The purpose of this study was to examine the state of conflicts between teachers and educational administrative officers and factors affecting their conflicts in school organization in a bid to seek ways of getting rid of the conflicts. It's ultimatel...
The purpose of this study was to examine the state of conflicts between teachers and educational administrative officers and factors affecting their conflicts in school organization in a bid to seek ways of getting rid of the conflicts. It's ultimately meant to make a contribution to the creation of a sound and ideal school climate in which school members involving teachers and educational administrative officers would find it rewarding to work and take pride. Three research questions were posed:
1. What is the level of conflicts between teachers and educational administrative officers?
2. What factors affect the conflicts between the two?
3. What are a way of eliminating their conflicts and the possibility of conflict resolution?
The subjects in this study were 320 school members who included 200 teachers and 120 educational administrative officers in elementary and secondary schools under the umbrella of the Gangwon-Do Office of Education. After a survey was conducted, the answer sheets from 265 respondents who involved 161 teachers and 104 officers were analyzed. A SPSS 12.0K(Statistical Package for the Social Science) was employed to make a statistical analysis of the collected data.
The major findings of the study were as follows:
First, descriptive statistics was utilized to evaluate the causes and level of conflicts between the teachers and officers, and all the three selected factors that included the law/institution, school management and interpersonal relationship appeared to trigger or aggravate their conflicts, as both groups viewed the three factors as conflict-provoking. As for the degree of conflicts, there were lots of frequent conflicts between the two groups. It justified the necessity of this study that attempted to find a clue about conflicts management and brought up the need for the creation of a healthier school organization.
Second, concerning perception of the causes of conflicts by demo- graphic characteristics, the conflict factors were more recognized among those who were female, who were younger, whose career was shorter, who were in educational administration posts and who held a lower position than their counterparts. It indicated that the beginning teachers felt more conflicts to which they weren't yet accustomed, and that those who worked longer were better adjusted to the organizational conflicts. At the same time, it implied that the educational administrative officers who could be called a minority felt left out while they worked with teachers who were the majority. As school is an organization that conducts education for the sake of students, leaving interpersonal conflicts alone without trying to resolve them might pose a threat to students, since students who must be the best beneficiaries of school education might be the worst victims of the conflicts.
Third, as a result of making a regression analysis to grasp the causes and level of the conflicts, the teachers considered interpersonal relationship to exert an influence on the conflicts. The officers viewed that as influential as well, but the latter found school management to be less influential than the former did. Therefore the conflicts between the teachers and officers seemed to be most attributed to interpersonal relationship, though that might be affected by the law/institution and school management on the other hand. The application of interpersonal programs is required to ease their conflicts to create a more harmonious and peaceful community, and both groups should accept each other as a partner who seeks after the same object of education.
Fourth, as for how to eliminate conflicts between the teachers and officers, interpersonal relationship was considered to have a strong impact on the resolution of conflicts, and they had less expectations for the law or institution as a means to ease the conflicts. They felt that an improved interpersonal relationship might be effective at removing the conflicts, and they also found it advisable to improve school management in that regard. As to the possibility of conflicts resolution, both groups believed that it would be possible, and the teachers deemed it more possible than the officers. The officers suffered more conflicts than the teachers, but the former had less expectations for the resolution of conflicts, which indicated the urgent need for some countermeasures. In the future, how to eliminate their conflicts should carefully be studied, and the necessity of conflict resolution should fully be recognized.