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Scholarly Journal of Education Vol. 1(4), pp. 46-52, November 2012
Available online at http:// www.scholarly-journals.com/SJE
ISSN 2315-6155 ©2012 Scholarly-Journals
Full Length Research Paper
Attitudes toward Conflict scale in Iran
Davood Manavipour and Mojtaba Sedaghati Fard
Department of Clinical Psychology, Garmsar-Branch, Islamic Azad University, Garmsar, Iran
Department of sociology, Garmsar-Branch, Islamic Azad University, Garmsar, Iran
Accepted 27 May, 2012
The purpose of this research was constructed Attitudes toward Conflict scale in Iran. 283 students were
selected by simple sampling method. Validity coefficient for traditional attitude was 0.64 for human
relations attitude was 0.47 (after elimination of non-uniform questions it increased to 0.60) and for
interactive attitudes it was 0.57 by cronbach Alpha method. Validity coefficient total test was 0.65. To
assess the construct reliability of the questionnaire, factor analysis (principle component) was carried
out after varimax rotation, 3 factors were emerged that account for 53 percent of the total variance of the
questionnaire. The 3 factors are: traditional attitude, human relations attitude and interactive a attitude.
Comparison of students' scores in the three attitudes was cleared that their traditional attitude is
significantly less than other attitudes.
Key words: Scale; attitude; measurement; Conflict; Iran
INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, many managers of the organizations are
engaged in the conflict to such an extent that they afraid
of it and avoid it (Moshbeki, 1998). Johnson 1970, 1973
and Rabinz 1974 know the school as an organization that
its operation is not perceptible unless by attention to
importance of the conflict in it (Getzles et al, translated by
Karimi 1999, P237). In conflict definition, Dutch (1969),
states that the conflict exists in heterogeneous activities.
When one activity is heterogeneous with the other, it
prevents and damages or somehow decreases the
probability of the second activity or its effectiveness (the
same, 238).
Robert Avenz (1991) believes that the conflict by itself
is neither good nor bad but is neutral. The conflict effect
on the organization and peoples , behavior in large extent
depends on the manner of encountering with it and that
depends on factors like the attitude toward the conflict
and skill in management of the conflict. So far, the
evolution of schools of attitude concerning the conflict
has gone through three periods consist of: traditional
attitude, the attitude of the human relations and
interactive attitude. According to traditional attitude, no
conflict should exist in the organization, because an
organization is imagined a harmonious and consistent set
that follows one common purpose. So subordinate
Corresponding Author E-mail:Manavipor53@yahoo.com
personnel has no right to object the management
decisions (Moshbeki, 1998, P317). In fact, traditional
attitude assumes that the conflict is bad (Rabinz,
Translated by Earabi and Parsaeian, 1998, P785).
Therefore, traditional attitude to conflict in the classroom
is also firm on this assumption and teachers, professors
and students following this attitude attempt to eradicate
all conflict fields in the classroom. In attitude of the
human relations, the conflict is natural in groups and
organizations and it accept conflict existence, because its
destruction is impossible and in some cases it is for
group ' s benefit (Rabinz, Translated by Earabi and
Parsaeian, 1998, P786). Despite that its followers expect
the conflict but know it harmful and react against it and try
to solve or destroy it (Mogimi, 1998, P472).
