CASD-14: A Questionnaire on Civic Attitudes and Sustainable Development Values for Service-Learning in Early Adolescents

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

It is an interesting article but I think it could address the following improvements to increase quality and understanding:

 

• It would be interesting to incorporate the concept of learning and services as a methodology to work on curricular sustainability, to approach this methodology within education for sustainability, linking values with the SDGs… In short, give more force to the development of these dimensions with the concept of sustainable development.

 

• It is important that the objectives of the study and the research questions are better clarified.

 

• In the methodology section, it is appropriate to specify the methodological framework from which it starts, what type of study it is and the methodological characteristics of the research, including the research process followed.

 

• The first thing the authors do is detail the sample and allude to the structure of the factors, but this is not really clear before and generates ambiguity. Perhaps you should explain and expand the “Procedure and development of the Instrument” and then, expose the sample. The instrument is not well defined. The descriptive and sociodemographic variables as well as the type of scale of the instrument and how many items are in each category are not clear.

 

• It is important that the sample be better characterized: academic year, age distribution, characterization of the context, selection criteria for the first and second samples. Explain the variability of the sample in order to take into account the impact of the answers in the pre and post. In short, characterize the sample under study in more detail.

 

• On the other hand, the meaning of pre and post test 8 months later is not clear. If the learning and services methodology is applied to it, this must be detailed since it is what supports and gives meaning to the use of this questionnaire over time.

 

• Finally, regarding the analysis, the quality criteria of the instrument defined by reliability and validity are not clarified.

 

In general, it is a document that needs to be worked on more, highlighting the strengths of the work. There are disjointed questions discussed in the previous points that, if addressed, will give clarity and understanding to the work.

Author Response

We would like to thank the reviewer for his/her invaluable time on reviewing the manuscript.  We believe the paper has been significantly improved thanks to his/her suggestions. Please, find the new version attached and changes highlighted in red ink. We tried to follow all his/her commentaries which are described as follows:

Response to reviewer 1.

Point 1. It is an interesting article but I think it could address the following improvements to increase quality and understanding: It would be interesting to incorporate the concept of learning and services as a methodology to work on curricular sustainability, to approach this methodology within education for sustainability, linking values with the SDGs… In short, give more force to the development of these dimensions with the concept of sustainable development.

We tried to address this point by extending the introduction section on sustainable development, and linking the values framework to sustainability.

 

Point 2. It is important that the objectives of the study and the research questions are better clarified.

We have reformulated them trying to make them more straightforward. To do so, we have employed the structure of this paper to name the research goals:

 

Roque, N. A., & Boot, W. R. (2018). A new tool for assessing mobile device proficiency in older adults: the mobile device proficiency questionnaire. Journal of Applied Gerontology, 37(2), 131-156.

 

Point 3. In the methodology section, it is appropriate to specify the methodological framework from which it starts, what type of study it is and the methodological characteristics of the research, including the research process followed.

We have specified this point in the section.

 

Point 4. The first thing the authors do is detail the sample and allude to the structure of the factors, but this is not really clear before and generates ambiguity. Perhaps you should explain and expand the “Procedure and development of the Instrument” and then, expose the sample. The instrument is not well defined. The descriptive and sociodemographic variables as well as the type of scale of the instrument and how many items are in each category are not clear.

 We have reformulated these sections and reordered them. We provided as much information as possible, regarding the sociodemographic. However, most aspect were not recruited, as were not stipulated in the previous project for the approval by the ethical committee.

 

Point 6. It is important that the sample be better characterized: academic year, age distribution, characterization of the context, selection criteria for the first and second samples. Explain the variability of the sample in order to take into account the impact of the answers in the pre and post. In short, characterize the sample under study in more detail.

 We have extended this section as suggested by employed all data that we were authorized to recruit.

 

Point 7. On the other hand, the meaning of pre and post test 8 months later is not clear. If the learning and services methodology is applied to it, this must be detailed since it is what supports and gives meaning to the use of this questionnaire over time.

Yes, they did, as described in the manuscript now.

 

Point 8. Finally, regarding the analysis, the quality criteria of the instrument defined by reliability and validity are not clarified.

 We have added more information to describe these raised points.

 

Point 9. In general, it is a document that needs to be worked on more, highlighting the strengths of the work. There are disjointed questions discussed in the previous points that, if addressed, will give clarity and understanding to the work.

We tried our best to follow all the raised point, which we find very interesting for the improvement of the current manuscript. Just in case, if we miss something, we would like to apologize with reviewer 1 in advance, as English is no our mother tongue.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This is an excellent paper.

You have chosen the word 'sex' over 'gender' but remained consistent throughout. I will leave that choice up to the editorial team. 

You may want to define 'liquid' as a modifier of 'societies' as it is unusual in my field.

On p. 9 (line 226) please correct the line to read either ". . . the application is as a type of tool, it could, in turn . . ." or "the application is a type of tool, it that could, in turn . . ."

 

Author Response

We would like to thank the reviewer for his/her invaluable help and comments.  We believe the paper has been significantly improved. Please, find the new version attached and changes highlighted in red ink. We tried to follow all his/her commentaries, described as follows:

Response to reviewer 2.

This is an excellent paper.

Thank you very much. This is very motivating. We tried our best to follow all the raised points, which we find very interesting for the improvement of the current manuscript. Just in case, if we miss something, we would like to apologize with reviewer 2 in advance, as English is no our mother tongue.

You have chosen the word 'sex' over 'gender' but remained consistent throughout. I will leave that choice up to the editorial team.

We consider this a question of debate. We have chosen sex because we considered it more straightforward, but we are open to any changes indicated with regards to this point.

You may want to define 'liquid' as a modifier of 'societies' as it is unusual in my field.

We have added a definition as suggested.

On p. 9 (line 226) please correct the line to read either ". . . the application is as a type of tool, it could, in turn . . ." or "the application is a type of tool, it that could, in turn . . ."

Thank you. We have corrected it as suggested.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

After the revision of the new version, the article has improved its quality for better reading and understanding.
Thanks for making all the changes.