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358 Modern European Researches No 1 / 2018
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THE STUDY OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS' SOCIAL IDEAS ABOUT MEDIATION
Abstract
The urgency of the research presented in the article on the formation of ideas about mediation among modern students is due to the sensitivity of the student period for the development of communicative competencies that allow to establish and maintain a system of social relations and interpersonal relationships, to resolve situations of conflict interaction optimally. These goals are achieved by the application of the mediative approach in communication, based on the idea of mediation as a procedure and technology. The purpose of the article is to present the basic results of theoretical substantiation of the importance of the optimal formation of the students' perception of mediation as a phenomenon, the main results of empirical verification of the proposed assumption about the features of students' ideas about mediation and to identify ways of further research and application of the data.
Keywords
conflict, alternative ways of conflict resolution, mediation, types of mediation, social ideas about mediation
AUTHOR
Ekaterina Shakhtorina
Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences, Associate Professor, Humanities Institute, Baltic Federal University named after Immanuel Kant, Kaliningrad 14, A. A.Nevsky Str., Kaliningrad, 236016, Russia E-mail: EShakhtorina@kantiana.ru
Since January 2011, the Federal Law "About an Alternative Procedure for Settlement of Disputes with the Participation of an Intermediary (Mediation Procedure)" dated 27.07.2010 No. 193-FL has entered into force in the Russian
59 Modern European Researches No 1 / 2018 Federation. This Federal Law in Russia officially established the institution of mediation - disputes settlement procedure with the participation of an independent person as mediator. One of the spheres with a wide potential for mediation institution implementation and development is educational environment, including educational environment of Universities.
Conflicts of various kinds often arise in a student environment. They can develop and occur directly in the educational institution, as well as outside its walls. Student conflicts attract the attention of researchers and practitioners due to diversity of their causes, manifestations and scale. Such conflicts are related to the educational process, the specifics of its planning and implementation, and they can also be caused by personal and social psychological reasons. Conflicts affect the lives of students, can lead to deterioration of health, learning results, create tense situation in the student group, in the system of interaction with the administrative and faculty staff resource of the educational institution, can cause a feeling of dissatisfaction with learning, which undoubtedly affects the optimality of professional competencies mastering.
One of the ways to resolve conflicts effectively is mediation. This procedure provides an opportunity to resolve the conflict, taking into account the interests of all parties involved in the conflict, and come to a favorable decision for them.
It can be assumed that the problem of low and / or unsystematized awareness of the mediation procedure, the lack of information about the basic components of mediation ideas among students can make it difficult to resolve conflicts effectively in the student environment.
The object of the undertaken research were ideas as a socio-psychological phenomenon, the subject - the idea of mediation among university students. The purpose of the research was to identify characteristic features of university students' ideas about mediation. As a hypothesis, we made an assumption that the students' social ideas about mediation are characterized by negative emotional component and fragmented knowledge. We also assumed that students studying Psychology would have more pronounced emotional component of social ideas about mediation than that of other students.
To achieve this goal and verify the hypothesis, basic tasks were set: theoretical analysis of the social ideas about mediation and their formation problem; empirical study of the content of social ideas about conflict resolution through the mediation procedure for students.
The following methods were the main ones in the study:
- theoretical: analysis of social and psychological literature, normative, legislative, instructive and methodological, working documents, procedural materials on the researched problem; study and generalization of innovative experience; analysis and synthesis in the course of working with literature;
- empirical: questionnaires; project method; scale technique; mini-composition; conversation; content analysis;
- methods of mathematical statistics when processing empirical data: U-criterion by Mann-Whitney.
The battery of methods focused on a comprehensive study of the social ideas components was used in the empirical work:
1. Method for measuring the emotional component in the structure of ideas (Crites, Fabrigar and Petty, Crites, Fabrigar & Petty, 1994);
2. The method of associations by P. Verges (1992) for studying the cognitive component of ideas;
3. Unfinished sentences for the study of cognitive component of ideas (modification of the unfinished sentences method; D. Sacks and S. Levy, 1950);
60 Modern European Researches No 1 / 2018 4. Scale technique for the study of behavioral component of ideas (scale modification by R. Likert, 1932).
The study involved 210 respondents aged between eighteen and twenty-five. The sample included full-time students of different faculties at Baltic Federal University named after Immanuel Kant.
At the theoretical stage of the study, it was established that the psychological school by B.G. Ananiev was particularly engaged in setting up a students' problem field, in accordance with which the student age is a " sensible period for the development of the basic sociogenic potentials of a person." Higher education has a considerable impact on the human state of mind, as well as on the development of the individual as a whole (Sudakova, 2015). Choosing students within the age of maturity-adulthood is based on a socio-psychological approach.
