2016 Volume 19 Issue 2 Pages 142-152
[Purpose]
When working with adolescents in helping professions such as teaching, it is important to acquire the skills to solve conflicts that happen among adolescents due to differing opinions and values. It is important to solve these conflicts by creating solutions that both students and others can be satisfied. The skills to devise such solutions are “integrating conflict resolution skills.” However, a psycho-educational program to improve them is yet to be developed. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to develop such a program to improve these skills and examine the effectiveness of the program.
[Methods]
In this study, 30 participants belonged to the intervention group, and 24 were in the control group for per-protocol analysis. The program has four sessions (90 minutes/1 session) and the training components included conflict resolution theory, basic listening skills, attention to implicit wants, anger management, assertion, mediation, and role-playing. In order to assess the effectiveness of this program, the participants completed a rating scale that assessed the intelligibility of integrating conflict resolution, integrating conflict resolution skills, discomfort with anger, relationship-keeping/conflict avoiding behavior, and a sense of authenticity.
[Results]
The results from the McNemar test of intelligibility show that the post-score is significantly higher than the pre-score. The result from a t test that compared the change of each rating scale score, three subscales of integrating conflict resolution skills, discomfort with anger, a subscale of relationship-keeping/conflict avoiding behavior, and a sense of authenticity in the intervention group, were significantly increased.
[Discussion/Conclusion]
The findings suggest that this psycho-educational program to improve integrating conflict resolution skills not only increased those skills but also changed discomfort for anger, one subscale of relationship-keeping/conflict avoiding behavior and a sense of authenticity adaptively. Moreover, this program may also be useful in helping individuals in the teaching profession to assist adolescents with enhancing their specialty and mental health. Finally, the limitations and challenges of this study were discussed.
