Analysis of primary school teachers' conflict management strategies (a case study in Gaziantep)

ABSTRACTANALYSIS OF PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS? CONFLICTMANAGEMENT STRATEGIES(A case study in Gaziantep)ÖZGAN, HabibPh.D. Dissertation, Department of Educational SciencesSupervisor: Prof. Dr. Tokay GED KOĞLUDecember 2006,155 pagesThis study aims to identify the situations in which primary school teachers faceconflicts and the strategies they use to overcome these conflicts. The conflicts theyexperience were analyzed within the frameworks of their personal variables. Thestudy targeted at 4710 primary school teachers in Gaziantep in 2005-2006 academicyear. Subjects were identified through simple random sampling (1252). In this study,the ?Personal Information Form? that was developed by the researcher, the?Questionnaire about Primary school Teachers? conflicts? and the ?Scale of ConflictManagement Strategies? were used as data collection tools. The collected data wereanalyzed through techniques such as percentage, mean, standard deviation, chi-square, t-test, one-way ANOVA and LSD test to analyze the source of the variance.Analyses of data confirmed that there are significant variance between personalvariables (age, sex, education, length of service number of teachers at the sameschool, length of service at his/her school, subject taught, whether he/she teaches atfirst (1-5) or second (6-8) stage of the primary school, whether he/she attended aconflict management course or not), the opposite side of the conflict, the subject ofconflict, the source of conflict the strategies used during the conflict. The findingswere analyzed within the context of literature. Some suggestions were drawn fromthe findings.Key Words: Primary School Teachers, Conflict Management, Conflict ManagementStrategies