The aim of the Master’s Thesis was to find the relations between self-efficacy and work engagement of a kindergarten teacher and a teaching assistant, who work together in tandem, with the characteristics of their teamwork. The research was conducted on 127 such tandems of kindergarten employees, whose average age was 39,9 years (SD = 9,9), while the average length of their employment was 15,3 years (SD = 10,6). In the survey, the respondents were asked to answer several questionnaires, i.e. ETS (Klassen, Yerdelen in Durksen, 2013), NTSES (Skaalvik in Skaalvik, 2007), Perceived Collective Teacher Efficacy Scale (Skaalvik in Skaalvik, 2007), Teamwork Skills Questionnaire (Polak, 2012) and The Trust Questionnaire (Polak, 2003), while also reporting their demographic variables. The results indicate that the teacher’s teamwork skills (but not necessarily that of teaching assistants) are positively related to the age of the respondent. With respect to the position of the employee, there is no apparent difference shown in teamwork skills, self-efficacy or work engagement. There is also no difference in teamwork skills and self-efficacy according to the age of the children in the group, whereas there is, however, a small distinction in the aspect of social engagement towards the pupils, in favour of the staff who work with children of the first year group. The results show a positive correlation between self-efficacy and the perceived collective efficacy, as well as between self-efficacy and the work engagement of staff within the tandem. This suggests that relations between colleagues have the potential for social contagion, i.e. co-workers can serve as job resources for one another. Furthermore, the results indicate that self-efficacy and teamwork skills are highly positively associated with work engagement, whereas the differences in teamwork skills among colleagues are negatively related to their work engagement. There is also a positive connection between teamwork skills and self-efficacy. The conclusions are consistent with the assumptions of the JD-R model, which accentuates the importance of job resources as the vital prediction of successful work engagement and represents the basis for creating interventions, aimed at increasing work engagement and consequently increasing the quality of pedagogical work, and also indicates the importance of interventions directed at the entire staff in the kindergarten.
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