From this perspective, students can be viewed as a special social category, since this is a specific community of people, which is united in an organized way by one or another institution of higher education. Thus, I.A. Zimnaya highlights the main characteristics of the student age, distinguishing it from other groups: first, high educational level; second, high cognitive motivation; as well as the highest social activity and a fairly harmonious combination of intellectual and social maturity (Nikitina, 2010).
Considering a student as a person of a certain age and personality, it is possible to characterize his three sides: psychological, social and biological. In the framework of this study, special emphasis is placed on the psychological and social components of this phenomenon.
The psychological component here reflects the integrity of the psychological processes, states and properties of the individual. Social relations dominate in social component, qualities generated by the student's belonging to a particular social group, for example, nationality, social roles that actively emerge during this period and are related to both studying and staying in a particular group.
Researchers note that the student's period is the time of the most active development of moral and aesthetic feelings, the development of character, mastering of the full range of mature person social roles: civil, family, professional, etc. In this period, people also begin their economic activity, which demographers define as joining of a person to independent productive activity, creation of a working biography and starting one's own family. The time of study at the university is superimposed on the second period of adolescence or the first period of maturity, which in its turn is characterized by the difficulty of personal traits formation. At the same time, a person's ability to regulate his own behavior consciously during the active student period at the youth stage is not fully developed. We can often observe an unmotivated risk in behavior, inability to anticipate the consequences of one's own actions, which can often be based on unworthy motives, and so on, which leads to an increase in the number of conflict interaction situations.
Thus, the ability to resolve conflict situations constructively and optimally serves as an element of competence that is relevant for students as a social group. Mediation is just one of the most effective ways to resolve conflicts.
Today, researchers of the phenomenon and technology of mediation consider its various definitions.
Briefly mediation is defined as arbitration in the conflict of the third party not involved in it, where the mediator is the intermediary in the conflict (Burtovaya, 2003).
G. Meta defines mediation as participation in a conflict of a neutral, disinterested party, which is authoritative for all conflicting participants. Mediators initiate the process of clarifying all the circumstances. At the same time, the mediator does
61 Modern European Researches No 1 / 2018 everything possible (and this is the basis of mediation technology) so that the position and the feelings, wishes, interests, needs of the parties would be first "laid out on the mediation table", then heard and understood by all participants, the arguments worked through, and at the end, a common solution worked out - an exit from the conflict situation, which suits all parties (Meta, Pokhmelkina, 2004) .
Mediation can be considered as an independent, extrajudicial way of settling an argument through negotiations of the parties with the assistance of a neutral person -a mediator (Kalashnikova, 2011).
By definition of A.V. Vishnevskaya "mediation is a process in which a neutral third party, a mediator, helps to resolve the conflict, contributing to the working out of a voluntary agreement (or "self-determination") between the conflicting parties. The mediator simplifies the process of communication between the parties, understanding of positions and interests, focuses the parties on their interests and seeks a productive solution to the problem, giving the parties an opportunity to come to their own agreement (Vishnevskaya, 2006).
O.V. Allahverdova proposes to understand mediation as "a negotiation process in which a mediator (intermediary) is its organizer and he manages negotiations in such a way that the parties would come to the most beneficial, realistic and satisfying interests of both (all) parties agreement, as a result of which the conflict between the parties will be settled" (Allahverdova, 2009).
Thus, the complexity of unambiguous understanding of mediation is associated with a wide range of its application, the variety of organizational forms, types and models of a conciliatory procedure involving a mediator.
Intervention (mediation) differs significantly from arbitration, primarily by the fact that it involves the participation of a third party (intermediary) who does not pronounce judgement on the dispute. A mediator contributes to the resolution of the conflict, and his functions may change in different cases, depending on individual characteristics and wishes of parties and their lawyers, as well as on the nature and history of the conflict and personality of the mediator.
E. Wattske notes that, unlike the criminal-judicial practice, mediation is based on a constructive understanding of reality. This cognitive-theoretical position is grounded on the premise that each reality is constructed both by action and by active cognition in the process of exchange of actions (in interactions). Thus, reality is the result of very subjective processes of constructing the observation results (Meta, Pokhmelkina, 2004).
