Systems Thinking and Leadership of Teachers in Education for Sustainable Development: A Scale Development

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

There is potentially a very interesting article here but it needs more work to ensure it reaches the academic and scholarship requirements of the Journal.

The main theme of the article if fine and appropriate but there needs to be some reference to the broader and in some cases contested literature around ESD and teachers. There needs to be reference to range of work such as Sterling, Scott, Wals, Nolet and Huckle amongst many others.

There is also only a minor reference to defining systems thinking and suggest this particularly needs further discussion. Here the work of Sterling could be particularly useful.

I also wanted to know more about the specificity of the context and what challenges this presents for the themes raised in the article. These are hinted at but greater explanation would help.

Above all I needed to know more about the methodology, process that was undertaken to gather data, what issues arose etc.

I was also wondering bearing in mid the challenges with word count for such articles whether it might be better for the authors to focus on only one theme, perhaps systems thinking. I am not convinced what was said on leadership was particularly new or distinctive.

 

 

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1

 

Dear Reviewer,

 

Thank you for the valuable feedback. We appreciate it much.

We have made significant revisions under your feedback the following:

1. We have re-proof reading for the full paper
2. We have inserted the references of Sterling (2 refs) and Wals (1 ref), unfortunately, we do not have access to the reference of Scott, Nolet, and Huckle
3. We have inserted the definition of systems thinking and teacher leadership in part 2 Materials and Methods
4. We have added and highlighted the present challenge for the themes in part 1 Introduction
5. We have added a process that was undertaken to gather data also the issues and the detail proxies at part 2 Materials and Methods
6. We prefer to keep the teacher leadership in the paper as the variable has a significant role in Indonesian ESD. The teacher is a significant students’ role model

 

Kindly please find our latest version which also has fulfilled the others reviewers’ feedback.

Hopefully, our revised paper is able to meet your expectation.

 

Best regards,

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Review -1

The submission of the manuscript entitled “Systems Thinking and Leadership of Teacher in Education for Sustainable Development: A Scale Development” is relevant with respect to the MDPI Sustainability Journal. It is also an interesting critical approach to the real implementation of the Green school program. Nevertheless, the manuscript is not structured in accordance with traditional norms of publication. For example, p. 4, the first paragraphs cannot be considered as a part of the results section. The first paragraph deals with government priorities, placing ESD in environmental preoccupations rather than an educational one. The second paragraph deals with content knowledge and teachers’ organization related to ESD. These two paragraphs are enough important for understanding the cultural context of the study to be early presented. According to an ecosystem approach, it is suggested to replace these two paragraphs at the top of the paper. Furthermore, rather than considering who are the competent teachers, it would be more interesting to develop an argumentation around the implementation of ESD content knowledge explaining that it is not currently expected that teachers only take advantage of opportunities to address environmental and social practices to meet the challenge of sustainable development. This would explain what it means the integration content knowledge related to ESD.

Still focusing on the structural presentation of the manuscript, it is surprising that data are presented without any preliminary explanation about the 5 point scale and the items selected. If we can be sensitive to the fact that free sex is still considered a taboo conversation in the culture of Indonesian society, nothing explains why this subject has been selected to be part of the questionnaire. Finally, the argumentation concerning the leadership role of teachers is not appropriately placed in the results section. This part of the argumentation with references should be included in the introduction section. For all these reasons, the manuscript needs a rewrite.

With regard to the study, it is noticed that the sample used for the analyses was mainly composed of teachers aged more than 40, properly categorized as experienced teachers. This sample of teachers with teaching experience is considered by the authors as “credible to answer the questions in the questionnaire”. Nevertheless, no information concerns their experience in Green schools. In other words, it could be advanced that teaching experience is not systematically an advantage of integrating teaching practices related to ESD compared with young teachers with less experience. This argument is reinforced by the Indonesian teaching context inadequately presented in p. 4 where the authors recognize that it is more concerned by competition rather than “living together in harmony”.

Another issue relates to the level of instruction considered in the paper (primary/secondary). The authors described (p. 4, l. 168-174) the carefully designed syllabus used for educating students to environmental and societal transition. On the point, it would have been relevant to explain the different steps planned for helping students to explore deeper local problems before thinking critically and finding causes and solutions to environmental problems from a more global perspective.

