The impact of conflict resolution training on middle school students

David Johnson, W., Roger Johnson, , Bruce Dudley, , James Mitchell, , & Joel Fredrickson, (1997). The impact of conflict resolution training on middle school students. The Journal of Social Psychology , 137(1), 11-21.

Summary:

This article begins with explaining the popularity of conflict resolution programs in schools and how they have been implemented.  They begin by giving qualitative data that has anecdotal information and varying degrees of the implementation of the program.  However the meat of the article is looking a specific control group and looking at quantitate data.  Within the control groups the researchers had the students answer the question “How do I solve problems at the beginning of the process and then at the end.  They also had to write a solution to various scenarios that would fuel conflict.  For example: What would you do if a classmate who had broken your trust by sharing information you deemed private wronged you? Then through the course of the study, the researchers would then rank the answers from 1- 10.  1 being a point of aggression (violence, hitting, etc.) 11 would be that they understood the others perspective and would be able to solve the problem and negotiate to an agreement.  The second part of the article shares the various statistical data based on an experimental group and a control group.  It shows the indications statistical analysis of that data on each of the groups.   Through the course of the study, the researchers found that there was marked improvement for the experimental group in understanding how to negotiate conflicts. 

Quotes:

“Her respondents stated that students trained as mediators were more likely to resolve conflicts by talking things out, were more confident in their ability to help themselves and others, functioned better at home and at school, and improved their grades”(David Johnson, Roger Johnson, Bruce Dudley, James Mitchell & Joel Fredrickson, 1997)

“We conducted this study to determine whether middle school students can (a) learn the procedures necessary to negotiate constructive resolutions to their conflicts and (b) apply the negotiation procedure to resolve actual conflicts. In the experimental condition, before training, 2% of the students listed three or more of the negotiating steps in describing how they would manage a conflict, whereas after training 88% did so. In the control condition, on the initial measure, 2% of the students listed three or more of the negotiating steps, and on the post measure only 1% did so. From these results, we concluded, that students from the sixth to the ninth grades who were given training in how to negotiate integrative solutions to interpersonal conflicts learned the negotiation procedure and could see themselves as using it to resolve their conflicts”. (David Johnson, Roger Johnson, Bruce Dudley, James Mitchell & Joel Fredrickson, 1997)

Commentary:

While I found this to be a fascinating read because it had experimental data to back up a theory, I wish that it explained more to what “training students experienced between the beginning of the study and the end.  However, there was a great explanation of strategies that I could use to take into my action research.  It showed that if done correctly, conflict resolution can work in a school setting and have lasting results.  This further showed that my action research has validity and substance.