key: cord-0317842-ckji0t03 authors: Schaller, Michael D.; Gatesman-Ammer, Amanda title: Introducing conflict resolution and negotiation training into a biomedical sciences graduate curriculum date: 2022-02-03 journal: bioRxiv DOI: 10.1101/2021.04.05.438459 sha: c3eb1e9ccf7cb436002cd4aff5bacbb633341da4 doc_id: 317842 cord_uid: ckji0t03 Analysis of the biomedical workforce and graduate education have produced recommendations for modifications of pre-doctoral training to broadly prepare trainees for wider ranging scientific careers. Increased exposure to career opportunities and development of training in professional skills is widely recommended, but details of implementation are not widely available. In alignment with these recommendations, we have incorporated professional skills training into the biomedical science graduate curriculum at West Virginia University. An important component of the training is developing conflict resolution and negotiation skills. This training will provide useful skills for academic careers, non-academic careers and life situations outside of the workplace. Conflict resolution/negotiation skills are also relevant in managing issues in diversity, equity and inclusivity. We report our experience in developing this component of the training program, provide an overview of the approach to delivery and practice of skills, and provide an analysis of the reception and effectiveness of the training. significantly less than the number of students registered to participate. Anecdotal evidence from 135 discussion with students who participated in the workshops suggested that training in conflict 136 resolution would be useful to all graduate students and that training early in the curriculum 137 would be most beneficial. Conflict resolution was incorporated into a professional skills networking, working in teams/collaboration, conflict resolution, and negotiation (Table 6) . 142 Interestingly, six of the nine topics covered in our Professional Skills session were also 143 incorporated in the URBEST Program's Leadership and Management for Scientists at the 144 University of Rochester (Baas, Dewhurst, & Peyre, 2020) . Each session was 50 minutes in 145 duration. We also offer a 1-credit course with identical content that runs concurrently for 146 students not enrolled in this curriculum, including more senior students and students from other 147 departmental programs. Through this mechanism, a broader impact upon the graduate programs 148 at WVU is anticipated. Conflict resolution was a central theme of these sessions, since these 149 skills crossed a number of recommended professional skills competencies, including leadership, 150 project management, teamwork, collaboration, and managing others. Negotiation, which shares 151 many concepts with conflict resolution, was also incorporated. Our philosophy is to use 152 collaboration to resolve conflict constructively and to use principled negotiation strategies. Each 153 session was a mixture of didactic presentation of concepts interspersed with interactive/role-154 playing activities. Distribution of the sessions over seven weeks was intentional to reinforce 155 concepts and engage in role-playing over an extended period of time to promote changes in the 156 participants' behavior in conflicting situations. A conflict resolution workshop at Michigan State University is not part of the formal curriculum, but is similarly extended over six sessions (J. L. 158 Brockman, Nunez, & Basu, 2010) . This strategy is based on the concepts of retrieval learning 159 (role playing), spacing out practice (over multiple sessions), and varying practice (interleaving conflict resolution and negotiation) as effective methods of learning (Brown, Roediger III, & 161 McDaniel, 2014). The Fall 2020 iteration of the course utilized a virtual format, due to the 162 COVID-19 pandemic. Organization of conflict resolution/negotiation sessions 164 The conflict resolution/negotiation sessions were comprised of four components 165 interspersed throughout the session. The first was didactic, where concepts, strategies, and 166 tactics for managing conflict/negotiation were presented to the students. The second was 167 interactive, where the students contributed to in-class discussion using on-line polling tools. The 168 third was an illustration of a relevant situation acted out by the instructors. These were first done 169 to demonstrate the 'wrong' way to manage the situation and how this approach could spiral out 170 of control. The situation was acted out a second time demonstrating a specific strategy or tactic 171 to manage conflict in that scenario. The fourth component was role-playing by the students. The 172 scenarios for role-playing were solicited from students and faculty at the Health Sciences Center 173 at WVU and were drawn from their actual experiences. These activities provided an opportunity 174 to practice specific conflict resolution skills and the student playing the 'opponent' in the 175 exercise was given specific instructions to resist. The role-playing activities were considered 176 important to begin training the students to modify their behavior to improve their ability to 177 resolve conflict. Active learning activities like these are frequently utilized in professional