Team work skills and interpersonal conflict-solving strategies

Tinkara Mrežar (2020) Team work skills and interpersonal conflict-solving strategies. Diploma thesis.

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Abstract

The work of a pre-school teacher and assistant is based on teamwork. It is important, that the work of the mentioned pedagogical workers in such institutions is a constant collaboration in all work-phases (planning, implementation and evaluation). The teachers must constantly develop knowledge and competences regarding teamwork. An efficient teamwork demands certain skills, which need to be accomplished and developed during one’s studies. Nonetheless, those cannot be gained through seminars or trainings, as well as literature, they need to be gained and developed in the process of experiential learning. Any teamwork can also result in an interpersonal conflict for various reasons; therefore, we must be able to confront and properly resolve any issues. Successfully resolved conflicts prompt new interests, led to new outcomes or even tighter relationships between co-workers, to be more precise, the trust and collaboration between team members. The main objective of this bachelor thesis was to see, which skills are most used among Pre-school Education students during the process of teamwork at the Faculty of Education at the University of Ljubljana. My interests consisted of the strategies, applied to resolve interpersonal conflicts, such as the connections between them and teamwork skills. My research also includes the statistical connection between different motives while choosing a course to study and the strategies of resolving conflicts. The statistical data was gathered through a survey, followed by a statistics analysis. The results were portrayed with tables, charts and their interpretations. The research involved 80 first year students (both part- and full-time studies), that were matriculated the higher education programme Pre-school Education at the Faculty of Education at the University of Ljubljana in the years 2017/2018 and 2018/2019. The research has shown that the surveyed students of Pre-school Education very often resolve their interpersonal conflicts with collaboration strategies, contrary to a competitional strategy. In most cases, they respect collective decisions and agreements. Furthermore, they try to fulfil those agreements constantly and strive for equality between team members, for example rendering each other possible to implement ideas or reaching collective agreements. The research has also shown that the surveyed students, among which the strategy of collaboration is most common, also have more developed teamwork skills. The strategy of collaboration is the only one, where the statistical connection between the teamwork skills has been proven important. My findings also include that the students, led mostly by internal motives in choosing their course of study, have more developed teamwork skills, whereas the external motives stand in no statistical connection with teamwork skills. The external motives of students is statistically more connected with the avoidance and collaboration strategy; students of Pre-school Education, which were mostly led by external motives in choosing their course of study, more often use the avoidance strategy in resolving conflicts as opposed to the strategy of collaboration.

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