The interaction attitude emphasizes on conflict,
because a harmonious and quiet group inclines to return
own innate nature (lassitude and motionless), follows
feebleness and do not react against change and
innovation phenomena. The main role of this method is
that this phenomenon persuades the group ' s leaders to
preserve certain level of conflict to such an extent that
keeps the group alive, animated, and creative and critic
(Rabinz, Translated by Earabi and Parsaeian, 1998,
P787). In brief, according to this attitude peoples , duty is
to manage the conflict not to suppress it. So harmful
aspects of the conflict are reduced (Rahim, 1985, P89)
The existence of every attitude in classroom affects on
the management of conflict in different forms. Di Chequo

Manavipour and Fard 47
Table 1. Alpha for 5 traditional attitudes
Alpha if Item Deleted
0.58
0.69
0.61
0.55
0.48
Item-Total Correlation
0.41
0.17
0.39
0.47
0.62
0.64
Corrected Variance
if Item Deleted
8.95
10.3
8.74
8.4
8.01
Scale Mean if Item
Deleted
11.91
12.87
12.07
12.31
12.27
Questions
1
4
7
10
13
Alpha
Table 2. Alpha for 5 attitudes of the human relations
Alpha if Item
Deleted
0.41
0.29
0.34
0.6
0.34
Item-Total
Correlation
0.25
0.47
0.33
-0.05
0.34
Corrected Variance if Item
Deleted
7.05
6.69
5.62
8.66
6.55
0.47
Scale Mean if Item
deleted
13.78
13.53
14.31
14.76
13.65
Questions
2
5
8
11
14
Alpha
and Richards (1974) have investigated about 8500
students of the prime and last year of high school in
Newyork,Filadelphia and Sanfransisco. They understood
that either schools personnel or students are avoiding
expressing obvious anger and debate about conflicts.
Also they reported 61% students imagine negative the
outcomes of conflicts and only 9% of them know conflict
as a positive outcome. In 91% of conflicts, the students
state that the conflict management has not lowered the
tension (Getzles et al, Translated by Karimi, 1999, P239).
In a research, has made a questionnaire to study the
attitude of schools , managers toward conflict. He has
computed the content admissibility of the questionnaire
using specialists , opinions and its stability or credibility
calculated by cronbakh Alpha. The credibility coefficient
for traditional attitude, the attitude of the human relations
and interaction attitude has been reported 0.85, 0.51,
0.62 respectively (also the present research has been
provided for students using Soleimani , s questionnaire
and doing changes in it).
Rahim (1983) has made the questionnaire with 15
questions to measure solving methods of interpersonal
conflict (this questionnaire is present in Rabinz , s book
[1998] with the title of organizational behavior). The
content admissibility of this questionnaire has been
studied using specialists , opinions (Rahim, 1983, Rabinz,
1998) and its credibility has been estimated by Soleimani
as following: Competition 0.59, cooperation 0.46,
avoidance 0.45, adaptation0.83 and compromise 0.40.
The present research aims to make a measurement
scale of students , attitude toward conflict and the
research main question is: Does this questionnaire
possess suitable admissibility and credibility among
students , society?
METHOD
This research is an expansion-psychometrics plan. The
statistical society includes all students of educative
sciences in Garmsar and Islamshahr units of Islamic
Azad University in first semester of academic year 2010-
2011 by using available sampling. One class is
considered from every university unit and all students of
two classes answered questions.
RESULT
In the basis of the conflict literature in human behavior
and social psychology of the education, suitable choices
were provided in preliminary stage of questionnaire
making by emphasizing on the evolution of conflict
proposed by Rabinz in the book of organizational
behavior and using questionnaire. These choices have
been provided according to the conditions of students ,
classrooms and three attitudes of traditional, the human
relations and interaction toward conflict.
The questions related to every attitude are determined
and marked by Likert , s rating. The choices consist of
perfectly agree, agree, disagree, perfectly disagree and
no idea. All questions are marked as 1, 2,3,4,5 with
respect to choices. So high score in questions of every
attitude is indicative of subject ' s dominant attitude, the
questions related to the attitudes consist of: traditional
attitude 13-10-7-4-1, the attitude of the human relations
14-11-8-5-2 and the interactive attitude 15-12-9-6-3(the
example of the questionnaire was given in Appendix 1).