The main difference of mediation from other types of dispute resolution is its non-directive character. Mediation only uses the law, in contrast to traditional methods of dispute resolution, which are based on legal regulation. Mediation is the most flexible and democratic way of resolving disputes, based on the voluntary participation of the parties. And at the same time, it creates the conditions for the parties to control not only the decision-making process, but, most importantly, the quality of this decision, guaranteeing them complete confidentiality, safety of reputation and the possibility of constructive partnership in future. Mediation allows you to find solutions in which there are no losers. Mediation seeks consensus solutions that maximally reflect the interests and needs of all parties involved in the dispute, that creates the opportunity for everyone to win.
According to G. Meta, the prerequisites for the beginning of mediation are the presence of motivation among all participants in the conflict (voluntariness); self-responsibility by each participant (everyone can and must represent himself); readiness to accept disagreement (openly discuss the essence of the conflict and the state of things); willingness in principle to an agreement (interest in overcoming the conflict) (Meta, Pokhmelkina, 2004).
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The obvious advantage of resolving disputes through mediation is confidentiality. Mediation is a confidential procedure, which means that the risks of damaging the reputation of the company are minimized here, in addition, by resolving the conflict, the parties can be sure that its details will not be made public, especially concerning those moments that make up a commercial secret. The undoubted advantage of mediation is the saving of time for the settlement of the current disputed situation, and this is an important factor in the economic activity. The advantage of mediation is economical resolution of disputes. Mediation allows you to make the resolution of the dispute as comfortable as possible for the parties. What is very important in business - is the opportunity to maintain partnerships in future (Shamlikashvili, 2008).
Methods and techniques of mediators include, among other things, elements of conflict management, negotiation, group dynamics, communicative and behavioral training techniques, system theory and therapy, problem-oriented systemic therapy, short-term therapy, conflict analysis and client-centered therapy. Mediation is based on moderation and coaching methods. Elements of the listed methods were specially adapted for mediation, some of them were developed further and were reformed already in the actual practice of mediation (Meta, Pokhmelkina, 2004).
There are different forms (models, approaches) of mediation in modern practice which, however, are not clearly expressed alternatives to each other. The most popular and studied in the rank of technology are:
1. Mediation focused on solving problems, or "classical" mediation (problem -solving, or settlement - directed approach);
2. Transformative mediation (transformative approach);
3. Narrative mediation (narrative approach);
4. Ecosystem, or family-oriented mediation (ecosystem, or family - focused approach);
5. Mediation based on understanding, or facilitation mediation (understanding -based approach);
6. Evaluation mediation (evaluative approach).
It is obligatory for a mediator to gain mediation competencies (Kalashnikova, 2011).
To understand the mechanisms of mediation, one should pay attention to its goals, stages.
The following goal settings for mediation are defined (Meta, Pokhmelkina, 2004):
1. First of all, - to discuss, to study a difficult situation. In this discussion there should be a place for different points of view, often incompatible views on events or options for getting out of a difficult situation. The result of successful mediation is the concrete agreement reached on the basis of discussion and agreement. The principle of self-determination of the parties remains decisive in the course of all mediation. Decisions become decisions only if each individual participant recognizes them as such.
2. The ability to dialogue and constructive interaction is violated in conflict situations. Achieving a positive shift towards the restoration of this ability, mediators make sure that every participant is heard and be treated with respect. Ideally, after the end of mediation, emotional dissonance between the conflicting parties should disappear, and a resolved conflict should not interfere with mutual communication.
3. An honest, open study of the interests and values of participants increases the possibility of the reached agreement implementation. Agreements are often revised, changed if participants in the mediation process understand that their interests are also taken seriously, as are the interests of the "opponent".
For successful implementation of the task assigned to him, a mediator applies special technique of conciliation procedure, implying the passage of a number of phases,
63 Modern European Researches No 1 / 2018 stages. The mediator activity is a deliberate use of special techniques and methods in order to control the negotiations on each of the stages. Being a communicative process, mediation allows changes in the action sequence on one or another stage: "The sequence of steps must not be strictly kept to: depending on the type of conflict and the conversation, individual steps can be omitted or used elsewhere" (Besemer 2005).
