The Assessment of the Key Competences for Lifelong Learning—The Fuzzy Model Approach for Sustainable Education

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

 

This paper presents an interesting research/study related to LL competencies of students, focusing mainly on the cognitive domain. In the introduction, the authors explain their interest in this topic through the current need for knowledge transfer,  business and market demands for improving competencies on a global basis. In addition, the authors describe an interesting framework model for assessing university students' competencies that was conducted in Serbia. The introduction and literature review are well described and the authors provide good arguments for conducting the research. In the chapter Fuzzy Delfy Technique, the authors explain the study and its process. The methodology and process are well described and clearly illustrated for the reader to understand. The criteria are also well described.

However, I miss the total sum of the participants included in study. 

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors, the article theme is interesting and relevant. Reviewing the article, various aspects need to be improved. 

1. Literature reviews are weak, and you need to provide a richer review and summary of the relevant literature on your topic.
2. Lack of discussion, you're just explaining your results.
3. The presented theoretical contributions have various limitations and do not demonstrate the research potential. 

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

When formulating the research goal (s), it would be worth writing what was the cognitive (scientific) goal and what was the utilitarian (useful) goal.

It would also be worthwhile to formulate a research problem in the article. The review of the state of knowledge made by the authors of the article allows for the formulation of the research problem. I suggest that the article includes the sentence: "The research problem is / was ...".

I suggest that when you use the acronym FSAW for the first time, you include the full name of the term. I mean the use of the acronym FSAW in the main body of the article. Although this acronym was explained in the Abstract (line: 20), in the main body of the article, the acronym FSAW was first used on line 77, and its full meaning is only given on line 133. Therefore, it would be useful to mention the full name of FSAW on line 77.

In line 81 the authors wrote "Conclusions are presented in Section 6". In the article, Conclusions were marked as section 5. Therefore, the numbering in this case needs to be corrected.

In line 90, the authors wrote: "As the proposed method consists of fuzzy Delphi and FSAW ...". In the same paragraph, the authors continue their description by using the acronym "SAW" (line: 93). I think in this paragraph it would be easier to pass precisely between the acronyms FSAW and SAW. Theoretically, the reader should guess the connections between these acronyms, but it would be better to write it in the article (in the aforementioned paragraph).

In my opinion, the entry [1-6] in line 161 should be written as (1-6). The entry [1-6] may associate the reader with citing articles 1-6 in References.

In my opinion, the formulas on page 6 should be completed with an explanation of some of the notations used in the formulas, i.e. a^U, a^L, μ, which are not in the text. Thanks to this, the algorithm will be more understandable to the reader.

It would be worth explaining the meaning of the acronym HEI(s) that is used in line 277.

In section 4 (The Case study) it would be useful to describe the group of students included in the study in more detail. What exactly did these students study (technical, medical, musical, economic, life sciences and others?). What percentage were women and men, etc. I think that the detailed information characterizing the students participating in the study could be linked with the results of the study, which would allow for the formulation of additional, interesting conclusions.

Were the students, before participating in the study, thoroughly informed about the scope of the study, response options, and the method of providing answers? Was there any training in this regard? How much time did the students have to answer, and in what exact period of time the study with students was conducted. In the event of students' doubts about filling in the questionnaire, were they given help and explanations? Is the sample of 94 students representative, for example for a given academic community? I think that the development of these issues will significantly increase the value of the research material presented in the article.

In the part summarizing the discussion of research results (or in the review of the state of knowledge), other examples of the approach to research could be indicated, taking into account the participation of students and their knowledge in connection with the ranking method. An example of such a study is "The topic of the ideal dairy farm can inspire how to assess knowledge about dairy production processes: A case study with students and their contributions", in which students assessed each other's homework, and the ranking of responses was prepared using statistical Kruskal-Wallis test. In this way, it could be shown that there are various attempts at a new approach to student assessment, and that the Authors' own research is part of these attempts.

The heading of the table in Appendix A should be supplemented with one line at the top with the information what "K" means.

In line 272 the authors referred to Appendix A1, while in line 407 Appendix A was mentioned. Is Appendix A1 the same as Appendix A? I admit that I get lost in these markings. I have a similar problem with the identification and marking of competences in the article. The mentioned Appendix A lists K1,… K8; I can guess that this is how competences were marked in Appendix A. However, elsewhere in the text (for example in Tables 2 and 4) the notation k=1, ... k=8 is used. Is K1 the same as k=1? I have big problems with the unambiguous identification of individual markings. I am asking for explanations and possible correction.

Did the authors not think about taking into account some elements of statistics when developing the results of the analysis in order to check the statistical significance of the differences between the competences of students under consideration?

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Thanks for your revision, the article can be published in its current form.