ASSESSMENT OF CONFLICT MANAGEMENT APPROACHES FOR MANAGEMENT OF STUDENTS IN TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS IN DELTA AND EDO STATES

ABSTRACT

The study assessed conflict management approaches used by business educators among business education students in tertiary institutions in Delta and Edo States. Five research questions guided the study and five hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The descriptive survey design was adopted in the study. The population of the study comprised 1447 final year business education students of the 2018/2019 academic session from 15 tertiary institutions in Delta and Edo States. Through the stratified random sampling technique 451 final year business education students of the 2018/2019 academic session from 15 tertiary institutions in Delta and Edo States were sampled. A structured questionnaire containing 38 items was validated by three experts in the Faculty of Education, University of Benin. The reliability test on the instrument for data collection using the Cronbach Alpha reliability method yielded co-efficient values of 0.92, 0.70, 0.84, 0.81 and 0.87 were obtained for clusters B1 to B5 respectively with an overall reliability co-efficient value of 0.83 which is considered a high internal consistency value. The mean value was used to answer the research question while standard deviation was used to show the nearness or otherwise of the respondents mean scores. T-test was used to test the five null hypotheses. Findings revealed that business education lecturers in tertiary institutions in Delta and Edo states adopt the competing approach of conflict management to a high extent. However, they adopt the accommodating, compromising, avoiding and collaborating approach of conflict management to a low extent. Findings also showed that business education students in the tertiary institutions did not significantly differ in their mean ratings on the extent business educators use the conflict management approaches. Based on these findings, it was recommended among others that administrators of tertiary institutions in Delta and Edo States should come out with a framework for managing conflict in the institutions. It was also recommended that business educators in tertiary institutions in Delta and Edo States should be more accommodating in their dealings with their students this will give them a sense of belonging and reduce the level of conflict in the institution