Promoting Epistemic Growth with Respect to Sustainable Development Issues through Computer-Supported Argumentation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper aims to This longitudinal study aims to promote epistemic growth in sustainable development issues by computer-supported argumentation through a practice-based approach and presents the following research questions:

Q1: What are the frequency and the epistemic quality of undergraduates’ argumentation comments in the six consecutive sustainable development issues in computer-supported argumentation?

Q2: How do different aspects of argumentative performance lead to epistemic growth of an undergraduate in sustainable development issues?

The author’s conducted a longitudinal study approach and used the Apt-AIR framework to analyze argumentative comments. The study involved 96 undergraduates from different majors of a local college.

Considering the fact that all the students involved come from the same college, the inferential analysis performed can somehow be questioned. Furthermore, the answers to the 2 proposed questions are not clearly stated in the article, namely in Sections 5 and 6. Given the limitations presented by the authors in Section 6, the paper would gain if it could be reformulated taking in consideration, at least, some of these aspects. Thus, in order to this paper be accepted to publication the paper must be deeply revised taking in consideration the 3 previous comments. Additionally, the English should be revised all over the text and the following observation should also be followed:

 lines 104 to 114: repeated text can be found in these lines; revise.

Nothing else

Author Response

In general, the reviewer' suggestions are insightful with great value for us.

 

Now there are the responses to the reviewer’s comments one by one:

 

1. Considering the fact that all the students involved come from the same college, the inferential analysis performed can somehow be questioned.

 

We are very grateful to the reviewer’s advice to advance our study. In terms of participants coming from the same university, this homogeneity indeed weakens the generalizability of this study to a certain extent, and we have added this in section 6 limitation (please see line 383-386). However, this study has also made some efforts in terms of participants’ group heterogeneity, please refer to line 123-126 in section 3 methods.

 

 

2. The answers to the 2 proposed questions are not clearly stated in the article, namely in Sections 5 and 6.

 

We appreciate this view. We added a sub-section ‘5.1 Longitudinal Effects of Sustainable Development Issue-Based Argumentation on Epistemic Performance’ to answer to the 2 proposed questions in Section 5 discussion (please see line 322-348).

 

3. Given the limitations presented by the authors in Section 6, the paper would gain if it could be reformulated taking in consideration, at least, some of these aspects.

 

We appreciate this view. Considering the difficulty of following this constructive advice, we have made some improvements as much as possible and hope that the reviewer can understand. We would explain this in detail.

The original limitation 1 and 2 are about the analytic granularity. In fact, in this study, we have made some efforts in the analytic granularity, such as analyzing different aspects such as epistemic ideals (please see line 254 and 289), epistemic standards (please see line 268), and epistemic aims (please see line 269) at a finer granularity in the analysis process of Sally's three episodes. The reason why we mentioned this limitation in the original Section 6 is mainly because our data size is huge (4233 comments), so it is impossible to adapt an analytical framework with finer granularity in the analysis of each comment. Therefore, we had to some extent addressed the limitation 1, i.e., the granularity at AIR (aims, ideals, and reliable processes) level.

The original limitation 3 is about the further interview. Some of the students currently participating in this study have graduated from their university, and further interview may be limited. Even if participants in this study can be found now, they may have forgotten the reasons, feelings, ideas, and thoughts behind sending certain comments at a certain time, which makes this limitation difficult to address.

We hope that the reviewer understands the difficulties in resolving limitations, and we will try our best to address them in future studies. Thank you very much.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

It's a good paper that can help teachers and researchers deliver their courses on sustainable development. We need this original epistemic approach. The methodology was very well conducted and rigorous. 

Author Response

We are very grateful for the reviewer's highly evaluation. Thank you!

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

This is an interesting study that integrates aspects of education, computer sense and sustainability. One of the strengths of the paper is that of the description and examination of Apt-AIR as the theoretical framework for the study. It would be useful to show how this framework aligns with the research questions and literature used to develop the study. Additionally, there are three areas, which can be further developed in the study. These include:

1. the introduction-more is needed on the key constructs being applied within the study, namely epistemic cognition, epistemic education, augmentation, and sustainable development. 

2. The methodology-more is needed on the actual process of selecting the sample. What was the criteria for selection? How many persons volunteered? What were the two forms of data collected and instruments used? How were these analyzed?

3. Discussion-the part of the paper is critical for bringing these constructs together. The discussion can do this with some more engagement of the literature and with some comparison of the points of convergence and divergence.  

No objections or issues with the quality of English or writing 

Author Response

In general, the reviewer' suggestions are insightful with great value for us.

 

Now there are the responses to the reviewer’s comments one by one:

 

1. The introduction-more is needed on the key constructs being applied within the study, namely epistemic cognition, epistemic education, augmentation, and sustainable development.

 

We are very grateful to the reviewer’s advice to advance our study. We have added this in section 1 Introduction.

Epistemic education, please see line 23-25;

Epistemic cognition, please see line 33-34;

Argumentation, please see line 35;

Sustainable development issue, please see line 39-41.

 

2. The methodology-more is needed on the actual process of selecting the sample. What was the criteria for selection? How many persons volunteered? What were the two forms of data collected and instruments used? How were these analyzed?

 

We are very grateful to the reviewer’s advice to advance our study. Please see line 123-133 for participants’ selection and grouping. The data are argumentative comments from the learning environment. And the instrument is the coding scheme (table 2). Data were analyzed through semantic analysis and coding.

 

3. Discussion-the part of the paper is critical for bringing these constructs together. The discussion can do this with some more engagement of the literature and with some comparison of the points of convergence and divergence.

 

We appreciate this view. We added a sub-section ‘5.1 Longitudinal Effects of Sustainable Development Issue-Based Argumentation on Epistemic Performance’ to answer to the 2 proposed questions in Section 5 discussion (please see line 322-348).

 

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

This is a significant improvement. However, the quantitative data isnt well featured in the findings. Can the authors improve on how the findings across the methods are represented. this will substantively improve the contributions of the paper.

This is no issue with the language of the paper 

Author Response

We appreciated the reviews’ suggestion about the results.

 

The reviewer suggested:

1. However, the quantitative data isnt well featured in the findings. Can the authors improve on how the findings across the methods are represented.

 

We are very grateful to the reviewer’s advice to advance our study. We give detailed explanations (e.g., in which Figure, in which Table; as well as between/among which aspect/issue of data) that lead to the results in quantitative part.

 

Please see line 221-237 for detail.