ABSTRACT

The study examined the relationship between principals’ conflict management techniques and teachers’ job performance in government owned secondary schools in South East, Nigeria. Ten research questions and ten hypotheses guided the study. The study adopted a correlational research design. The population of the study is made up of 24, 657 which consists of 23,269 teachers and 1,388 principals in secondary schools in the five South East, Nigeria. A sample size of 1,232 respondents which comprised of 1,163 teachers and 69 principals was used for the study. The sample was drawn using multi stage approach. Two sets of structured questionnaires titled: Principals’ Conflict Management Technique Questionnaire (PCMTQ) and Teaches’ Job Performance Questionnaire (TJPQ) were used for the data collection. The instruments were validated by five experts; three from Educational Management and two experts from Measurement and Evaluation in Science Education, all in Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike. The reliabilities of the instruments were established using Pearson Product Moment Correlation and Cronbach Alpha statistical tool for the internal consistency of the items. Reliability indices of 0.79 and 0.81 were obtained for PCMTQ and TJPQ respectively. Pearson’s product moment correlation co-efficient was used to answer the research questions while linear regression was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Results of the analysis revealed on the overall that: principal’s use of arbitration conflict management technique had a positive high relationship with teachers’ job performance in government owned secondary schools in south East, Nigeria; principals’ use of dialogue conflict management technique had a positive moderate relationship with to teacher’s job performance in government owned secondary schools in south east, Nigeria; Principals use of accommodation conflict management technique had a positive high relationship with to teacher’s job performance in government owned secondary schools in South East, Nigeria. Based on the findings, the researcher recommended among other things that; the most effective conflict management technique that promotes teachers’ job performance is effective communication and should be adopted always by the principals in conflict resolution; on the other hand, the least effective management technique is boxing the problem and should be rarely employed by the principals in resolving conflict since it has low correlation with the teachers’ job performance.