| dc.description.abstract | The main purpose of this study was to establish the conflict management styles used by principals and their effects on school organizational climate. This study intended to achieve the following objectives: to identify the various types of conflicts that exist and their effects on organizational climate in public secondary schools Nyeri South District; to identify conflict management styles used by public secondary school principals in Nyeri south district; to establish the effects of conflict management styles used by secondary schools principals on organizational climate; to establish the extent to which secondary school principals' conflict management styles are influenced by gender, age, level of education and administrative experience and to determine teachers and students' perception on principals' conflict management styles on the organizational climate.
The study was guided by dual concern theory by Blake and Mouton (1964). The study adopted descriptive survey design in collecting information by using a standardized questionnaire to a sample of individuals. The targeted population consisted of 25 principals, 25 teacher counsellors and the 8060 students in the public secondary schools. This study worked with 22 schools since the population is minimal. The researcher picked 22 teachers counsellors and 22 principals. Simple random sampling method was used where each case has an equal chance of being included in the sample. Purposive sampling was used to pick 8 students from each school, that is 4 form four students and 4 form three students.
The research instrument in this study was the questionnaire. Both qualitative and quantitative data were obtained. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze qualitative data. The data was presented in form of percentages, frequencies, means and correlations, The findings of the study included identification of the four types of conflicts which include goal conflict, behaviour conflict, cognitive and affective conflict. The study established that apart from the avoiding styles, the other four styles namely, controlling, accommodating, collaborating, and compromising are widely used with varying frequencies by principal in the sampled schools. A voiding was the least used conflict management style. The study established that a positive school climate has been associated with fewer behavioural and emotional problems for members of the school community.
The following were conclusion of the study; the students, teachers and principals were able to identify the four types of conflicts. These included goals, behaviour, cognitive and affective conflicts. On the conflict management styles, the least preferred is avoidance conflict style while the most preferred are collaboration, accommodating, compromising and controlling, hence the result is satisfaction among school community members. On the effect of conflict management styles, the students, teachers and the principals had good rapport with the rest of the school community.
This means that the school community works effectively since conflicts are solved appropriately. The correlation coefficient revealed that conflict management styles had a significant relationship cite the figure with students and teachers satisfaction with school climate. On the demographic characteristics of the principals, it is clear that there is not significant difference among the conflict management styles used by the principal. The study recommended that the principals should be able to identify a link of the four types of conflict management styles carefully so as to achieve all goals set in their schools. The principal should choose the conflict management styles that would assist to improve on school performance through a positive climate. This enables to create satisfying school climate. | en_US |
