Personally Meaningful Design: Sound Making to Foster Engineering Practices with Artifacts from Home

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article adds knowledge to an important issue; STEM education equity, by presenting the case of using sound as a way to make a noise that is meaning to the children, engaging them in an engineering process.

The introduction, method, results and discussions are clearly stated and coherent.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

I hope this message finds you well. We wish to express our thanks for your time reviewing our submission. Thank you for your valuable time and expertise.

Kind wishes,

Santiago Hurtado, Teemu Leinonen, and Anna Keune

Reviewer 2 Report

The text provided is a detailed analysis of an educational activity involving sound-making and engineering design practices. It highlights the importance of personal tangible artifacts in engaging students and promoting iterative design and material exploration. However, it also points out the limitations of certain tools. The study underscores the importance of personally meaningful experiences in STEM education and suggests that low-tech materials and activities may be more effective in promoting engineering design practices than high-tech alternatives. It also touches on the broader implications of this approach for social, economic, and ecological sustainability. However, the text also acknowledges the challenges associated with using sound as a material for learning activities, as it may be too abstract for some learners. Overall, the text provides valuable insights into the design of educational activities that promote engineering practices and highlights the potential benefits and challenges associated with using sound as a material and personal tangible artifacts as a source of inspiration. 

Nevertheless, some issues must be addressed. The reviewer suggests the following changes:

1) The abstract is clear and articulate, effectively conveying the purpose and findings of your research. However, I would like to kindly suggest that the abstract might be a bit lengthy, as it is generally recommended to keep abstracts to a maximum of 200 words. It could be beneficial to condense it slightly for ease of reading.

Additionally, I noticed a repetition of the phrase "defining problems" in the abstract where important engineering practices are listed. It might be more concise to consolidate this to "asking questions, defining and delimiting problems, and developing and optimizing solutions." I mean changing 

"...engaging in important engineering practices, like asking questions and defining problems, defining and delimiting problems, and developing and optimizing solutions..."

by 

"...engaging in important engineering practices, like asking questions, defining and delimiting problems, and developing and optimizing solutions...". 

2) In the introduction (lines 104-105), in the sentence

"One approach to foster engineering engagement for young people is through constructionism, which suggests that youth use materials that make it possible for youth to create personally meaningful projects through digital and tangible tools and materials (Papert, 1980),"

the repetition of "youth" is a bit redundant. 

3) In the sentence (line 182) "It is everything around us for the hearing abled, and impact the hearing impaired through the vibrations of sound waves," I think, if I am understanding correctly the sentence, the word "impact" should be "impacts" to maintain the subject-verb agreement.

4) In the sentence (line 199) "Also within education, sounds have a wide array of implementations ranging from simple pneumonic devices to understanding the deconstruction of classical musical pieces with mathematical models (Agustín-Aquino & Mazzola, 2019)," is the word "pneumonic" correct? Should it be "mnemonic."? 

5) The study involved 21 ten-year-old students, which is a relatively small sample size. While I understand that qualitative studies often involve smaller sample sizes to allow for a deeper exploration of participants' experiences and perspectives, it is important to acknowledge the limitations associated with this. A smaller sample size limits the generalizability of the findings, and it would be beneficial to address this limitation in the manuscript. It would be helpful to include a discussion on why this sample size was chosen, how it is justified in the context of your study, and the implications it may have on the generalizability of your findings.

6) Additionally, it would be beneficial to provide more information on the selection criteria for the participants. Were there any specific criteria that the students needed to meet to participate in the study? 

7) I have noticed a numbering inconsistency in the subheadings of this section. The subheading "2.3 Research setting and participants" appears before "2.1.1 Setting" and "2.1.2 Workshop". It seems that the numbering for the "Research setting and participants" subheading should be "2.1" instead of "2.3".

8) The first two references are incomplete or incorrect and the figures have a problem with the caption text. I think it is a formatting issue. 

The text is interesting and provides valuable insights into STEM education, and it is recommended for publication once the identified issues are corrected.

No language problems have been detected. Some of the suggestions mentioned before have been provided to improve the quality of the text.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

I hope this message finds you well. We wish to express our thanks for your time reviewing our submission. Your feedback has been valuable in enhancing the quality of our work. We agree with your review points and have addressed them accordingly in the new upload:

1. We adjusted some of the wording highlighted in the abstract and reduced the length as suggested.
2. We changed the word 'youth' to prevent redundancies.
3. We adjusted the word 'impacts' as suggested.
   
4. We corrected the word to 'mnemonic'.
5. We added a paragraph in the discussion that addresses the small sample size used in the study. We highlighted the potential the study has as an initial approach to the topic, which can now be targeted toward bigger sample sizes. Nevertheless, we do acknowledge the limits within the sample size we used in the study. 
6. We added a segment in the section '2.3.1 Participants' that addresses the selection criteria of the participants. We used convenience sampling with the assistance of teachers within the school who suggested voluntary participation in the study to students interested, who had to provide parental consent. Additionally, we also mention theorical justification of the age group as an age where engineering ideas and understandings are starting to develop toward choosing career paths related to the field.
   
7. We addressed the numbering mistake.
8. The references pointed out are formatted in this way due to the blinding process for review and will be corrected afterward.

Thank you for your valuable time and expertise.

Kind wishes,

Santiago Hurtado, Teemu Leinonen, and Anna Keune