Poster #235 - The Sequence of Preschoolers’ Insistent Behavior, Teachers’ Intervention Strategies, and Conflict Outcome during Peer Conflicts

• In Event: 1-115 - Poster Session 03
  In Poster Session: PS 03 Section - Social Relationships

Integrative Statement

Opportunities to develop conflict resolution skills naturally occur within preschool classrooms. Previous studies demonstrate that differences in conflict outcomes may be affected by the issues that cause conflicts, the level of insistent strategies children employ during conflict, and whether and how these events are managed by teachers (Chen, Fein, Killen, & Tam, 2001; Roseth et al., 2008; Singer, Hoogdalem, De Haan, & Bekkema, 2011; Spivak, 2016). Still, an in-depth exploration is needed to understand whether teachers’ conflict strategies are contingent upon children’s insistence level-unwillingness or inability to understand others’ perspectives (Eisenberg & Garvey, 1981; Selman, 1980)- and whether the contingent support leads to different conflict resolution outcomes. Developing a more nuanced understanding of peer conflicts may help elucidate teacher strategies that facilitate preschool children’s effort at conflict resolution.
Participants in this study included 16 preschool children and their female teachers (1 master, 2 lead teachers) from a mixed-age preschool classroom located in a large Midwestern city. Video recordings were obtained from the students who wore a head-mounted Go-Pro camera over a four-day period within the classroom. Each day, up to four target children wore a Go-Pro for approximately two hours of observation split between morning and afternoon. Video recordings were analyzed using a conflict coding scheme adapted from Chen and colleagues (2001). Both mutual (both children protesting) and unilateral dyadic conflict attempts (only one child protesting) were examined.
Analysis of the video recordings yielded a total of 160 conflict episodes (Table 1). Forty-three percent of the conflict events occurred while one or more teachers were present within three feet of the conflict episodes. Of these conflict events, nearly half of the time one of the teachers would intervene. Most mutual conflict events resulted in a Win-Lose outcome (69%), followed by a Lose-Lose outcome (22%) and a Win-Win outcome (2%). The conflict outcomes of unilateral conflict events could not be determined because only one student protested.
Results from a Time-Window lag-sequential analysis showed that given a mutual conflict, the probability that a teacher intervened the conflict within 30 seconds of the conflict onset time was .21. A teacher was more likely to intervene a mutual conflict than expected when the protestor and reactor both exhibited a moderate level of insistence or a moderate- and high-level insistence. Given a teacher intervened the conflict, it was likely to lead to a Win-Win outcome or a Win-Lose outcome. When one student from the dyad exhibited low-level or non-insistence behavior, it was less likely than expected that a teacher would intervene, which was likely to lead to a Win-Lose or a Lose-Lose outcome (Figure 1). Two types of teacher strategies were contingent on students’ insistence level and led to a Win-Win outcome: modeling verbal responses and suggesting negotiations.
Findings underscore the contingency between teachers’ conflict intervention strategies and children’s insistence level during conflict resolution. Our results suggest the need for more fine-grained and detailed examinations of peer conflicts to better understand conflict resolution in early childhood and the teacher strategies that underlie this process.

Authors

• Maureen Myrtil, Ohio State University
  Presenting Author

• Tzu-Jung Lin, Ohio State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jing Chen, The Ohio State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kelly M Purtell, The Ohio State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jessica Logan, The Ohio State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Laura Justice, The Ohio State University
  Non-Presenting Author