CONFLICT MANAGEMENT SKILLS OF NURSE TUTORS IN ENUGU STATE BASIC SCHOOLS OF NURSING

ABSTRACT

This study assessed the conflict management skills of Nurse Tutors in Enugu State Basic School of Nursing. Conflict abounds in Basic Schools of Nursing which has a lot of consequences like strained relationships, collapse agreement, poor academic performances and so on. It becomes necessary to assess especially in these institutions where conflicts abounds whether nurse tutors posses the necessary skills to resolve the conflict as the findings may necessitate a training for them. The purpose of this study is to assess the conflict management skills of nurse tutors in Enugu State Basic Schools of Nursing. A descriptive survey method was used for the study which was carried out in three (3) Basic schools of Nursing in Enugu State. All (50) nurse tutors teaching in the three Basic Schools of nursing were used. Modified Thomas Kilman’s generated questionnaire was used for the data collection. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze data. Results were presented in tables as percentages, means and standard deviations; t- test and ANOVA, was used to test for hypothesis. A good number of nurse tutors highly possessed stress management skill in managing conflict. Overall mean is 4.74 SD = 0.666, most of the respondents highly make use of social skills in managing conflict. Overall mean is 5.10 S.D = 54. Most of the respondents moderately make use of avoidance skills in conflict management overall mean is 3.99, SD = 101, many of the respondents highly utilized collaborative skills in managing their conflict. Overall mean is 4.5, S.D = 50. Majority of the respondents make moderate use of competing skills in conflict management overall mean is 4.10, SD = .69. Hypothesis 1: There is no significant difference between male and female nurse tutors in their conflict management skills overall F – test =.33 Hypothesis 2: There is no significant association between nurse tutor’s conflict management skills and their cadre, overall F – test = .33

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Man is a social being and interacts with people which may not be as fruitful as desired. Within the society there are individuals from different background, with different perspectives and approaches to life. This gives rise to opposing viewpoints, disagreement, competitions, arguments, suspicions, pain etc. Consequently, it is inevitable for conflict to exist. In fact, conflict is a part and parcel of everyday life and each individual enters into some type of conflict in his/her life.

Thus Reece and Brandt (2006) defined conflict as people striving for their preferred outcome which if attained prevents others from achieving their own preferred outcome thereby resulting in hostility and breakdown in human relation. According to Johnansen (2012) and Kelly (2006), conflict is a result of perceived threat to one’s needs, interest and/or concern and has something to do with arms, fighting a war, a struggle between opposing principles or aims, a clash of feeling or interest. For Carnevals, Pruit, and Seilheimer (2007) conflict is a complex process affected by dispositional, contextual and inter personal factors.

The definitions indicate that conflict is multidimensional and so is of many types and varied causes. An obvious cause of conflict is disagreement over issues that lead to competition and struggle for scarce resources because of perceived threat to one’s interests. Specific causes depend on the environment and conflict could be found in all areas of life including family, workplace, and organizations/institutions. Organizational| institutional conflicts result mainly from the struggle for organizational resources. Workplace conflict can also result from poor communication, lack of employee motivation and/or unequal treatment in terms of allocation of duties/responsibility and authority or in the distribution of benefits (Morrison, 2008). In educational institutions, conflicts can exist among staff over the leadership of departments or units and unilateral decision making by the heads of department. Conflicts can also exist between students and staff over the time and mode of delivering lectures and even among students over leadership of student union associations. It can at times be among academic and non-academic staff over administrative issues.

Whatever the cause, the cost of disputing or conflict is often too high. In addition, the outcomes of conflicts are generally unsatisfying: people do not get what they want or need, relationships are strained, agreements collapse, old disputes reemerge etc. (Bowie, Fisher & Cooper, 2005). In educational institutions, the consequences of such conflicts may be direct and indirect and they include employee grievances, diversion of management time and disruption of professional relationships, workplace aggression, psychological aggression, (Bowie, Fisher & Cooper, 2005). Hutlon (2006) and Morrison (2008) further identified some negative behaviours which are the consequences of conflict such as physical violence, harassment, bullying, emotional abuse, abusive supervision and workplace incivility. As Colson (2009) indicated, conflict can have more devastating effects in forms of breakdown of law and order, enemity, closure of the institution and school dropout. In schools of Nursing, conflict can also hamper productivity (students’ performance), lower morale, disrupt cooperation among tutors, suspicion and distrust etc. (Colson, 2009).

However, conflict may also be seen as an opportunity for learning more about the organization, its bottle necks and inefficiencies as well as its areas of expertise. Thus conflicts can have constructive consequences such as collaboration, positive relationship, problem solving, elimination of monotony and boredom and moving people into action etc, if the parties adopt appropriate conflict management resolution strategies (Colson, 2009). Conflict management is the process of planning to avoid conflict where possible and organizing to resolve the conflict if it eventually occurs. It has to do with maximizing the benefits of conflict. To maximize the outcome of conflict, several approaches of conflict management should be considered (external and internal). The examples of external approach are mediation, creative peace building, smoothing it over, enforcing a solution and confronting the situation directly (Porter, 2005). In Western cultural concepts such as Canada and United State of America, (USA) conflict is managed by fostering communication among disputants, problem solving and drafting agreement that meet their underlying needs, a win-win solution. Vinod and Swami (2006) opined that it can also make sense to involve religious priests or community leaders to communicate difficult truth directly.

