Secondary Education Students’ Knowledge Gain and Scaffolding Needs in Mobile Outdoor Learning Settings

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The language used by the authors is hardly understood. The matter is not English itself: the authors use extremely long sentences, making the reader suffer and struggle into the core idea.

Sentences should not be such long.

There were some same errors: pp. 12,13 16, 17, 20 "didn't" should be did not.

p. 20 "can't" should be "cannot"

p. 4 (Kikas, 2003 should have a bracket from the right.

Author Response

Reply on reviewers’ comments

The language used by the authors is hardly understood. The matter is not English itself: the authors use extremely long sentences, making the reader suffer and struggle into the core idea. Sentences should not be such long.

The paper has been revised according to the comment and where necessary the sentences have been shorterned.

There were some same errors: pp. 12,13 16, 17, 20 "didn't" should be did not.

1. 20 "can't" should be "cannot"
2. 4 (Kikas, 2003 should have a bracket from the right.

The errors have been corrected.

Reviewer 2 Report

The overall manuscript contains relevant information for existing literature. One aspect that you can focus on is consistency in terminology (e.g., AI related) and punctuation (see below for more detailed feedback). The display of information can be improved. Another aspect of improvement is the coherence in the introduction.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Reply to reviewer comments:

General remarks:

The overall manuscript contains relevant information for existing literature. One aspect that you can focus on is consistency in terminology (e.g., AI related) and punctuation (see below for more detailed feedback). The display of information can be improved. Another aspect of improvement is the coherence in the introduction.

We have worked with the manuscript keeping in mind the general and specific recommendations. Thank you for the useful remarks. 

Specific remarks:

p.1.abstract “tool”  Is this the correct term? I find it a bit odd to refer to education as a tool.

Although the cited authors Jeong, Sherman & Tippins (2021) call it as a tool and we acknowledge science education as “a vehicle”, however, we have rephrased the sentence to remove it: Science education enhances students’ scientific literacy in order to interact with the world re-sponsibly and contribute to democratic decision-making.

p.1.abstract “…awareness and opinion of a local, timely socio-environmental challenge”To what skills and/or strategies does this refer? The remainder of this sentences clearly displays what students need to possess, whilst the quoted part of the sentence is rather vague. In addition, an “opinion” of something is not informative if it is not specified.

We have rephrased the sentences to clarify the issue: Forming an evidence-based decision on socio-economical environmental real-life problems requires a more in depth understanding of natural processes than just making use of everyday knowledge that bases on perceptions and direct observations. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the secondary education students’ awareness and opinion about a timely socio-environmental challenge. The paper also aims to investigate the development of students’ scientific vocabulary and knowledge during and what are students’ scaffolding needs during the mobile outdoor inquiry-based learning event that tackles that challenge.

p.1.abstract I am a bit confused by the change from everyday concepts to scientific knowledge. Scientific knowledge can be part of an everyday concept.

For clarifying the issue, the word knowledge has been removed.

p.1 The paragraphs do not follow logically, partly because the start of each

new paragraph is a different topic than the previous paragraph. You can

create more coherence by inserting signaling words, or by repeating

information from the previous paragraph.

We have added and rephrased some of the sentences in different sections to make it more coherent.

p.1 The last sentence of the page contains information between brackets.

Information is presented between brackets if the information is additional. In

your case, the information is essential. I suggest you remove the brackets.

We have corrected it.

p.2 Avoid back-to-back brackets: (xxx) (xxx) = (xxx; xxx).

We have corrected it.

p.2 Sometimes you insert an Oxford comma and sometimes you do not.

Please apply this consistently throughout your work. Moreover, your

em dash use is incorrect (you use a hyphen instead of an em dash).

Please correct this.

We have corrected it.

p.2 I am skeptical about introducing another literacy, especially without

conceptualizing it properly. The need for another literacy can only be justified

with valid arguments and you aren’t providing those. Without these, you

contribute to conceptual confusion. How does this literacy relate to other

literacies? How does it related to skills such as critical thinking? Monitoring?

