Abstract:

The educational work style of pedagogues, as declared by research (Jones et al., 2018; Muharam et al., 2019; Opdenakker & Van Damme, 2006), is a factor that conditions the development of students' personality. Considerable attention is paid to the educational style of teachers, while the educational work style of educators (e.g. in school children's clubs) is, unfortunately, on the periphery of the interest of pedagogical theory and research. On the one hand, there is a lack of a research instrument on the basis of which the appropriate educational styles of educators could be identified, and on the other hand, we lack variables that determine the inclination of educators to these styles. The aim of the paper was therefore to map preferences in the educational style implementations by the educators (educators expressed their level of agreement with statements describing individual styles; a higher score indicated a higher preference for implementation the given style) in the school children’s clubs. A self-designed scale questionnaire, whose items were undergone exploratory factor analysis was used. Based on its result, 6 dimensions is appropriate to consider (personal model, facilitator, expert, delegator, supporter, formal authority). The internal consistency was determined by Cronbach alpha, which ranged from 0.53 to 0.72. Relevance of the model was validated through confirmatory factor analysis (Diagonally Weighted Least Squares estimator), reporting indices such as CFI, TLI, RMSEA, SRMR, and GFI. Their values were withing an acceptable range. The research sample was composed of 473 respondents. Respondents’ average age is 45.18 years (SD = 10.01) and average length of their practice is 16.89 years (SD = 12.85). There was a statistically significant difference in the implementation of the educational style of the personal model and the expert in terms of motivation to pursue the educator profession in favour of educators whose primary interest in the profession prevailed, and a statistically significant difference in the implementation of the educational style of the facilitator and the delegator in terms of the predominance of Roma children in the educational groups in favour of educators who are confronted with a lower number of Roma children in the educational groups. However, the effect in differences in final values was weak. Other independent variables, such as the length of practice, way to achieve the qualification, type of school children’s club, and the children’s grade did not have a serious influence on the differences in the implementation of educational styles by educators. In further research of a descriptive nature, it would be appropriate to revalidate the scale questionnaire proposed by us without excluded items and to expand the independent variables with supporting factors (e.g. the educator's educational philosophy), which would certainly have an impact in the implementation of educational styles by educators in school children's clubs. After all, the results of the research indicated that the educational styles of educators are modifiable due to internal (motivation to pursue the educator profession) and external (working with students from a different socio-cultural environment) educational circumstances.

Keywords:

School children’s club, educational style, educator, children.