One of the most urgent in mediation is the question about the main subject of the process - the mediator. He is demanded much of, as he should have not only a high level of professional ethics, authority, charisma, but also communicative competence (Lukyanovskaya, 2011). Dementiev O.M. notes that mediator should be able to: 1) assess conflict, breaking it up into individual problems and identifying the real interests of the parties; 2) be an impartial organizer, setting the tone for negotiations and helping the parties to reach a procedural and substantial agreements; 3) be active listener, separating the substantial aspects of the conflict from emotions of the parties and giving them constructive feedback; 4) be a tester for realism and feasibility of ideas expressed by the parties to resolve the dispute, helping them to construct reasonable and realistic proposals, in order worked out final agreements were reliable and long-term ones; 5) be a generator of alternative proposals to resolve the dispute, helping the parties to go beyond the usual stereotypes and often restricted views on their problem; 6) be an expander of parties' resources, directing them to those who can provide them with the necessary factual and other information, provide legal and economic advice; 7) be a teacher of negotiation art, teaching the parties to think, act and negotiate on the principles of cooperation and helping them to look for solutions that would meet their own interests, and the interests of the other party; 8) be able to assist the parties in bringing the agreements to completion, making sure that each party would remain in full awareness and responsibility in relation to the worked out agreement (Dementiev, 2010).
Mediation - is communication, an important feature and the result of which is not only reduction of conflict parties' emotional and cognitive stress, but also the satisfaction of their moral, psychological and material needs. Moreover, mediation as a process of negotiations and as the situation of psychological interaction is the reality of a man, who lives in conflict. The purpose of mediation is, first of all, removal of the emotional and psychological stress, help in establishing constructive communication, assistance to the parties in realizing their interests, removing psychological barriers, creation of such conditions for the parties when they would be able to see in the other party not only an enemy, an opponent, but a partner to search for mutually acceptable solutions of the problem (Allakhverdova, 2009).
In this regard, obviously important and relevant is the possibility of mediation approach application to communication by students. The basis for this is created by generated holistic idea of mediation as a complex social psychological phenomenon.
During the data processing of the empirical phase of researching students' ideas about mediation, it was established that emotional attitude to mediation is very weak. However, emotional component of respondents' ideas is, in general, positive, with a varying degree of manifestation. In 26.2 % of the respondents the attitude is negative, 73.8% have positive emotional component. Average score for the sample is 0.388095, which corresponds to positive, very weakly expressed emotional attitude to the considered phenomenon of mediation. 46.2% of respondents have a weak and very weak emotional attitude to mediation.
During the empirical research, 1076 associations to the term "mediation" were recorded in, that averages 5.12 elements per a respondent. Dictionary of notions listed 125 different words and phrases.
64 Modern European Researches No 1 / 2018
Analysis of the idea about mediation content suggests that this phenomenon is identified by respondents as dispute, conflict, it is stated that there should be resolution, compromise, procedural nature of the phenomenon, the presence of a mediator and / or intermediary and the third party is noted, there is the phenomenon of the court as well, and trial. However, the core includes the word "meditation" that has no relation to the content of mediation process, and therefore is a substantial mistake. Also, it is worth noting the appearance of synonymous unit "compromise" in the comments of respondents correlated with the experienced positive emotions towards mediation, connected with the need and the opportunity to come to an agreement on the basis of mutual concessions, to find a guaranteed solution that suits all parties of arising confrontations.
The peripheral system content of the mediation idea shows that this phenomenon, mediation, in the understanding of respondents has a structure, the methodology associated with help, negotiations, human communications and relationships system, contract, agreement, law, balance, relaxation, consent, cooperation, dispute, personal contacts.
A content analysis of the potential area of changes ideas about mediation leads to the conclusion that there is some knowledge of mediation, its structure, components and elements. But it is also important to note that respondents demonstrate such associations as " media ", " yoga ", " medicine ", which are false in this situation, and which should be corrected to avoid violations of the cognitive component of the ideas.
Social ideas about mediation among students are specified in ordinary thinking through feelings and states, indicate the presence of structural elements, attitudes and beliefs. In general, the analysis of the cognitive component of ideas revealed the predominance of categories associated with mediation as a phenomenon, technology, procedure, but it is recorded that there is no system and connections between the individual marked components of the notions. This may indicate that the cognitive component of students' ideas about mediation at the time of the research is superficial, stereotyped, it contains semantic abnormalities, reflected, in particular, in the provided associations.
On the basis of empirical data, we can conclude that in general respondents regard the concept of mediation positively. Moreover, the emotional component of ideas about mediation is more pronounced in students-future psychologists. However, it should be noted that the ideas of the majority of respondents (72.6 %) about this phenomenon are only partially true, obviously, due to lack of awareness.
Taking into consideration the results of empirical studies and materials of analyzed theoretical and practical basis, we outlined the scope of further study of ideas about mediation among students, in particular, to clarify the correlations with various source databases within the educational environment of the institution, to refer to external information sources. We formulated preliminary recommendations for optimizing the formation of ideas about mediation among university students in the educational process, for the organization of student mediation services, and also developed a program of the elective course "Mediation: socio-psychological basis of the procedures and professional activities" for students of humanities.
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