MANAGEMENT OF INTERPERSONAL CONFLICTS IN THE STUDENT ENVIRONMENT: THE RESULTS OF IMPLEMENTING THE TRAINING COURSE

Abstract

The topic of interpersonal conflicts in the student environment is relevant, as evidenced by the observation and the results of the experiment. Conducting surveys and applying psychological tests in the experiment revealed a negative perception of conflicts by students, low and medium levels of emotional intelligence, and the use of avoidance and competition styles of behaviour in a conflict. To achieve the goal of the pilot experiment, a questionnaire developed by the authors was used: "The perception of conflicts by students". The obtained results formed the basis of the training course "Management of interpersonal conflicts in the student environment." The purpose of the formative experiment was to develop, organize and evaluate the effectiveness of the course implementation. The methods of empirical research (survey, testing, observation, active learning methods) were used in the work and methods of mathematical statistics (Student’s t-distribution). The total sample size was 214 university students (aged 18–22). At the formative stage, 40 students were involved (experimental group – 20 students who did the course on managing interpersonal conflicts in the student environment; and a control group – 20 people who were not involved in the course). The design and content of the training course are based on the structure of the conflict management model, which includes the following components: 1) cognitive; 2) emotional; 3) behavioural (Mayer, 2012). A set of psychological methods was selected to study interpersonal conflicts in the student environment at the cognitive, emotional, and behavioural levels. To determine the students’ perception of the conflict, an Express exercise on associations was used for each letter of the word Conflict. The “Know your EQ” test was used to measure the emotional intelligence quotient. In our work, we also used the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI test), a description of behaviour in conflict situations. Measuring the effectiveness of the implementation of the training course "Management of interpersonal conflicts in the student environment" was carried out through the repeated application of methods and the feedback from the course participants. The duration of the course is 70 academic hours: 14 lessons (56 academic hours), an exam – 4 hours, and 10 academic hours of extracurricular work (preparing a project, journaling, etc.). The following interactive techniques were used: the method of incomplete sentences, pair and group work, brainstorming, case studies, role-plays, interviews, miming, retrospective, mini-lectures, reflection sessions. Improvement of the test results at the cognitive, emotional and behavioural levels and positive feedback from the students confirm the effectiveness of the course "Management of interpersonal conflicts in a student environment". Our study, despite its detailed theoretical analysis, valuable results of the experiment, does not reveal all aspects of the problem of interpersonal conflicts in the student environment of higher educational institutions. This work can serve as a basis for further cross-cultural research.