Effects on high school students of integrating conflict resolution and peer mediation training into an academic unit

The effectiveness of a conflict resolution and peer mediation program in a suburban Canadian secondary school was examined. Subjects were forty‐two ninth‐grade English students heterogeneous in academic achievement. A pretest‐posttest control‐group experimental design was employed. Students randomly assigned to the experimental condition spent ten hours studying a literature unit into which conflict resolution training had been integrated. Students randomly assigned to the control condition studied the identical literature unit for ten hours without conflict resolution and peer mediation training. Significant differences between treatment groups occurred in academic achievement and retention of academic learning, knowledge and retention of the conflict resolution procedure, application of the procedure in a conflict situation, and attitudes toward conflict.