Most often, externally mediated resolution of conflict is temporary. The underlying conflict of interest that generated the dispute will remain. New disputes will arise and the parties may go back to fighting (Billikopf, 2009). If therefore, an impact is to be made beyond a single conflict, the challenge is to develop procedures that the parties or individuals may use even in the absence of external mediators to resolve conflicts more satisfactorily and at lower costs. (Billikopf, 2009).

Changing procedures alone, however, is not enough; disputants must have the motivational skills and resources to use the new procedures. The challenge is to change the conflict resolution system to the overall set of procedures used and the factors affecting their use, in order to encourage people to develop skills that will enable them to manage instead of fight over their differences. The burden of solving the conflict as Billikopf (2009) contends, remains with those who are most likely to be able to do so that is the contenders. Manual (2008) emphasized that certain skills are necessary for conflict management, so as to place the person managing the conflict at a vantage position to deal with the conflict in a more stable manner. Conflict management skills and strategies encompass styles and techniques used in managing conflict, between individuals or between groups. Manual (2008) identified interpersonal negotiation skills which are used to resolve interpersonal conflicts. To Hotepo et al (2010), conflict can also be managed in different ways, some focusing on interpersonal relationships and others on structural changes. To maximize the outcome of conflict management, however, the internal approaches/skills should be used. Such internal skills include negotiation, diplomacy, withdrawing from an actual or potential dispute, compromising, competitive, cooperation etc.

Another way of coping with conflict is through smoothing, emphasizing the areas of agreement and common goals and de-emphasizing disagreements. This is also the method of forcing, pushing one’s own view on others; this, of course, will cause overt or covert resistance. A traditional way of coping with conflict is to compromise, agreeing in part with the other person’s view or demand. According to Butler (2013) people who use integrating (collaborating), obliging (accommodating) or avoiding style were more effective than those who use dominating (competing) style. Individuals who use integrative (collaborative style) conflict handling style experience lower level of work conflict and stress at job, but people using avoiding or dominating (competing) style were facing more conflict and work stress (Friedman et al 2010).

Armed with these skills, individuals are more likely to arrive at satisfying and enduring outcomes and conflict thus becomes a positive force, rather than a negative force which would threaten the individual or group. Moreover conflict if properly managed can increase individuals’ innovativeness  and  productivity  (Uline,Tschannen-moran,  &  Perez,   2013).  Conflict  can  offer  “interpersonal  relationship  sati sfaction,  creative  problem  solving,  the growth of the global workforce, and domestic workplace diversity (Ting-Toomey &Octzel, 2011) and can lead to “improved efficiency, creativ ity, and profitability” (Axelrod & Johnson 2005).  If  however,  mishandled  conflict  can  directly  cause  “organizational  inefficiency, reduced productivity, stymied innovation, and compromised profits” (Axelrod & Johnson 2005).

It becomes necessary therefore to assess especially in institution where conflicts are bound whether individuals have the necessary skills to resolve the conflict as the findings may necessitate a training for them.

Statement of problem

Although the educational system in Nigeria faces many problems, one of the greatest problems in the schools according to Adegbenro (2010) is conflict. He stated that conflicts had on several occasions terminated teaching and learning activities in the school. These series of problems arising from conflict in the school system are specially caused by opposing views, uneven distribution of work load between the employees, unequal treatment, personality differences (character, age, gender) competition and scramble for scarce resources by organization members. Conflicts have also arisen from incompatibility of aims, differences in needs, values and motivations.

Observations by the researcher and causal reports by some teachers and students in Enugu State Schools of Nursing indicate that during academic staff meetings, tutors are either absent or do not participate and when they do, there are serious disagreements, grievances, fighting, antagonism, struggle or quarrels. Unfriendly relationship among nurse tutors and between nurse tutors and school principal/administrator have also been observed. Nurse tutors and students are like master and servant, leading to indiscriminate punitive punishment to the students which gulf up the students reading time, and at times lead to petition writing to the management. In addition, there is sectionalism, autocratic leadership, keeping of malice and general apathy towards service.