In the discussion section, the authors try to sum up the local situation. It is advanced that the government measures do not provide “adequate rewards nor sanctions”, without précising what is an adequate sanction or adequate sanction. Furthermore, this observation is not connected with a motivational purpose concerning the strategies to lead to fundamental changes in educational politics. Furthermore, the path of reflection about the relationships between scientific knowledge production and teaching intervention practices would particularly deserve to be examined (l. 298-299). Although we can agree with the authors considering that teachers' competencies in system thinking need to be improved, concrete measures are still expected for understanding whether teachers would be better equipped on the interpersonal, skill, scientific, technical, and spiritual abilities standpoints for implementing ESD content knowledge in their natural environment. Moreover, the teachers’ leadership role is considered as powerful, but without any consideration to the family position in the complex educational environment. Finally, the discussion emphasized that the professional development of vocational teachers is poor. Several social-psychological concepts as teachers’ self-efficacy and group cohesion are evoked without theoretical bases provision and without any recommendation for helping teachers to collectively coordinate reflections and actions and collaboratively face the current situation. The “threat of social cohesion” refers to a professional issue that is enough important to consider to be further developed, not only under a social but also an operational point of view (see the literature about the concept of group cohesion).

In the conclusion, the authors state that “the scale developed in this study could be used as a reference to assess teachers’ performance in ESD”. Concerning the generalization of the findings, we recommend the authors be more moderate with regard to the area in which the study was conducted.

p. 2, l. 49 -: Please write SDG in full for the first application

p. 2, l. 50 -: The acronym is enough because Education for Sustainable Development was used in p. 1.

p. 2, l. 60-61: The term collaborative is not well cut

p. 2, l. 67: Delete “is able to” in the following sentence “ESD is expected to be able to encourage…”

p. 2, l. 73: (Laury et al., 2016) should be indicated in brackets

p. 2, l. 73-74: the purpose is not clear

p. 2, l. 75-77: Precise what are “good knowledge and understanding of prioritizing ESD education programs”?

p. 2, l. 97- p. 3, 1. 100: Rephrase this sentence that is not clear.

p. 3, l. 105: Make a full stop after Hadiwiyata School.

p. 3, l. 103, l. 109-110: This long sentence needs to be cut for better understanding

p. 4, l. 146: what is a learning substance? Does it refer to content knowledge?

p. 7, l. 262-263: Please reconsider this sentence that is clumsy

p. 7, l. 274-277: This authors’ point of view is not clear with regard to the complex social-ecological-technical system presented later (p. 8)

p. 8, l. 295-296: Please reconsider this sentence that is not clear.

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for the valuable feedback. We appreciate it much.

We have made significant revisions under your feedback the following:

1. We have re-proof reading for the full paper
2. We have restructured the whole paragraph by moving some paragraphs and addition of many paragraphs
3. We have edited and highlighted soma phrases so that the paper focused on ESD content knowledge, not on teachers’ competence
4. We have added some paragraphs at part 2 Materials and Methods to explain such as a process that was undertaken to gather data also the scales
5. In part 2 Materials and Methods, we also have added details that the teachers involved in this survey were the coordinator of Green School and/or coordinator of Subject who responsible for the ESD content for the teaching curricula
6. We have added explanations about the proxies being used in the research
7. The discussion section has been developed
8. Feedback on the line:
9. 2, l. 49 -: Please write SDG in full for the first application – revised p2 l.51
10. 2, l. 50 -: The acronym is enough because Education for Sustainable Development was used in p. 1. – revised p2 l.51
11. 2, l. 60-61: The term collaborative is not well cut – it is the term used by Shephard, Kerry; Rieckmann, Marco; Barth, Matthias – we keep this because clearly mentioned by Shephard et.al

72 p. 2, l. 67: Delete “is able to” in the following sentence “ESD is expected to be able to encourage…” – revised p3 l.116

78 p. 2, l. 73: (Laury et al., 2016) should be indicated in brackets – replaced

1. 2, l. 73-74: the purpose is not clear – revised p3 l.75
2. 2, l. 75-77: Precise what are “good knowledge and understanding of prioritizing ESD education programs”? – revised p2 l.69-71

108 – xxx p. 2, l. 97- p. 3, 1. 100: Rephrase this sentence that is not clear. – revised p3 l.133-137

116 p. 3, l. 105: Make a full stop after Hadiwiyata School. – revised p4 l.174

1. 3, l. 103, l. 109-110: This long sentence needs to be cut for better understanding – revised p4 l.178-181
2. 4, l. 146: what is a learning substance? Does it refer to content knowledge? – revised p5 l.228
3. 7, l. 262-263: Please reconsider this sentence that is clumsy – removed
4. 7, l. 274-277: This authors’ point of view is not clear with regard to the complex social-ecological-technical system presented later (p. 8) – I add little explanation that the ministry in charge of ESD should be the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture, but in Indonesia is managed by Ministry of Environment and Forestry. -- removed
5. 8, l. 295-296: Please reconsider this sentence that is not clear. -- removed

 

Kindly please find our latest version which also has fulfilled the others reviewers’ feedback.

