Child-Centered Approach through Slow Education Principles: A View to Child Personality Development in Early Childhood
, Ion Albulescu †, Cristian Stan †, Gabriela Mestic †and Anca Ani-Rus †
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
General comments The article does have potential, it deals with the important topic of the ever-increasing slide into the dehumanization of society and, consequently, education, but with somewhat crude and questionable methods. Namely, the entire article is confusing, inconsistent, and while reading it, I had two fundamental questions: · what the authors want to emphasize with slow pedagogy - more play in kindergarten or more deep learning, whatever that means (the term deep learning is not clearly defined in the context of this specific research for the developmental stage of children from 1-6 years old, but different flat-rate ratings) · if we ask teachers/educators, then a pre-test should be done here - determining the existing situation before any change, change - training these teachers - then implementing the learned concept, gaining experience - and only then the research questions mentioned in the article! All this is not in this article or is incomplete. Other comments 1. Summary A short description of the research process is missing 2. Introduction Before we start talking, it is necessary to define what slow pedagogy is and what is your starting point, modification from the original, and your point of view. It would probably be useful to also define a baseline (pretest). We know nothing about the current implementation and what you have changed in the existing "curriculum". 3. Slow pedagogy is about deep learning?? what does this mean in the context of your research problem? 4. What do you want in a kindergarten with slow pedagogy, more play or more deep learning? See (try to be consistent in all contribution): "Slow learning can be seen as a process that takes its time, giving children a chance to analyze, assimilate and then internalize information at their own pace - effective instruction requires time: time to think, write, read, research, analyze, edit and collaborate..." Or "kindergartens need to reconsider their approach/ to .../ enhance the value of each child, following the development of each and every one at his or her own pace. This increases the child's freedom of expression and exponentially rises the possibility of making discoveries through the manipulation of various materials, through exploration and experimentation, with the notable consequence of reaching increasingly abstract levels of the child's thinking".
5. "Thus, it is important to stress that a child-centred approach from the perspective of slow pedagogy supports and develops natural curiosity, encourages deep learning and shoulders children to feel intrinsically motivated." - please explain how slow pedagogy develops curiosity and what means natural curiosity in context of constructivist philosophy, relation with deep learning and how and why will children feel intrinsically motivated???
6. "Our research is different from other studies since it links two very important paradigms for child personality development in early education" - which one and how are you modified for early education???
7. "The synergy between the two paradigms - again, which one - is under-researched, so our study brings valuable clarifications for specialists in this age segment" - I miss your valuable clarification!!
8. "Tzuo, Wen, Yang, Hui, Wright and Kay highlight through their study that pedagogical theory and practice have progressed over time from a teacher-centered to a child-centered teaching approach, recommending that"
you arque theories that have been gone for centuries, as you mentioned
"The origins of the concept of child-centredness are identified in the works of Froebel, Rousseau (1712+1778), Dewey (1859-1952), Montessori (1870-19529 and Vygotsky (1896 – 1934)
9. decide and be consistent than in all contribution: pupils or children, teacher or educators, school or kindergarten!
10. and many others, ...etc.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
We are deeply grateful for your interest in our research. We appreciate the suggestions received and we are willing to make the necessary changes in order to improve the quality of the article, punctually approaching certain aspects in this regard.
- We've restructured the whole article to try to make it more meaningful, in the sense that children do not necessarily need more play time but more deep play.
- On the question "What does slow pedagogy want to bring: more play in kindergarten or learning in depth?", we tried to emphasize that play is the fundamental activity of preschoolers, they develop and learn through play-based activities in all its forms. We believe that play is closely related to deep learning, as long as educators give children the chance to explore, investigate, and learn at their own pace, putting the child at the centre of the activity, but also respecting the principles of slow pedagogy.
- In the introduction we have highlighted more closely the concept of Slow Pedagogy, outlining our view of the importance of this paradigm. In Romania, a curriculum for early education has been introduced, this document is based on several principles including child-centred approach. This principle is familiar to all teachers in the field, the element of newness being its use in correlation with slow pedagogy and constructivist orientation. In order to draw a coherent approach, we have initiated a series of professional collegial discussions with the decision-makers in the field of early education (inspectors, principals and methodological teachers carrying out inspections). The discussions were based on a semi-structured interview using child-centredness and slow pedagogy as a starting point for the investigation.
- We have also pointed out that slow pedagogy is mainly about development and learning while respecting each child's own natural
- In kindergartens, the aim is to create as many learning situations as possible through play because it is the fundamental activity for children to acquire knowledge about objects, the world and themselves, leading to deeper learning.
- We tried to clarify the connection between the two paradigms, child-centredness and slow pedagogy in association with the constructivist orientation. By introducing some variables for exploratory purposes we found that the constructivist orientation of teachers is the link between the two, making them function in synergy.
- We have paid more attention in mentioning all studies accurately and precisely.
- In our investigative approach, we considered it important to highlight the origins of these paradigms, citing Campbell-Barr (2017) in order to know what changes have occurred since the first appearances of these concepts and how they are understood today.
- Although teacher-centeredness theory has disappeared from many developed countries, moving to child-centeredness, after discussions we had with practitioners, principals, inspectors and other decision-makers in education in Romania, we found that teacher-centeredness theory is still present today in some early education institutions. This situation arises due to a lack of understanding of the concept of child-centredness and a lack of preparation in this regard.
We hope that after the revisions our article has a more coherent and clear structure, with a concise theoretical framework and more concrete results.
Thank you for your support!
All the best,
Horatiu Catalano
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The MS presents in a very clear way an interesting research run in Romania testing quantitatively and qualitatively the effectiveness of a child-centered approach of teaching with preschoolers.
I am positive about publication pending the revisions listed below.
