The Relationship between the personality traits of prospective teachers and their conflict management styles

Abstract

Conflict management styles are related to the behaviours the individials show dealing with conflicts. There are different factors effecting individuals’ conflict management styles. Personality traits are one of these main factors. This study aims at determining the effect of personality traits of prospective teachers’ on their conflict management styles. For this aim, mixed research methodology is applied. This is a qantitative research, and designed with corelational surwey method. Qualitative datas are collected with semi-structured interview technique. The sample of the research is 348 prospective teachers studying in Eskişehir Anadolu University in 2015-2016 education year. Qualitative datas are collected from interviews with 24 prospective teachers. In the quantitative part of the research multi-stage sampling is implemented. According to the results of analysis: The relationship between prospective teachers’ personality traits and conflict management styles is generally low. Male participants prefer dominating style in conflict management styles more. Additionally, Neroticism dimension among the personality traits varies according to age and grade. As a result of the interviews carried out with the preservice teachers, it was revealed that a teacher should have extraversion personality characteristic the most and then conscientiousness and openness.