Hopefully, our revised paper is able to meet your expectation.

 

Best regards,

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The abstract in its first sentence introduces the main aim to analyze teachers' education for sustainable development (ESD) competences at an environmental care and culture school. (research on ESD in Indonesia).

The authors state in the Abstract that the aim of the study also "developed the 14 scale to measure teachers’ systems thinking and teacher leadership on ESD". Mentioning it in the abstract the authors highlight the importance of this measure.

This is what I perceive as 2 (challending) aims that should be clearly presented in the discussion.

Some information in the text need more details: e.g. the authors state: "In this study, role modelling behavior was measured by social behavior and natural concern in daily life, such as polite sentences and gestures, and behavior in using plastic and paper, also any other un-friendly products", however, the tool is not clearly formulated (was it part of the scale created by the authors, observation..?).

More information on the scale formulated/used in the study used to measure teacher performance in ESD would be also useful.

I believe that adding missing information (tools and discussion) can increase the quality of the text.

Some grammar and lexical (minor) should be corrected.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for the valuable feedback. We appreciate it much.

We have made significant revisions under your feedback the following:

1. We have re-proof reading for the full paper
2. We have restructured the whole paragraph by moving some paragraphs and addition of many paragraphs
3. We have added some paragraphs at part 2 Materials and Methods to explain such as a process that was undertaken to gather data also the scales
4. We have added and highlighted the present challenge for the themes in part 1 Introduction
5. We have revised the abstract. The correct main aim is developing scales to measure teachers’ systems thinking and teacher leadership on ESD
6. The scales were created by authors by referring to several previous studies. Some paragraphs have been inserted into part 2 Materials and Methods to explain how the proxies were developed
7. This is survey-based research so the data depend on the teacher’s self-assessment. Observation is needed to triangulate the survey data and this is inserted into the recommendation for future study

 

Kindly please find our latest version which also has tried to fulfill the others reviewers’ feedback.

Hopefully, our revised paper is able to meet your expectation.

 

Best regards,

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

The Abstract follows the proposed structure, although authors should further highlight the research questions of the paper. The keywords used are relevant to the study. In the “Introduction” section, authors state the theoretical background of their study, however, they should clearly state the research questions of the study, besides its main aim. The research questions could be related to the subsections that authors include in “Results” regarding Systems thinking and Leadership. The references used are relevant to the purpose of the paper but a few of them could still be replaced by more recent ones. The “Materials and Methods” contains all the necessary elements of the methodology used, but in terms of clarity the section could be divided into 3 subsections as follows: Sample, Method, Data Analysis. Results are clearly presented, whilst in the “Discussion” section authors clearly compare the results of their study with previous literature and highlight the implications of the study too. Regarding Conclusions, authors should in regards to the suggestions for future research, highlight the limitations of the study too. Finally, in terms of quality of communication, any reader can follow the flow of arguments expressed, but in any case, the paper could be revised by a language expert.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

 

Thank you for the valuable feedback. We appreciate it much.

We have made significant revisions under your feedback the following:

1. We have inserted significant additional explanations such as the essence of the study and details of data collection and the initial scale development
2. We have restructured the whole paragraph by moving some paragraphs and addition of many paragraphs to ensure the arguments flow properly
3. The paper has been re-proof reading

 

Kindly please find our latest version which also has fulfilled the others reviewers’ feedback.

Hopefully, our revised paper is able to meet your expectation.

 

Best regards,

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I am happy to support this revised manuscript going forward for publication.

I would still have liked to see more engagement with the literature but overall it is much improved

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have taken into account the main recommendations about the structure of the manuscript.

The purpose of the study is better presented and additional information was usefully provided in the Material and Method section with regard to the scales and data processing.

The conclusion now considers the generalization issue.