Percieved Factors of Conflict and Effective Use of Language and Communication for Conflict Resolution among University Students

Abstract

Over the past decade, conflict has emerged as one of the challenges that Nigerian universities societies encounter. It has been proved by past studies that conflict destroys and ends up in disaster. It is against this background that the study investigated the causes of conflict and the use of language and communication for its resolution among the university students. A descriptive survey was employed for the study. Two universities were selected randomly from the nine universities in Ogun State, Nigeria: Olabisi Onabanjo University and Tai Solarin University of Education respectively. A self structured questionnaire was used to generate data from 200 students out of which 171 were returned for data analysis. Descriptive statistics was used to answer the two research questions and t-test was used to test the stated hypothesis. The result identified a lot of factors such as overcrowding in the halls of residence ,unresolved disagreement and personality clashes among others were some of the causes of conflicts among Nigerian university students. The result revealed a no significant relationship in the perception of male and female on the use of language and communication in resolving conflicts. The study concludes that the use of effective language and communication is germane to good relationship in an organization such as universities. The study therefore recommends amongst others the use of dialogue in resolving conflicts should be embraced and, a conducive environment should be provided for the students.