education workshops providing training in conflict resolution (Klomparens, Beck, Brockman, & Nunez, 2008; Shrader & Zaudke, 2015; Welch, Jimenez, & Allen, 2013; Wolfe, Hoang, & Denniston, 2018) . Each of the sessions was designed to deliver a few lessons related to conflict 182 resolution/negotiation and some skills for students to learn to manage conflict (Table 7) . The 183 lessons and skills were developed from a number of sources (Table 7 ). The first sessions 184 focused upon basic skills and subsequent sessions built upon these skills to elaborate on more 185 complex scenarios, strategies, and tactics. When transitioning to the negotiation sessions, 186 twenty-four concepts from conflict resolution were briefly reviewed, as these were also essential 187 concepts for successful negotiation (Table 8 ). The interactive exercises with the class were 188 interspersed with the didactic parts of the lectures. One example is an activity used in a session 189 about emotions in conflict, where strategies to reframe emotions and defuse the opponent's 190 emotions are discussed. In the exercise, "scenes from a hat", one student draws an inflammatory 191 statement (authentic statements heard by and solicited from graduate students) from a hat and 192 reads the statement to another student. For example, "Why don't you ever help out with 193 laboratory grunt work? You always use up all the reagents and you never make them! I am so 194 sick of this!". The other student responds quickly to reframe this personal challenge to focus on 195 the underlying issues, rather than on the persons involved. For example, "You are right that 196 there is an issue of keeping common reagents stocked. Perhaps we could discuss ways to work 197 as a team to restock." A second example of using interactive activities to develop concepts come 198 from the first session of negotiation, which covers the topics of preparing for negotiations, 199 thinking outside the box and developing a strong BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated 200 agreement). At the beginning of the session, the students are asked to assume the role of an 201 Assistant Professor whose boss has just asked them to take on the role of Director of Graduate Finally, the students were polled for concessions they could ask for in return for taking on this 209 assignment. Most of the responses from the students were thoughtful and reasonable, suggesting 210 they took the opportunity to seriously work through the exercise. The role-playing exercises were very important components of these sessions. The circumstances. The scenario demonstrated the interaction between a critical faculty member and 216 a student making a public presentation. As the faculty member continues to criticize, the student 217 responds emotionally, either withdrawing or lashing out at the faculty member. The 218 demonstration continues after the student lashes out to illustrate how the student can regain 219 control by apologizing for the outburst and turning the attack of the faculty member, e.g. "From 220 your comments, I can see that there may be additional considerations that you could help me 221 with. Perhaps we could meet and discuss these issues at a later date rather than in the middle of The students were also asked to describe the best part(s) of the workshop/professional 274 skills sessions (Table 9 ). Given the numerical response to the statement about the usefulness of 275 role-playing (Fig 2) , it was surprising that the students overwhelmingly indicated that this was 276 the best part of the course. Distant seconds in the students' responses including watching 277 simulated arguments/negotiations, the didactic content and learning about personal approaches to 278 conflict. Students were also asked to make suggestions for improvement for the sessions, although 280 there was little consensus (Table 10) . A group of students suggested incorporating more role 281 playing, while another group of students suggesting reducing the amount of role playing. Several students suggested incorporating more realistic scenarios, although the scenarios used 283 came from a solicitation to students and faculty to provide examples of conflicts in which they 284 were involved or had observed. The groups/partners for these sessions in fall 2019 were not 285 assigned, but rather self-assembled, and one suggestion for improvement was to change up the 286 groups to provide new partners for role-play. Students were randomly assigned for role-playing 287 in the virtual classroom in fall 2020. One suggestion was to increase the number of facilitators 288 for the role-playing sessions. The primary method of delivery of content was didactic and the 289 use of additional media(e.g. videos to illustrate points) was suggested. One suggestion emerging 290 from a workshop was the incorporation of situations of co-worker conflicts in the role-playing 291 sessions. This was done in the classroom sessions on conflict resolution and these appeared to 292 be well received. As part of the survey to evaluate student reception of the course, the students were also 295 asked ten questions to determine if they retained specific concepts on conflict resolution and 296 negotiation (Table 3) . This was not a formal test, was administered