We don’t introduce new literacy here. We still talk about scientific literacy. In the previous paragraph we introduced its’ relation to the critical thinking and other skills:  One important component of individual’s science capital is scientific literacy — vital and strategic to meet the global challenges ahead (Valladares, 2021). In particular being scientifically literate means being aware of and able to form an opinion about the socio-economical environmental problems in society. This presumes understanding and con-ducting scientific investigations in collaborative teams with the help of modern technol-ogies that allow to engage in critical and socio-scientific reasoning and make evidence-informed conclusions considering the implications for themselves and the society (Au-tieri, Amirshokoohi & Kazempour, 2016). Being scientifically literate one can contribute to democratic decision-making (Yacoubian, 2018

p.2 With three or more authors, you are allowed to write down the name of the first

author, followed by “et al.”. You can apply this frequently throughout your

manuscript.

We have corrected it.

p.2 Please check your manuscript for double spaces. We have corrected it.

p.2 “…has moved towards not only understanding, but also…” = “has also moved

towards gaining…”. You can write it more concisely.

We have corrected it.

p.2 The lack of coherence is visible between the first and second paragraph on that

page. In addition, for location-responsive pedagogy, you might want to look

into geography- or biology-related practices. These practices might have

relevant input for you.

Thank you for the valuable suggestion, however, the given timeframe (10 days) for tackling the  comments didn’t allow us to dig deeper into this literature.

p.2 You insert “etc.” after referring to two sources. Avoid “etc.”. Suggestion: add

“see e.g., <insert references>” to pose a stronger case.

We have corrected it.

p.2 Avoid subjective labeling, such as “very”. These labels do not add anything

relevant to your messag.e

We have corrected it.

p.2 There is a sentence placed in a lighter colour font (“Furthermore, it has

been…Kraalingen, 2021)”.

We have corrected it.

p.3 Instead of listing all author names, you can write the first author,

followed by “and colleagues”.

We have corrected it.

p.3 On this page, there is a lack of coherence between the paragraphs. Use

signaling words, or repeat information from the previous paragraph.

You might want to play around with the order in which you present the

information.

We have revised the sections on p.3

p.3 The second paragraph contains back-to-back brackets.

We have corrected it.

p.3 Can you take a look at the reference: “Wen, Liu, Chang, Chang, Chang,

Fan Chians et al., 2020”? You can use “et al.” with three or more

authors to replace the majority of the authors listed. This will make

your work easier to read. Keep in mind that you need to insert a period

after “et al”.

We have corrected this.

p.4 Coherence is sufficient between the second paragraph on this page and

the section starting with “inquiry-based…”.

p.5 You introduce collaborative as a new part of your concept. This comes

as a surprise. This has to be properly introduced.

We have added a section of collaborative inquiry in the section 2

p.5 The summary you give with bullet point: you can do that; however, the

hyphen in the middle of the sentence is incorrect. You can replace these

with a “:”. We have corrected it.

p.6 You use a hyphen instead of an em dash. Please revise this. Later on the

page you use en dashes instead of em dashes. We have corrected it.

p.6 In the section “Learning design and underpinning concepts”, you display the

brackets incorrectly for Valladares. Please correct this. We have corrected it.

p.6 Why are the bullet points different for the three summaries you list on

this page? I would use one format (or different ones for all). Keep in

mind that you also have bullet points on the previous page. We have corrected it.

p.7 There are inconsistencies in the use of hyphen and en dashes.

Moreover, after Mathematics you insert two or three spaces? Please

check. We have corrected it.

p.7.Table1 Check the alignment of the numbers in the table. You can add a column for the

phase numbers to have them aligned neatly. We have corrected it.

p.9/10 You refer to Figure 1 on page 9 but to Figure 1a on page 10. We have corrected it.

p.10 Numbers up till twenty need to be completely written. Thus, “5 various

location points” = five various location points. Apply this throughout your

manuscript. We have corrected it.

p.10 I do not understand the following: “8.-9. grade.”. You mean 8th and 9th grade?