The content admissibility of primary questionnaire was
studied using polling of psychology professors. Then the

Scholarly J. Educ. 48
Table 3. Alpha for 4 attitudes of the human relations after delete q 11
Alpha if Item Deleted
0.63
0.43
0.59
0.47
Item-Total
Correlation
0.24
0.57
0.34
0.46
0.60
Corrected Variance if Item
Deleted
6.32
5.61
4.85
5.29
Scale Mean if Item
Deleted
11.04
10.78
11.57
10.9
questions
2
5
8
14
Alpha
Table 4. Alpha for 5 interactive attitudes
Alpha if Item Deleted
0.43
0.57
0.58
0.49
0.50
Item- Total Correlation
0.49
0.25
0.20
0.38
0.36
0.57
Corrected Variance if Item
Deleted
10.38
10.9
12.69
10.13
10.55
Scale Mean if
Item Deleted
13.5
14.31
13.69
14
13.5
questions
3
6
9
12
15
Alpha
Table 5. Alpha for 15 questions (total)
Alpha if Item Deleted
0.63
0.62
0.63
0.65
0.60
0.64
0.67
0.61
0.63
0.65
0.64
0.62
0.64
0.62
0.61
Item- Total correlation
0.31
0.35
0.29
0.09
0.60
0.23
0.05
0.37
0.25
0.13
0.21
0.31
0.23
0.34
0.37
0.65
Corrected Variance if Item
Deleted
46.52
46.05
46.28
49.78
45.23
45.69
50.96
44.14
47.30
48.95
47.80
44.61
47.86
45.96
44.11
Scale Mean if
Item Deleted
46.63
46.37
46.23
47.51
46.04
47.21
46.21
46.84
46.53
47
47.35
46.91
47
46.25
46.28
questions
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
Alpha
questionnaire was performed on 52 students. Alpha was
used to study internal similarity of questions related to
every attitude. The credibility attitude for traditional
attitude, the attitude of the human relations and
interactive attitude was 0.64, 0.47 and 0.57 respectively.
With regard to the attitude of the human relations,
because the correlation coefficient of the question
number 11 was -0.055, this question was omitted and
alpha was computed again, so the coefficient was 0.60.
The reliability coefficient of total test was computed 0.65.
The computed credibility coefficients are indicative of
suitability of the questionnaire for research purposes. To
study the admissibility of the questionnaire, factor
analysis was used to examine the admissibility of the
factor in addition to specialists , polling about the content
admissibility.
The factor analysis of the questionnaire
To do factor analysis, first KMO and Bartlett tests were
performed to examine suitability and qualification of data
for factor analysis. According to computed values in the
above tests the efficiency of suitable sample was
recognized and with confidence 99% the correlation
matrix of the articles has meaningful information. So
there are minimum conditions to use factor analysis. The
factor analysis of data was done in the way of main
components with varimax type after orthogonal rotation.

Eigenvalue
Manavipour and Fard 49
Table 6. KMO and Bartlett tests
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy. 0.875
Approx. Chi-Square 217.154
df 105
. Sig
0.000
4
Scree Plot
3
2
1
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
Component Number
Chart 1-Scree Plot
The amount of total variance of attitude toward conflict by
this questionnaire is 52.131 that by using three factors
with Eigen values (the squares , sum of factorial
coefficients of existing articles in every factor) the factors
are determined (chart1).
Considering three main factors by questionnaire the
amount of total variance has been determined in table 7.
As shown in chart 1 and table 7, there are three factors
with eigen value more than one in the questionnaire that
represent most attitude toward conflict in the class. This
finding is harmonious with theoretical bases of
questionnaire making and indicates the admissibility of its
factor. The questions related to every factor are
determined in the basis of correlation matrix. To study
every question correlation with every factor, the
correlation coefficients more than 0.3 have been
specified in following matrix (table 8).
Table 8 shows the correlation coefficients between
every factor and questions before access to best factorial
structure. But to access for best factorial structure
orthogonal rotation with varimax type was performed after
four times rotation (chart2) and table 9 shows correlation
coefficients of every factor with every question. The
correlation coefficients in tables 8 and 9 indicate that after
factors , rotation the negative correlation coefficients have
been destroyed and the simplest factorial structure is
attained. The chart 2 shows the structure of final factor
(after rotation) that has collected the questions related to
every factor in one component.
