intervention Conflict Management Techniques as Perceived by Academic Staff, Non-Academic Staff and Students in Nigerian Universities

Abstract

The study was set out to investigate the perception of academic staff, non-academic staff and students regarding forcing, smoothing, detraction, arbitration and changing the individual involved as effective intervention conflict management techniques. The investigators formulated five research hypotheses to guide the study. Effective intervention conflict management technique Questionnaire (EICMTQ) was used to collect data. The EICMTQ was made up of twenty items and respondents were asked to tick (?) the statement that represent their opinion, using a 5 point Likert Scale. A total of three thousand and fifteen respondents participated in the study. They all filled and returned their copies of the questionnaire showing one hundred percent return rate. The investigators added up the scores for the academic staff, non-academic staff and students and employed One Way Analysis of Variance to determine the difference among the academic staff, non-academic staff and students in their perception of forcing, smoothing, detraction, arbitration and changing the individuals involved as effective intervention conflict management strategies. The study found out that there is no significant difference among academic staff, non-academic staff and students in their perception of forcing, smoothing, detraction, arbitration and changing the individuals involved as effective intervention conflict management techniques. The study found out that arbitration had the highest F value of 19.1 and forcing had the least F. Value of 3.3. We concluded that forcing, smoothing, detraction, arbitration and changing the individuals involved were all found effective in resolving conflict in our universities even though the use of some of them were characterized with some problems. We however, recommended that forcing may only be used as last resort.

Keywords: Conflict; intervention; Management techniques; academic staff; students