Scale Development Process to Assess Adolescent's Ability to Identify, Understand and Resolve Conflicts

Conflict exists whenever incompatible activities occur (Deutsch, 1973). Conflict is a normal and necessary part of healthy relationships. Two people can't be expected to agree on everything at all times. Learning how to identify, understand and resolve conflict, rather than avoiding a conflict is very crucial. However, scales available m the market to assess the identification, understanding and resolving of conflicts are few The existing scales have their own drawbacks, viz., they may not be culture friendly, not suitable for the age group etc. Therefore the present research was undertaken to develop an appropriate scale, suitable to the Indian Scenario which would assess adolescents' ability to identify understand and resolve conflict. It was assumed that, if this assessment was done, need based educational intervention strategies could be designed to hone m adolescents the skills for win-win conflict resolution approach, which m turn would lead to less conflicts, violence and unhappiness thereby making the transition to adulthood smooth. The researchers developed and standardised the Conflict Identification, Understanding and Resolving Scale (ClUR Scale), compatible for the Indian context which could be used to assess adolescents' conflict resolution patterns. The developed tool is appropriate for the l2-13 year age group and assesses five major areas of conflict during adolescence, viz., conflict with parents, conflict with siblings, conflict with friends, conflict with self and conflict m school.