DIFFERENCES IN CONFLICT MANAGEMENT BASED ON GENDER AND PERSONALITY TYPE

Abstract

This study examines factors influencing studentconflict management styles in a team-based second yearmechanical engineering design course. Maddux describedconflict management along the dimensions ofassertiveness (seeking to meet one’s own needs) andcooperativeness (seeking to meet the other party’s needs).The key research questions in this study were how conflictmanagement styles changed as a result of participation inan intense team-based course and whether gender orpersonality type influenced students’ conflict managementstyles. Students completed a pre-course team formationsurvey that included prompts on how they would deal withdifferent scenarios representing common team conflicts;students responded to the same prompts again in aproject exit survey. Students’ responses in these surveyswere used to code their preferred approach for dealingwith conflicts. Two independent reviewers worked fromrandomized, anonymous survey data and coded students’responses along the two dimensions of Maddux’ model.The results indicate conflict management style iscontext dependent (the distribution of responses changedfor the different survey prompts). The most commonlyused conflict management style was Compromising, inwhich parties find a middle ground but neither fullyachieves their goals. A statistically significant reductionin assertiveness was found between pre- and post-surveys.Statistically significant differences in assertiveness werealso noted with a number of Myers-Briggs personalitytype pairs in the pre-survey. The fact that similardifferences were not observed in the post-survey suggeststhat the project experience has a normalizing effect onconflict management style. Meaningful statisticallysignificant differences in conflict management style basedon gender were not observed.