Influence of Collaboration as a Conflict Management Style on Academic Performance in Secondary Schools in Makueni Sub - County, Makueni County, Kenya

Abstract

The study sought to explore the impact of collaboration as a conflict management style on academic performance in secondary schools in Makueni Sub - county of Makueni County . It was guided by the poor performance of secondary schools students in their KCSE in Makueni sub - county despite the high marks the student s score d in their KCPE. The population includes 18 principals and 54 teachers in the named sub - county. A random sample of 18 schools out of the 46 schools in the sub - county was selected for the study , that is, 18 schools where the 18 principals of the selected schools and 3 teachers from each of the 18 schools to make a total of 54 teachers . This was achieved through probability and porposive sampling respectively . The study employed the use of questionnaires to collect information on the impact of collaboration as a conflict management style on Academic performance. The findings indicated that most of the principals advanced their conflict management strategy by collaborating with others to make the performance of their schools a success since collaboration as a conflict management style significantly influences students’ performance in secondary schools . This is because as the study indicated, there is no statistically significant difference between the mean responses of the respondents on the influence of collaborating as a conflict resolution style and students ’ performance. The study recommends that principals in Makueni sub-county should embrace collaboration as a method of solving conflicts in their school s in order to achieve good performance