These are situations that may impede nurse tutors’ work performance, quality of teaching and subsequent students’ performances if not properly handled and managed. Yet issues of conflict resolution most times are handled through external conflict resolution strategies, with little attention paid to the input of individuals in resolving the conflict. In spite of these attempts to resolve conflicts in schools through external conflict resolution strategies, the incidence of conflict in some of these schools of nursing continues to be high. Therefore, one begins to ask: Do the nurse tutors make any personal input to resolve these existing conflicts? If they do, do they possess the appropriate conflict management skills to tackle these problems? If individuals do not possess necessary skills appropriate for resolving conflicts things will not be as it should be, It thus becomes necessary to investigate the conflict management skills of nurse tutors in Enugu state schools of nursing with the hope that the information obtained will help in identifying what they have, what they need to acquire as this will direct any effort in assisting them resolve their conflict adequately.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study is to assess the conflict management skills of nurse tutors in Enugu State Basic Schools of Nursing.

Objective of the study

The specific objectives of the study are to:

1. Assess the stress management skills in conflict management among nurse tutors in Enugu State Basic Schools of Nursing.
2. Elicit the social conflict management skills of nurse tutors in Enugu State Basic Schools of Nursing.
3. Identify the avoidance skills in conflict management among nurse tutors in Enugu State Basic School of Nursing
4. Assess the collaborative skills in conflict management among nurse tutor in Enugu state Basic Schools of Nursing.
5. Assess the competing skills in conflict management among nurse tutors in Enugu State Basic Schools of Nursing.
6. Determine if the conflict management skills of nurse tutors are related to their socio-demographic characteristics.

Research Question

Based on the above objectives, the following research questions were asked

1. What stress management skills do nurse tutors possess in managing conflict in Basic schools of Nursing in Enugu state?
2. What social skills do nurse tutors possess in managing conflict in Basic Schools of Nursing in Enugu State.
3. What avoidance skills do nurse tutors possess in managing conflict in Basic Schools of Nursing in Enugu State?
4. What collaborative skills in conflict management do nurse tutors in Enugu state Basic Schools of Nursing possess?
5. What competing skills in conflict management do nurse tutors in Enugu State Basic Schools of Nursing possess?
6. What association is there between nurse tutors’ conflict management skills and their socio-demographic characteristics?

Hypotheses

• There is no significant association between nurse tutors’ conflict management skill and their gender.
• There is no significant association between nurse tutors’ conflict management skill and their cadre.

Significance of the Study

This study will provide information on conflict management skills of nurse tutors in basic schools of nursing in Enugu State. It will thus be of great significance to nurse managers, nurse educators and researchers. If for example, the conflict management skills are found to be deficient in nurse tutors, it might sensitize the nurse educators and nurse managers to organize seminars and workshops with the aim to improve the skills in nurse tutors. Researchers could also be motivated to carry out experimental studies on the improvement of this conflict management skills of nurses. The information obtained from this study could also bring to the realization of those working in the field of conflict resolution that a multidimensional approach may be required in helping individuals resolve their conflicts, If through this measures nurse tutors are helped to improve their conflict management skills, it is expected that there will be less tension, improved team work, in the part of teachers and subsequent better performance in the part of students. In general, there will be harmonious and friendly relationship in the school. Finally, information gathered in this study will serve as a source of literature and guide for future researchers as well as empirical references for future studies.

Scope of the Study

This study is delimited to nurse tutors (males and females), that are teaching in Enugu State Basic Schools of Nursing. It is also delimited to assessing the conflict management skills of these nurse tutors. Specifically it is delimited to stress management skills, social skills, avoidance skills, collaborating skills, which are the identified skills for conflict management, and to determine further the relationship between the socio-demographic characteristics and conflict management skills.

Operational Definition of Terms

Conflict Management Skills: In this study refer to those qualities that nurse tutors have that enable them to resolve disputes that may arise interpersonally or intrapersonally especially in their work place. These include stress management skills, social skills, avoidance skills competing skills and collaborating skills.

Stress management skills: In this study means how one reacts to challenges e.g. knowing your limits and sticking to them, good time management, learning to be okay with “good enough and not deman ding for perfectionism, focusing on the positive, avoid controlling the uncontrollable, seeing challenges as opportunities, sharing your feeling, learning to forgive and make time for fun and relaxation.

Social Skills: This means those innate and acquired/learnt behaviours that help one to relate well with others e.g. reflecting a genuine concern for others, showing of appreciation, listening to the views of others,

Avoidance Skills:

Collaborative Skills:

admittance  of   one’s  mistakes   and  tendering   of   apology, obeying rules and regulations. In this study means any action one takes that shows withdrawal from a conflicting situation e.g. keeping your true feeling to yourself, not   getting   involved,  avoiding  open   discussions, encouraging  others  to   lead  in      resolving  controversy  and avoiding people with strong opinions. In this study means any action that centres on working together e.g. investigating issues thoroughly, sharing information with others in resolving disagreement, open sharing of concerns and issues, stating your position.

Competing Skills: In this study means actions that enable someone to make decision without being moved by others or anything .e.g wanting excellent result, standing on ones principles, being firm, not convinced by others, defending ones decision strongly.

Socio -demographic characteristic: socio-demographic characteristic     used in this study were: Gender and Status/Rank of nurse tutors.

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