Conflict Resolution Strategies within an Online- Learning Team
In an online university setting, a group of students are placed into a learning team to develop and pursue a common objective of completing an assignment. Within completing this assignment, a number of events must transpire with the group to keep open lines of communication. Through the process of assigning roles and making decisions conflict is sometimes unavoidable. This paper will define the types of conflicts within a learning team; describe the styles of conflicts as well as the strategies to resolve the conflicts.
The types of conflicts that can be found are substantive, procedural and affective. The substantive conflict is a, “disagreement over members’ ideas and group issues.” (Engleberg, 2003, p.147) For example, a group member might have presented a case study on a topic in which the other members’ did not feel that it was related to the topic that was being addressed. Where as a procedural conflict can be described as a disagreement between the group members’ as to the steps to take to accomplish its goals. For example, one member of the group might wish to bypass writing an outline and go directly into the rough draft as where the other group members’ which to begin the outline and then move into the outline of the assignment. The affective conflict can occur in which emotions, personas, and the style in which a person communications with a group. An example of an affective conflict may be when a team member has felt left out of a project due to the fact that they had misinterpreted a comment that another team member had given to the person on how to complete a task.
The styles of conflicts can be found in avoidance, accommodation, competition, compromise, and collaboration. The avoidance style of a conflict can be seen when a group member does not wish to participate and instead of communicating with the group and acknowledging the fact that there is an issue they simple avoid...