A CONTINGENT MODEL FOR MEDIATION OF CONFLICT BETWEEN STUDENTS AND FACULTY SUPERVISORS IN TERTIARY EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

Higher Education is characterized by conflicts between students and faculty supervisors. In these settings, mediation is one of the dispute resolution mechanisms mostly used. However, there is a paucity of information on the sources of student-supervisor conflict and strategies to combat the conflicts. This cross-sectional study was, therefore, conducted to identify sources of student-supervisor conflicts in selected universities and colleges in Malawi and identify ways to combat the conflicts. Purposive and proportional representation sampling techniques were used to select a sample size of 134 students and 30 academic staff from various universities and colleges. The chi-square, ANOVA and student t-tests were used as statistical tools to analysed the data. The results revealed that sources of student-supervisor conflicts significantly (X2=13.518; p=0.042) differed. The main source of conflict was lack of feedback (82%), followed by lack of openness (64%), unclear expectations (35%), while time (19%) was the least source of conflict identified. The study further revealed that these sources of conflict can be overcome by a contingent intervention mediation (CIM) model. The three dimensions of the CIM model, which include the level of formalization; level of symmetry; and the foreseeable temporal perspective of the relationship are discussed.