The relati̇onship between personality characteristics of prospective teachers with conflict management styles

Conflict management styles are related to the behaviours the individials show dealing with conflicts. There are different factors effecting individuals' conflict management styles. Personality traits are one of these main factors. This study aims at determining the effect of personality traits of prospective teachers' on their conflict management styles. For this aim, mixed research methodology is applied. This is a qantitative research, and designed with corelational surwey method. Data collection devices are "The Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory II- ROCI II" and "Five-Factor Personality Traits Inventory" . Qualitative datas are collected with semi-structured interview technique. The sample of the research is 348 prospective teachers studying in Eskişehir Anadolu University in 2015-2016 education year. Qualitative datas are collected from interviews with 24 prospective teachers. In the quantitative part of the research multi-stage sampling is implemented. Qualitative data program and quantitative data packet program were used to analyze the data gathered by data collection tool. The quantitative data were analyzed by using independent sample t-test, one way ANOVA and Pearson correlation. Before applying statistical techniques, the assumptions of these techniques were investigated. Tukey multi-comparison analysis and LSD multi-comparison analysis were used to define the differences detected between independent variable levels with the ANOVA. In the analysis of qualitative data analysis it was performed utilizing the codes and themes. In qualitative data analysis program models were also created and interpretation was made in accordance with purpose. According to the results of analysis: The relationship between prospective teachers' personality traits and conflict management styles is generally low. Male participants prefer dominating style in conflict management styles more. Additionally, Neroticism dimension among the personality traits varies according to age and grade. As a result of the interviews carried out with the preservice teachers, it was revealed that a teacher should have extraversion personality characteristic the most and then conscientiousness and openness. Besides, it was also stated that the preservice teachers mostly expressed opinion related to dominating style and personality characteristics depending on the conflict management styles and personality characteristics. The research advises: to decrease the conflicts the prospective teachers experience due to the personal attitudes, some educational programs about developing the skills of empathy building, communication, conflict resolution and management should be organized for prospective teachers and the parties they experience conflicts in education faculties. Keywords: Five factor personality traits; Conflict management styles, Prospective teachers