Under Psychological Safety Climate: The Beneficial Effects of Teacher–Student Conflict

Previous studies have mainly focused on the negative effects of teacher–student conflict; the positive effects of conflict have rarely been mentioned. This paper suggests that encouraging conflict could act as a teaching method to improve students’ innovative competence. This study has two objectives: (1) to examine how various types of teacher–student conflict affects students’ innovative competence and (2) to identify the mediating role of a psychological safety climate in the association between conflict and students’ innovative competence. To achieve the objectives, we used evidence from 1207 university students. Multivariable logistic regression analysis revealed that conflicts were associated with students’ innovative competence, and the mediation role of a psychological safety climate is significant. Specifically, the results revealed that Cognitive Conflict had significant positive effects on students’ innovative competence, whereas Affective Conflict had a significant negative effect on students’ innovative competence. In addition, we clarified a psychological safety climate as the boundary condition for the relationship between conflict and students’ innovative competence.