Introduction. I would refer also to a larger perspective, beyond the country were the study was run so that to allow generalization (as issue to be considered in the Discussion too). Moreover, among the teacher characteristics and attitudes, I would name enthusiasm. Being enthusiastic favor a lot both student learning (Moè et al., 2021) and school climate (Keller et al., 2016). Please add
Keller, M. M., Hoy, W. A., Goetz, T., & Frenzel, A. C. (2016). Teacher enthusiasm: Reviewing and redefining a complex construct. Educational Psychology Review, 28, 743–769.
Moè, A., Frenzel, A. C., Au, L. & Taxer, J. L. (2021). Displayed enthusiasm attracts attention and improves recall. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 91, 911–927.
Results. I would largely reduce the number of tables by putting the results in the text, for instance characteristics of the participants and Cronbach alphas. Please do not report the same result (e.g. correlations) both in the text and a table. Also, I would advise to follow the APA style.
Discussion. It is underdeveloped. I would write more mostly linking your results with existing literature also in the Self-Determination Theory perspective: adopting an autonomy supportive teaching styles is beneficial for teachers (Moè et al., 2022) and students too (Aelterman et al., 2019)
Aelterman, N., Vansteenkiste, M., Haerens, L., Soenens, B., Fontaine, J. R., & Reeve, J. (2019). Toward an integrative and fine-grained insight in motivating and demotivating teaching styles: The merits of a circumplex approach. Journal of Educational Psychology, 111, 497-521
Moè, A., Consiglio, P., & Katz, I. (2022). Exploring the circumplex model of motivating and demotivating teaching styles : The role of teacher need satisfaction and need frustration. Teaching and Teacher Education, 118, 103823
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
We are deeply grateful for your interest in our research. We appreciate the suggestions received and we are willing to make the necessary changes in order to improve the quality of the article, punctually approaching certain aspects in this regard.
We are preoccupied with early childhood education policies at the international level in general, but in particular with early childhood education in Romania. Accordingly, our study focuses on how early education teachers use child-centred practices from the perspective of slow pedagogy in connection with the constructivist orientation. It is important to underline that adults around the world tend to accelerate the pace of children's development, and the question we have in mind for all the adults involved in early education is: Does faster mean better if we think about performance and acquisitions?
Thank you for your support in introducing more valuable input to our research. These have provided value to our study. We hope that after the revisions our article has a more coherent and clear structure, with a concise theoretical framework and more concrete results.
Thank you for your support!
All the best,
Horatiu Catalano
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The article is well written, in an academic and scientific language and is an interesting topic for the scientific community. There are no apparent grammatical or spelling errors. There is coherence and quality in the arguments presented by the author(s). The objectives are in clear agreement with the methodology and with the original results and the conclusions provide great knowledge and transfer. The title summarizes the main idea of ​​the writing, is self-explanatory, concise, informative and avoids abbreviations. It also generates reading expectations that are met. It incorporates the necessary information that guides the reader to quickly identify the basic content of the writing and to determine its relevance. Refers, in sufficient quantity and in an appropriate manner, to other research or work carried out in the field of the subject addressed. It supports the conceptual referent with sufficient and adequate figures of authority. The conclusions follow directly from the development of the work, they attend to and are related to the purpose of the article and to the title. It maintains an adequate relationship between the parts: objective (problem, objectives, hypotheses), theoretical framework, methodology, results and conclusions. The citation of mainstream sources (books and magazine articles) predominates. The references are recent and mostly international.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
We are deeply grateful for your interest in our research and your appreciative review of our work. Thank you for your support!
All the best,
Horatiu Catalano
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
I congratulate the authors for their paper, which requires a significant revision. Please see all my comments within the pdf file.
You can not tell us about your work that has a lot of merits but is not all presented here. Here the authors only present a qualitative analysis of a convenience survey. A convenience survey cannot be presented with a statistical inference analysis.
Furthermore, the authors analyze a constructivist perspective in their text but do not connect it with the child-centered approach and slow education principles. That is a significant flaw in the first paragraph and leads to confusion in Table 10 when they refer to The concept of "Constructivist orientation" because they didn't define it clearly.
Results and their discussion are not mentioned enough in the first paragraph of the literature references. Therefore they are poor and need much improvement.
I think the authors' re-read with the reviewers' comments will be able to greatly improve the paper.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
We are deeply grateful for your interest in our research. We appreciate the suggestions received and we are willing to make the necessary changes in order to improve the quality of the article, punctually approaching certain aspects in this regard.
We clarified the connection between child-centredness, slow pedagogy and constructivist orientation. In this regard, we introduced some variables for exploratory purposes that revealed the link between child-centredness and slow pedagogy in connection with the constructivist orientation, this concept being the link between the two paradigms.
Following your recommendation, we have tried to reorganise and improve the results and the discussions, trying to better highlight the link between the theoretical and the research part. We have also removed the tables as suggested, and have added some extra explanations according to your valuable recommendations.
We tried to clarify the connection between the two paradigms, child-centredness and slow pedagogy in association with the constructivist orientation. By introducing some variables for exploratory purposes we found that the constructivist orientation of teachers is the link between the two, making them function in synergy.
We hope that after the revisions our article has a more coherent and clear structure, with a concise theoretical framework and more concrete results.
Thank you for your support!
All the best,
Horatiu Catalano
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 4 Report
The authors significantly improved the paper. Nevertheless, the English must be correct, as well as some typing errors.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
We are deeply grateful for your interest in our work and for the suggestions received. We are eager to make the necessary changes to improve the quality of the article. We have made the necessary revisions regarding spelling and typos. As for the bibliography, we have made relevant additions in this regard.
We hope with the changes we made our article has a more coherent and clear structure. Thank you for your support!
Best regards,
Horațiu Catalano