If so, please correct this. 

We have revised and corrected.

p.10 The introduction of your instruments in the main text is difficult to read. You

can easily display this in a table with the different options. The options will be

displayed clearly for the reader.

We have added a table.

p.10 Replace the hyphen after “School X” with a “:”). You also need to

e use of spaces consistently. Compare “School A-14 students”

with “School apply thC – 24 students”.

We have corrected it.

p.11 After some options, you mention a score (i.e., -1, -2)? This is not clear

for the reader. A table might work in this case.

We specified the wording in the description so it would be clear that the numbers are codes for the categories mentioned.

p.12 You display the statistics in different decimal numbers. Introduce this

so you can apply this consistently throughout your manuscript. We have corrected it.

p.12 The “Z” also needs to be placed in italics.  I would advise to write an

“M” for Mean (and keep the Median unchanged). Both need to be displayed in italics. We have corrected it.

p.13 Are cases the same as students? If so, I would strongly advise to use

one term for it (rather than two). We have corrected it.

p.14 Here you start using commas instead of periods to indicate decimal

numbers. Use periods and apply that consistently throughout your

work. We have corrected it.

p.14.Figure5 This graph is displayed smaller than the other ones. Can you make this a bit

larger so there is more consistency in size?

We have made some corrections.

p.18 You mention “potential scaffold improvements”, but what information is used

as a foundation for this? They seem to be drawn from thin air.

The potential scaffold improvements are suggested based on the problems detected during the experimental design. According to our understanding the problems detected are specific enough to suggest some scaffolding strategies, however, these are not tested, but just potential suggestions.

p.20 In your conclusion, you generally describe what your study entailed (the

glimpse), but you do not summarize the conclusion in one or two sentences.

This should be added.

A more thorough conclusion has been provided.

References You mention the publication year twice. The display of the volume and issue

number is inconsistent (compare Autieri et al. [2016] with Archer et al.

[2015]). Furthermore, the hyphen or en dash between the page number is

inconsistent (this has to be an en dash). You need to remove the hyperlink from

several sources, especially because you do not keep the link with the

doinumbers. The issue number for reference 26 is displayed incorrectly.

Moreover, the use of capital letters in the publication titles needs to be

reviewed. Compare reference seven with reference four. The display of the

doinumbers is inconsistent (compare references 19, 39, and 52). Please go over

all to make it consistent. Last, reference 46 contains [Crossref], [Google

Scholar]. Is this correct?

We have revised the reference list.

Reviewer 3 Report

My concerns are as follows:

1. Title is too long. Try to revise the title to be shorten and more comprehensive
2. The Abstract needs to be revised. research method and contributions need to be highlighted
3. The statement "This paper aims to explore the secondary education students’ aware..." Is too long and confusing.
4. There are many long statements in the introduction section. Try to make them shorter and meaningful
5. What are the benefits and impacts of this research. Explain at the end of introduction
6. Research methodology is unclear. why did these respondents selected? Which sampling method were used? provide justifications on why 50 respondents is enough 
7. What is the theoretical foundation of this study?
8. How the questionnaire items were selected? are they adopted from the previous studies?
9. Contributions need to be explained in the conclusion section. What are the benefits of this study for different parties?

Author Response

Reply to reviewer:

1. Title is too long. Try to revise the title to be shorten and more comprehensive

The title has been revised: Secondary education students’ knowledge gain and scaffolding needs in mobile outdoor learning settings

2. The Abstract needs to be revised. research method and contributions need to be highlighted

The abstract has been revised: research method and contribution have been highlighted.

3. The statement "This paper aims to explore the secondary education students’ aware..." Is too long and confusing.

The statement has been more structured to be better followed.

4. There are many long statements in the introduction section. Try to make them shorter and meaningful.

The statements have been shortened.