The identified factors in factor analysis and correlation
coefficients between factors and questions show more
standardization with substructure logic of the questions in
every dimension of the attitude. So the first factor is
harmonious with traditional attitude, the second with the
attitude of the human relations and the third is concordant
with interactive attitude and these factors are named in
basis of those theoretical bases. After questionnaire
making and studying its admissibility and credibility for
studying the spread of three attitudes among students a
comparison was done using analysis of variance that
table 10 shows the results.
According to the value F and meaningful level 0.006,
there is meaningful statistical difference with confidence
99% between students , scores in three types of attitudes
about the conflict. The post hoc test of Turkey was used
to identify the order of this difference in three attitudes.
The results of this test showed this difference between
two attitudes of the human relations and interaction with
traditional attitude and most students possessing these
two attitudes (the human relations and interaction) and

Scholarly J. Educ. 50
Table 7. Total Variance Explained
Component
1
2
3
Total
3.781
2.580
1.458
Initial Eigenvalues
of Variance %
25.208
17.202
9.721
Cumulative %
25.208
42.410
52.131
Table 8. Component Matrix
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
1
-
0.356
0.777
-
0.678
0.466
-0.495
0.466
0.502
-0.454
-0.405
0.395
-0.403
0.741
0.615
Component
2
0.624
0.412
-
0.304
0.463
-
0.425
-
-
0.594
0.667
-
0.665
-
-
3
0.477
-0.327
-0.407
-
-
-
-
0.434
0.452
-
-
0.380
-
-
-0.531
Table 9. Rotated Component Matrix
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
1
0.620
-
-
0.333
-
-
0.612
-
-
0.739
0.780
-
0.778
-
-
Component
2
-
0.595
0.804
-
0.705
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
0.401
0.848
3
0.439
-
-
-
0.445
0.509
-0.310
0.626
0.688
-
-
0.603
-
0.587
-
traditional attitude is meaningfully lesser among students.
CONCLUSION
This research aimed to make a questionnaire for
measuring students , attitude toward conflict. This
research ' s results indicate that three attitudes of
traditional, the human relations and interaction toward the
conflict can be measured using this questionnaire. The
admissibility and credibility of this questionnaire is to such
an extent that conforms its use in different researches.
The results of this research are in accordance with the
findings of other research. Therefore, this questionnaire
is used to identify students , attitude toward the conflict
that has important share in conflict management in the

Manavipour and Fard 51
Chart 2. Component plot
Table 10. ANOVA
Between
Groups
Within Groups
Sum of Squares
129.500
1894.058
df
2
153
Mean Square
64.750
12.379
F
5.230
.Sig
0.006
Total
2023.558
155
-
class and school and as a factor in dynamism and
innovation of the class. Another finding of this research is
students , tendency toward the attitudes of the human
relations and interaction which is more than traditional
attitude. But there is no meaningful difference between
their scores in these attitudes (the human relations and
the interaction). This finding indicates there is a suitable
chance for enjoyment and proper conflict management
among students and classes and high educational
system should benefit it. In this respect, the education of
the conflict management to professors has effective role
in dynamisms and scientific innovations in the classes. In
the hope that researchers could eradicate the defects of
this research and evolve it.
Acknowledgements
The authors appreciate the assistance of the many
students involved in the studies.
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Appendix 1
How much do you agree with following sentences?
Perfectly agree, agree no idea, disagree, and perfectly disagree
The conflict is harmful for university classes.
The existing of the conflict is natural between university professors.
The conflict in classes is indicative of dynamism and creativeness.
The conflict is an individual and group defect.
The professors and students should accept the conflict in the class.
To create the conflict in the class is one of the professors , duty.
The conflicts should be eradicated in the class.
It is impossible to eradicate conflict in the class.
The university classes should possess the medium level of the conflict.
The university classes should be devoid of the conflict.
The conflict is not chiefly useful.
The existing of the conflict in the class is unavoidable.
The conflict should be avoided.
The conflict is a phenomenon expected in the classes.
The conflict is necessary to access scientific purposes of the university.