anonymously and the 297 students were instructed that there was no need to study in advance. The intent was to measure 298 the quality of information that they retained from the training sessions and not their ability to 299 master the subject for an exam. Both instructors used a common rubric to grade each student's 300 responses. The scores of the two instructors were averaged. After completion of training in fall 2019, the students exhibited knowledge of strategies 302 to manage conflict of interest and negotiation (mean score = 7.3 +/-2.1, median = 8) (Fig 3) . After completion of training in fall 2020, the students scored lower on the assessment than the 304 preceding cohort (mean score = 4.9 +/-2.1, median = 5). In fall 2020, a pre-test, which was 305 identical to the post-test, was incorporated (mean score = 2.3 +/-1.6, median = 2) (Fig 3) . The 306 distribution of scores on each exam was not Gaussian and a non-parametrical statistical test, the 307 Kruskal Wallis H test, was used to evaluate differences between the scores. The H statistic was 308 85.97, p<0.0001. Conover and Dunn posthoc tests indicated that the scores between all three 309 tests were statistically different. The difference between the pre-test and post-test scores in 2020 310 suggests that the students learned concepts of conflict resolution and negotiation. It is uncertain 311 if the difference in post-test scores between cohorts are due to different levels of knowledge prior 312 to training (there was no pre-test in fall 2019), variability in learning between the cohorts or if it 313 reflects the difference in learning in person and in a virtual format. As the goal of the training 314 was to prepare students to better manage conflict and negotiation, overall performance in these 315 evaluations is encouraging and suggests that these training sessions may have been effective. The majority of students who took a workshop had used concepts from the workshop in 328 resolving conflicts and all of the students had observed scenarios where they felt that concepts 329 from the course could have been applied (Fig 4) . All of the students indicated an intent to utilize 330 conflict resolution concepts in the future. The students who took the professional skills 331 development sessions as part of the first-year curriculum were more junior than those who took 332 the workshops, and there was less elapsed time between the conflict resolution sessions and the 333 survey. The majority of these students had used concepts from the course and had observed 334 situations where concepts could have been used (Fig 3 B and C) . Most of the respondents stated 335 their intention to use some of the concepts in future conflicts. While other influences upon 336 students' management of conflict cannot be excluded, these results are consistent with modified 337 student behavior in response to training in conflict resolution. In addition to providing conflict resolution training to graduate students, we have also 340 conducted workshops on conflict resolution for faculty. These were single 60-to-90-minute Uniformly, across the platforms, the students felt that these sessions provided them with In both the workshop format and classroom format, students identified observing the 401 role-playing exercises by the instructors as one of the strengths. These exercises were designed 402 to illustrate important points or strategies and typically an example demonstrating an "incorrect" 403 approach was illustrated by the instructors, followed by a second demonstration of a better 404 approach using a strategy discussed in class. This method contrasted the two approaches and The role-playing exercises for conflict resolution were all designed based upon real 427 situations experienced by our graduate students and were broadly characterized as conflicts with 428 mentors or conflicts with peers. These engaged the students with relatable exercises for 429 situations they may face during their graduate career. Negotiation exercises were initially more challenging. The first iteration used a negotiation scenario between teams of "students" and 431 teams of "faculty/administrators" to negotiate a new contract between the university and the 432 student's union. The expectation was that the students would be engaged in discussing student 433 issues, but this exercise was very ineffective. The second iteration used a negotiation scenario 434 where the student played a junior faculty candidate negotiating with a departmental chair. The evaluations of reaction, learning, and behavior were survey-based. The response rate 461 for level 1 and level 2 were high (87% and 100% for the two iterations of the classroom based 462 sessions), but the response rate for level 3 was lower (63% and 68%). While most of the 463 respondents to the level 3 survey appeared to be aware of conflict resolution strategies and had 464 applied or understood how to apply these strategies in a conflict they observed, the sample may 465 not be truly representative. It is possible that trainees who had not incorporated these strategies (Holton III, 1996) . The key to implementing a successful conflict resolution training program is the 475 commitment of the faculty and administration. Expertise or previous training in conflict resolution