Weathering the School Climate: Role of Teachers’ Conflict Management Styles

Any work environment is a potential place for a conflict to arise at any given time.Addressing this certainly improves service delivery. This study delved into teachers' conflict management styles as tools in managing school climate in the three elementary school districts of Laoang, Northern Samar. Descriptive-correlational research design was used with universally sampled 376 teachers and 29 school head-respondents who answered the adapted 5-item Likert scale survey questionnaires. The gathered data were interpreted and analyzed using Descriptive Statistics, Pearson r, T-test, One-way ANOVA, and Multiple Regression Analysis which were run through SPSS 16.0. Results revealed that teachers and school heads appraised much practiced the teachers' conflict management styles. Specifically, they rated collaborating style as very much practiced, accommodating and compromising as much practiced, avoiding as fairly practiced, and competing as less practiced. Both respondents assessed the school climate as much favorable. In particular, they rated much favorable on collegial leadership and academic press while moderately favorable on teacher professionalism and institutional vulnerability. T-test found no significant difference between the assessment of teachers and school heads on teachers' conflict management styles and school climate. One-way ANOVA determined that the teachers' conflict management styles and school climate were similar among the three districts. Further, Pearson r revealed a significant relationship between teachers' conflict management styles and school climate.Regression analysis found out that collaborating style predicted collegial leadership and academic press while accommodating style predicted all school climate components. As competing and avoiding style predicted teacher professionalism and academic press, respectively, compromising style predicted both.