A study investigated the relationship between teaching style and group conflict within the small instructional group. The conjecture was that the transactional teaching style is associated with more positive resolutions to group conflict than either the nomothetic or idiographic style. Research was conducted on 10 instructional groups within the Wisconsin Group Dynamic Traffic Safety School program. Teaching styles were identified and described as nomothetic, idiographic, or transactional. Group conflict was identified and described, using the focal conflict/group solution theoretical framework as a model and the Eriksonian theoretical framework as content. Data were collected on teaching style, group conflict and resolution, and how they occurred in relation to each other. The study supplied a more adequate conceptualization and methodology to analyze and understand focal conflict/group solution. It also provided a conceptual framework to analyze and understand teaching styles, a methodological procedure for using the model, and an analysis of teaching style. Data indicated the limitations of the "directive," i.e., the idiographic and nomothetic, teaching styles to such an extent as to indicate that the transactional style deserved a further test of its merits. (Appendixes include manuals and procedures for coding teaching styles and for coding focal conflict/group solution and a bibliography.) (YLB)