would be an asset, but is not essential providing the faculty is willing to learn. In this The classroom format provides more opportunities for simulations, which is an important 497 mechanism to reinforce concepts and adapt behavior. The workshop format may be desired by 498 individuals with limitations on their time precluding participation in a longer course (e.g. faculty and staff). The virtual format provides an opportunity for remote instruction on conflict 500 resolution. Our experience revealed limitations on interactions in the virtual format, but these 501 could be overcome by adapting additional mechanisms. The chat feature provided effective 502 interaction and additional platforms allowing real time sharing of notes or ideas might be 503 employed. Additional strategies employing reflective exercises and/or journal activities could 504 also be incorporated. Regardless of the format, we believe that this curriculum is valuable to 505 trainees and are encouraged that our observations appear to indicate that training is effective. Table 2 ) on the Likert scale. Questions Q1 to Q5 were related to 629 conflict resolution and questions Q6 to Q8 were related to negotiation. The average score +/- Students were asked to score on Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree) Q1. The sessions provided me with new information about conflict resolution Q2. The role-playing activities helped me prepare for conflict resolution. Q3. This course has provided me the opportunity to reflect on my personal approach to conflict. Q4. This course has provided me insight into how others might approach conflict. Q5. This course has provided me with strategies that I will try to use to resolve conflict at work/home. Q6. The sessions provided me with new information about negotiation. Q7. The role-playing activities helped me prepare for negotiations. Q8. This course has provided me with strategies that I will try to use when I negotiate in future. You are about to negotiate and you would like to use principled negotiation. What does this mean to you? Q3. Make a statement/ask a question illustrating active listening. Q4. You and a colleague are working collaboratively on a side project and the balance of the work is not being equally shared. You have done most of the planning and execution of the experiments thus far. This project will be productive if your colleague fully engages. In a few sentences, begin the conversation about balancing the work with your colleague. Q5. Your colleague says, "Last night, you left the equipment I needed this morning in the sink and dirty again. You never clean up after yourself. Why do you insist on being such a pig? ". How do you respond to reframe the attack? Q6. In a difficult conversation, your colleague goes silent. What do you need to do and how can you do it? Q7. In a difficult conversation, your colleague becomes very sarcastic and insulting. What would you say to "surface/name" the attack and reframe the conversation? Q8. A student working under your supervision demonstrates great technical skills, but keeps very poor notes. What would you say to the student to encourage him/her to keep better notes? Q9. What is one strategy you can use when you are negotiating against power? Q10. How would you respond when your opponent is stonewalling in a negotiation? Table 4 . Survey Statements/Questions to Explore Student Behavior (Level 3) 1. I have used concepts from conflict resolution/negotiation in my professional and/or personal interactions with others. (yes/no). 2. What concepts from these sessions did you use? 3. I have observed situations where the use of concepts from conflict resolution/negotiation would have been beneficial. (yes/no). 4. What concepts from these sessions do you think would have been beneficial in that/those situation(s)? 5. In the future, I intend to use skills from the conflict resolution/negotiation sessions in my interactions with others. (yes/no). 6. What concepts do you think will be useful to you in future? 676 Prof Dev IV -Conflict Resolution -practice 5 Prof Dev V -Conflict Resolution 3 6 Prof Dev VI -Crucial Conversations 7 Prof Dev VII -Negotiations -theory 8 Prof Dev VIII -Negotiations -practice 9 Prof Dev IX -Shadow Negotiations Beneficial Skills 10 Prof Dev X -Networking 11 Prof Dev XI -Perseverance/Resilience Team and Management 12 Prof Dev XII -Entrepreneurship 13 Prof Dev XIII -Working in Teams 14 Prof Dev XIV -Collaboration 15 Prof Dev XV -Project management Active listening • Situation/action/impact feedback (Cloke & Goldsmith Reframing your emotions • Defusing your opponent's emotions (Cloke & Goldsmith Expressing yourself • Asking questions • Maintaining engagement • Redirecting or turning attacks • Reframing References Leadership (Denecke et al., 2017; Fuhrmann et al., 2011; Hitchcock et al., 2017; Verderame et al., 2018 ) Communication (Denecke et al., 2017 Fuhrmann et al., 2011; Hitchcock et al., 2017 More role playing (2) Distribute materials (1) Demo conflict with different personalities (1) More professors (1) Principle investigator involvement would provide insight to participants (1) Conflict with co-workers (1) More demonstration conflicts (1) Multi-dialogue, multi-strategy (1) Note: in this open response format students could make >1 suggestion.