Chinese College Foreign Language Learners' Conflict Management Style In Handling Conflict With Their Foreign Teachers At China University Of Petroleum

Although there are many studies and much research on conflict, most of the studies are about the types of conflict, the reasons for or triggers to conflict. There are few Chinese studies on conflict management style, especially students'conflict management. And most of the studies on student-teacher conflict management style are cross-cultural conflict management style comparisons. This quantitative research explores Chinese college foreign language learners' conflict management styles and the role face concerns and power distance play when students handle conflict situations with their Chinese teachers and foreign teachers at the China University of Petroleum. The thesis is based on theories of Thomas and Kilmann (1977) about conflict management style, and of Ting-Toomey and Oetzel (2001) about face concerns and Hofstede's power distance. The questionnaire format includes three parts. The first part measures the students'conflict management style using Thomas and Kilmann's (1977) TKI with 30 forced-choices. The second part measures face concerns with 22 items and part three measures power distance with 9 items. Both part two and part three are modified from Ting-Toomey and Oetzel's (2001) questionnaire on face work and power distance. The statistics are analyzed by SPSS 16.0.Data analysis shows that the compromising conflict management style scores the highest, followed by collaborating, avoiding, accommodating and competing. Competing is the students'least preferred approach. Statistics proves that there is no difference in all the five conflict management styles when the Chinese foreign language learners handle conflict situations with their Chinese teachers and foreign teachers. The Chinese college foreign language learners are concerned with mutual-face saving rather than other-face saving. There is difference in self-face concern when Chinese foreign language learners handle conflict situations with their Chinese teachers and foreign teachers. Mutual-face concern is correlated with the avoiding conflict management style and their other-face concern is correlated with the accommodating conflict style. There is no difference in power distance when Chinese foreign language learners handle conflict situations with their Chinese teachers and foreign teachers. Power distance appeared to be correlated with other-face concern and the collaborating conflict management style.Results from the research could help both teachers and the Chinese students have a better understanding of their behaviors in conflict and thus improve their competence in handling student-teacher communication and conflict.