Inclusive Pedagogy at University: Faculty Members’ Motivations

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

This is a fascinating topic about students with discipline in higher education and the challenges of faculty in handling the education journey of this student in 10 Spanish universities. The study utilised a qualitative survey to investigate the challenges in higher education. The sample size of faculty was selected based on the student investigation, and then the authors chose to let the students with disability choose professors who perform with them. An email was sent to such professors to show their willingness to participate in this survey.  The data analysis utilises MaxQDA12 software to conduct the results.   

As such, this study is well-written and structured. However, I have some comments that need further development. 

1- The survey questions launched to students with disabilities and faculties should be mentioned.  

2- The discussion section should discuss the current results of previous studies in Spain or similar contexts in Europe. 

3- The discussion section should also discuss the research limitations of using a qualitative approach. 

4- Future research based on the research limiation/s should be added. I recommend ending the current study with the limitations and then suggesting future research based on these limitations.   

Author Response

Dear reviewers,

First of all, the authors of the article would like to thank you for the time and effort you have put into reviewing our work. We greatly value your positive comments and are pleased that you find the study relevant.

Likewise, we are very grateful for all your suggestions for improvement, which have undoubtedly helped us to improve the article.

All changes can be identified in the red colored text. Below, we respond to each of the three reviewers' comments, pointing out the changes made or explaining the doubts that arose during the reading.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is an important topic. I really appreciate that you “present a different reality, showing that there are educators who take into account all their students individually and who see diversity in the classroom as an enriching element and a learning opportunity” (lines 383-385). Your findings are compelling, and the wider world would benefit from the attitudes and practices of the faculty you interviewed. There are aspects of the manuscript that need to be clarified, however, to make the work as comprehensible and effective as it can be. I offer recommendations below.

While it is clear what your focus will be, there is unnecessary wordiness and repetition in the introduction regarding that focus. For instance, you do not need both “achieve” and “offer” in this sentence: “This situation leads universities to reflect on ways to achieve and offer a quality service that meets the expectations of students…” You can simply use “offer.” Your use of “achieve” in the following sentences is fine. Likewise, this sentence is wordy: “There are some challenges facing students with disabilities in successfully completing a university degree, and many of such factors are related to faculty members, who are very important agents in providing accessible teaching for these students.” How about: “Among the factors preventing students with disabilities from successfully completing a university degree, many are related to faculty members and how accessible their teaching is.”  Please check for wordiness and repetition and revise where possible throughout the manuscript.

I appreciate that students identified the faculty members who were included in the study. A theme you might more strongly emphasize in this discussion is the essential role of students in these analyses. Disability rights advocate Jay Dolmage (2015) argues that all of us in higher education are “involved in the continued production of space” in which learning takes place, and he also argues that “students should be agents in this negotiation” (para 2). [Dolmage, Jay. 2015. Universal design: Places to start. Disabilities Studies Quarterly 35(2). https://dsq-sds.org/article/view/4632/3946 ] You can note in your methods and also in your “4. Discussion and conclusions” section how important the role of students is in this research.

 

How did you decide on the characteristics of inclusive pedagogy (lines 116-120)? Are they drawn from the work of Moriña? It would be helpful to share in section 2.1 how you derived that list of characteristics. In fact, it would be helpful to have a section before “2. Materials and Methods” in which you provide a focused literature review that includes defining and briefly discussing the definition of inclusive pedagogy you are using. You mention in section “2.2. Research instruments” that you used the dimensions of inclusive pedagogy outlined by Moriña, but you do not say what those are. You mention four analytical categories (knowledge, beliefs, designs, and actions), but you do not explain the relationship between the dimensions of inclusive pedagogy and the analytical categories, and you do not really follow those in your analysis. Readers need to understand these things and be able to trace them throughout. You might also include in such a literature review section some reference to literature on Critical Disability Studies. See the following article for both a short review of some key ideas from Critical Disability Studies and also an example of an approach that helps faculty gain insight and empathy: Cook-Sather, A., & Cook-Sather, M. (2023). From Reporting to Removing Barriers: Toward Transforming Accommodation Culture into Equity Culture. Education Sciences, 13(6):611. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13060611  Making these kinds of connections and situating your work within these larger conversations would strengthen your own manuscript and also contribute to these wider conversations.

Be careful not to use words that reinforce a deficit model. For instance: instead of “a lack of certain capacities that prevents the person from normally conducting some actions” (line 177-178) you could remove “normally” so the line reads: “a lack of certain capacities that prevents the person from conducting some actions”

 

The quotes you include in italics need to be framed and also indented. So, for instance, something like this:

 

“… they used the word “challenge” over “limitation,” as in the following response:

 

Difficulty, challenge, complexity... Above all, someone who needs help, someone with great will. I think they are very valuable people, because they could be depressed at home; however, they are here. So, on the one hand, I think it’s a challenge, a difficulty; and, on the other hand, it takes a lot of courage to do things, a courage that not many people without disabilities have, because we have never valued our lack of such barriers (Faculty 77, Social and Legal Sciences).

