**4. Methodology of own research**

#### **4.1 Research objectives and research focus**

The aim of the research was to diagnose the most common causes of conflicts in teaching teams and the relationship between them and the professional functioning of the teacher and the effectiveness of the kindergarten's work, while internal conflicts in the teaching teams of kindergartens were the subject of the research.<sup>2</sup>

In order to obtain reliable results, the research problems were formulated in the form of questions:


#### **4.2 Methods and techniques used in the research**

Taking into account the nature and complexity of the research topic, we decided to triangulate research techniques within a diagnostic survey and an individual case study. The use of the survey method made it possible to diagnose conflicts among teachers, while exploring the quality of their professional functions and the

<sup>1</sup> The project "Learn to be" was chaired by E. Faura and included 81 expert opinions of many eminent scientists, including I. Illich, J. Piaget, E. Reimer, W. Okoń and B. Suchodolski. The report was a critical assessment of the current state of world education and the prospects for its development (cf. [2], pp. 6–7).

<sup>2</sup> The presented analyzes are a selected part of the research on the problem of conflicts in teaching teams carried out as part of the doctoral dissertation of Monika Morgala MA, prepared under the scientific supervision of Beata Pitula PhD Associate Professor of Silesian University of Technology.

effectiveness of the entire preschool education institution. The individual case studies allowed to identify and understand deeper mechanisms of the emergence of conflicts in teaching teams, as well as their impact on the teacher's professional functioning, and the comparison with the results of the survey method showed regularities related to the mental state, self-esteem and effectiveness of professional activities.

The techniques that were used in our empirical investigations were questionnaires addressed to teachers, an interview with principals and selected teachers, a psychosocial competence test and observation.

The analysis of the obtained research material was carried out with the use of statistical methods. Measurements were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 25. It was used to analyze basic descriptive statistics, Pearson's and Spearman's r correlation analysis, Student's t-tests for independent samples, as well as Mann Whitney's U tests and one-way ANOVA. The classic threshold α = 0.05 was adopted as the level of statistical significance.
