Increasingly, contemporary pedagogical approaches are based on teamwork. We speak of teamwork when a group is focused on a particular aim and the members of the group work together with a purpose of achieving the aim. In pedagogy, this means that at least two pedagogical workers at the same time are focused on the same students. In social pedagogy, teamwork is essential as well since social pedagogues can find employment in different areas, e.g. residential groups, educational institutions, school counselling, non-governmental organisation. Regardless of area of employment, to be successful, one needs to work in a team. An attitude toward teamwork affects our team activities importantly as well. It can be defined as a lasting mental readiness for a particular way of responding. An attitude consists of three basic components: cognitive, emotional and motivational component. The cognitive component is presented by knowledge, experience, information, judgement of value and arguments about team work. The emotional component includes emotional relation to team work. The motivational component is our tendency to be active and to want to work in a team. In my master’s thesis I have dealt with the following questions: what teamwork experience do students of social pedagogy and employed social pedagogues have, what are their attitudes toward teamwork and, in what way are the experience with team work and the attitudes toward teamwork related. 109 interviewees took part in the research, 37 students of social pedagogy and 72 employed social pedagogues. The results have shown that students of social pedagogy and employed social pedagogues have quite positive experience with teamwork. Experience with communication, aims, roles and fulfilling the needs in a team were estimated highly. The least positively estimated experience was regarding the evaluation in a team. The interviewees have very positive standpoint on teamwork. Both groups of interviewees agree with the attitude that good communication is needed for effective teamwork. Students of social pedagogy and employed social pedagogues are also unified in the attitude with which they agree the least, that conflicts should be avoided in a team. We couldn’t prove any statistically significant differences concerning attitudes toward teamwork between the students of social pedagogy and the employed social pedagogues. Results have shown that there is a positive relation between the experience with teamwork and attitudes toward teamwork. Interviewees with more positive experience with teamwork have more positive attitudes toward team work and vice versa, those with more positive attitudes toward teamwork have more positive experience with it.
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