 

Again, please read for repetition and wordiness. For instance, this sentence: “Another idea from the conception of disability as a difficulty of the person was pointed out by those who used the term “need”, indicating that they are people who need extra support and opportunities to develop their potential and to be in equal conditions as people without disabilities” could be “Another idea from the conception of disability as difficulty was pointed out by those who used the term “need”, indicating the need for extra support and opportunities to develop potential and succeed.” Just to be clear, it is inaccurate to end that sentence with “to be in equal conditions as people without disabilities” because that is not possible and also is not what the quote says. The quote focuses on providing what students need to engage in their learning.

I am confused by the title and framing of section “3.1.1. Disability as a limitation of capacities.” I do not see that the quotes you include support that definition. Rather, they support the idea that a disability is a challenge that requires courage and commitment to work with (“overcome” is inaccurate, since disabilities do not go away) and in response faculty need to rethink structures and practices and provide responsive support. I do not see any evidence from the quotes you include of “disability as limitation of capacities.”

The first paragraph of section “3.1.2. Disability as a diversity of capacities” is very hard to follow. I think you mean the following (and, again, you need to frame the quote, not just drop it in, so use a colon at the end of the sentence before the quote):

In contrast to the conception of disability as limitation, other faculty members understood disability as among a diversity of capacities. They used the term “functional diversity” instead of “disability”, suggesting that the latter implies a lack of capacities. One of the participants argued that this state is inherent to any person, since no one has all capacities. In short, everyone has different capacities:

I do not know what “3.1.3. Disability in the academic scope” means. And the quote you include really seems to belong to the previous section, “3.1.2. Disability as a diversity of capacities.”

It is not illuminating to readers simply to claim something is interesting. Therefore, I suggest revising these sentences—"Another interesting idea was the conception of the participants about how they had to work with students with disabilities. They stated that these students should not be treated differently for having a disability.”— to “Participants also asserted that students with disabilities should not be treated differently for having a disability.”

Be sure your pronoun references are clear: This sentence—“What they did indicate was that, although they are equal to the rest of the students, in some cases they may require certain supports or adjustments, which the participants were willing to make to guarantee the success of the student” —should be “What these faculty did indicate was that, although students with disabilities are equal to the rest of the students, in some cases they may require certain supports or adjustments, which the participants were willing to make to guarantee the success of the student”

Again, readers gain nothing from your assertion that something is interesting: “It is interesting to begin with the idea that faculty members have about disability” (line 386). I recommend that you simply delete that sentence.

After you add a literature review section, as suggested above, that provides more discussion of the definition of inclusive pedagogy you are using and links to Critical Disability Studies, you can connect back in your “4. Discussion and conclusions” section to that scholarship and also to the threads of conversation to which you are contributing. You might also make some recommendations for interventions, such as the one featured in the article I recommend above, “From Reporting to Removing Barriers: Toward Transforming Accommodation Culture into Equity Culture.” Given how challenged many faculty feel by the reality of working with students with disabilities, any guidance and advice you could offer, based on what you learned from the faculty you studied, would be helpful to readers.

Thank you again for this important work.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The wordiness and repetition, as well as some of the other lack of clarity I have pointed out above, indicate the need for some editing.

Author Response

Dear reviewers,

First of all, the authors of the article would like to thank you for the time and effort you have put into reviewing our work. We greatly value your positive comments and are pleased that you find the study relevant.

Likewise, we are very grateful for all your suggestions for improvement, which have undoubtedly helped us to improve the article.

All changes can be identified in the red colored text. Below, we respond to each of the three reviewers' comments, pointing out the changes made or explaining the doubts that arose during the reading.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The study is relevant. The theoretical part justifies the research problem, the research design is clearly described and the results are consistently analysed.

In order to improve the quality of the paper, I recommend that you add two parts to the paper. In the discussion section, the results of the study are summarised but no conclusions are drawn. Conclusions are needed in this paper to clarify and highlight the findings of the study. It is also important to point out the limitations of the study, as the participant group consisted of a purposively selected group of lecturers with positive attitudes towards inclusion.

Author Response

Dear reviewers,

First of all, the authors of the article would like to thank you for the time and effort you have put into reviewing our work. We greatly value your positive comments and are pleased that you find the study relevant.

Likewise, we are very grateful for all your suggestions for improvement, which have undoubtedly helped us to improve the article.

All changes can be identified in the red colored text. Below, we respond to each of the three reviewers' comments, pointing out the changes made or explaining the doubts that arose during the reading.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for revising according to most of the feedback offered in the first round. The article is clearer and stronger as a result.

I still do not see a literature review added, although I do see additional explanation of the grounding in the literature. As I noted in my first review, having a separate literature review section would help readers have a clear sense of the scholarly basis of your work, rather than having all of that information included in the introduction. Also, having that section would allow you to more fully address the third recommendation I offered in my first review: link back to the literature review in the discussion and conclusion.

There are still some minor grammatical and stylistic issues that will, I trust, be caught be a copyeditor.

Thank you for this important work.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

There are still some minor grammatical and stylistic issues that will, I trust, be caught be a copyeditor.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, Thank you very much for taking the time again to read the article. We are glad that you feel that the work is better now. Regarding the change in the literature review, we apologize, as we misinterpreted what you were asking for. We have made the change and created a specific section. Thank you very much for everything.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx