Understanding Conflicts with Students
Sometimes we get into
it with students. Most often it involves grades, exams, and excuses. And most
often, at least from our perspective, the students don’t have a case. The grade
is fair, the exam contains predictable content, and the offered excuse is lame.
We dismiss the complaint and deny that a problem exists.
And most of the time
we are right, at least from our perspective. But how do these conflicts look
from the student side? Maybe first we ought to ask whether it matters how it
looks from the student perspective, especially when we are right and they are
wrong.
Researchers
Tantleff-Dunn, Dunn, and Gokee believe there are reasons to consider the
student perspective. “Regardless of the legitimacy of students’ concerns, … a
better understanding of students’ perspectives on the role of instructors in
stimulating and exacerbating disputes may reduce the incidence and severity of
conflicts.” (p. 198)
The bottom line is
this: who’s right really isn’t the issue if the exchange results in the student
disconnecting from the learning process.
To gain insight on
student perspectives, the researchers surveyed 107 undergraduates asking them
eight open-ended questions about the most memorable conflict they had
experienced with a professor. They asked for a description of what the conflict
involved, what actions the student took, how the professor responded, how they
felt about the response, and if they would have preferred that the instructor
had responded in another way.
And not surprisingly,
the three most common sources of conflict were all what we would have predicted
— grades, exams, and excuses. But they weren’t the only sources of conflict.
“Dissatisfaction with professors’ interpersonal conduct, perceived teaching
deficits, discriminatory treatment, and lack of clarity or unwillingness to
answer questions accounted for almost a third of conflicts.” (p. 200)
Almost 50 percent of
the students in this sample reported feeling negative emotions about the
professor’s reactions. At first, that doesn’t seem surprising. If a student is
unhappy about a grade and wants it changed, and the professor doesn’t make that
change, of course the student is going to be unhappy. But surprisingly that
isn’t what the students in this sample reported. “Overall, when asked to
describe their preferred outcome, relatively few students stated that they
would have preferred a grade change. Rather, the outcomes that were most
preferred by almost one third were more feedback and greater listening.” (p.
200) This finding is counter to the assumption that the only way to satisfy
students is to give in to them.
But the most frequent
faculty response to student objections, according to the students, was to do
nothing or to deny that a problem existed. “Students were overwhelmingly
dissatisfied with this response. Clearly faculty need to address concerns of
students no matter how illegitimate a professor might think they are.” (p. 201)
However, when faculty
deal with students in ways that students perceive as defensive, retaliatory,
humiliating, or insincere, that also leads to high levels of student
dissatisfaction. The researchers make the point again that “students may act in
inappropriate ways that precipitate conflict, and students’ perceptions
sometimes may be very distorted and based on their personal issues.
Nevertheless, responding inappropriately is unprofessional and likely to fuel
unnecessary power struggles that deter effective conflict resolution.” (p. 200)
The most promising and
positive finding of this study relates to the preferred responses that these
students reported. They want faculty to listen, to hear them out, and then
respond. “An examination of responses preferred by students indicates that
responsiveness, admission of mistakes, being respectful, and being concerned
are the actions most desired.” (p. 201)
Even if a student
objects wrongly, responding thoughtfully and respectfully may teach the student
other important lessons. Moreover if we can successfully resolve the conflict,
that means a quicker return to the real tasks of education — teaching and
learning.
Reference:
Tantleff-Dunn, S., Dunn, M. E. and Gokee, J. L. (2002). Understanding
faculty-student conflict: Student perceptions of precipitating events and
faculty responses.Teaching of Psychology, 29 (3), 197-202.
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