5. What are the benefits and impacts of this research. Explain at the end of introduction

Explanation has been added: These insights will help to better understand how students learn and what affects their learning outdoors as well as how to better design the learning activities and scaffolding to support students to develop their scientific literacy more efficiently during mobile outdoor collaborative learning activities.

6. Research methodology is unclear. why did these respondents selected? Which sampling method were used? provide justifications on why 50 respondents is enough.

The methods section has been revised by explaining in more detail the sampling and its rationale

7. What is the theoretical foundation of this study?

The study incorporates a number of theories and frameworks, namely technology-enhanced collaborative inquiry learning; scaffolding in mobile outdoor learning; knowledge types.

8. How the questionnaire items were selected? are they adopted from the previous studies?

Additional information about the items in the text has been provided. The items were selected based on the interest to find out students understanding about the inquired phenomenon. The list of challenges was created based on Hannafin et al 1999 scaffolding needs and the list of information sources according to the possible sources exposed to youths.

9. Contributions need to be explained in the conclusion section. What are the benefits of this study for different parties?

A section has been added.

 

 

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscripts has been improved and revised in a good way. However, I still have some concerns:

1. The abstract needs to be revised again. Double check and revise aims of study and highlight more about data analysis. theoretical foundation needs to be explained as well.
2. In the Introduction section, Try to revise all research aims in the form of objectives which starts with "TO" or make them all research questions which start with What, .. 
3. How about if move "5. Research approach and question" section under introduction section. as I realized that the research questions have been repeated in this section again. So, my advise is to move this section and consider it as 1.1  and just delete the "We aim to understand explore: • what is the students’ opinion about th ..........." from introduction section. 
4. Provide references that 50 respondents is enough in this study to reach to reliable results
5. regarding "Contributions", I can not find any new section that authors mentioned in response to my previous comment

Author Response

Response to reviewer nr 3, round 2

1. The abstract needs to be revised again. Double check and revise aims of study and highlight more about data analysis. theoretical foundation needs to be explained as well.

The abstract is revised. Study aims are reworded. Data analysis was also highlighted.

The theoretical foundations are explained previously. We didn’t want to add any specific references to the abstract because usually it is not recommended to cite in text in abstract. But we have many different frameworks what we use in this study and naming all them would make the abstract too long maybe.

2. In the Introduction section, Try to revise all research aims in the form of objectives which starts with "TO" or make them all research questions which start with What, .. 

Made all the research questions start with What by rewording the second aim to: What is the development of students’ scientific vocabulary and conceptual understanding of the problem while participating in learner-centric, inquiry-based learning designs supported with mobile technology

3. How about if move "5. Research approach and question" section under introduction section. as I realized that the research questions have been repeated in this section again. So, my advise is to move this section and consider it as 1.1  and just delete the "We aim to understand explore: • what is the students’ opinion about th ..........." from introduction section. 

I agree, that it would make more sense and would avoid repetition. The section is moved to the introduction and The aims from the introduction removed.

4. Provide references that 50 respondents is enough in this study to reach to reliable results

According to Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2007), in action research it is not about reliability rather than trustworthiness what we should emphasize.

To the text a paragraph with explanation to the action research was added:

The approach of the action researcher was chosen as it is both practical and theoretical. Action research is defined by Cohen and Manion (1994: 186) as "a small-scale intervention in the functioning of the real world and a thorough analysis of the effects of such an intervention." Action research aims to answer questions and address problems that arise in the classroom, as well as to put results into practice right away (McKay, 1992). It is appropriate because of its features, as stated by McCutcheon and Jurg: methodical investigation, reflexivity, and practical focus (1990). Tomal (2010) distinguishes action research from standard research. Traditional research methods are concerned with generalizing findings to other settings or populations, whereas action research is primarily concerned with improvements within the study's context.

 

5. regarding "Contributions", I can not find any new section that authors mentioned in response to my previous comment

The added section is highlighted with yellow.