Special education teachers in the school environment most often work in teams with teachers or other special education teachers. The effectiveness of teamwork is influenced by many factors, including the sense of calling and work engagement, which many authors mention in connection with the work of special education teachers. A sense of calling affects how a person experiences their work. For people who experience their work as a calling, their work represents one of the most important areas in life, they are dedicated to their profession and their target group. Vigor, dedication, and absorption are the characteristics of people, who experience work engagement. Both the sense of calling and work engagement have a positive impact on various aspects of the work and life of special education teachers; they contribute e.g. to a higher level of work efficiency and job satisfaction, to a higher level of work energy and to a lower level of depression and anxiety. In addition to all the above, they also play a significant role in teamwork, so it makes sense to systematically identify, research and encourage it in special education teachers. As part of the empirical research of the master’s thesis, we investigated the relationships between the sense of calling, work engagement in teamwork, and the frequency and effectiveness of teamwork of special education teachers. We used a descriptive and causal non-experimental method based on a quantitative approach. We conducted a cross-sectional study with a single measurement. The research sample consisted of 52 special education teachers, employed in various positions in regular primary schools and in primary schools with an adapted program and a lower educational standard in Slovenia. As part of the research, we found that the participating special education teachers mostly identify themselves as having the sense of calling, most often through a sense of importance of having a positive influence on students or children. We also found that the sense of calling of special education teachers and the level of their self-perceived work engagement in teamwork are statistically significantly related, and that their self-perceived work engagement in teamwork and the frequency of performing different stages of teamwork with different education professionals are not, in most cases, statistically significantly related. In addition, we found that the sense of calling of special education teachers is statistically significantly related to the self-perceived effectiveness of their teamwork, but not to the years of experience in education. Finally, we also found that special education teachers do not differ in terms of their sense of calling according to the workplace they are employed at, and they also do not differ in terms of work engagement according to the workplace or years of experience in education.
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