Educational Challenges for Computational Thinking in K–12 Education: A Systematic Literature Review of “Scratch” as an Innovative Programming Tool

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article deals with a topic of real interest in K-12 education, especially in the conditions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The abstract relatively highlights the research methodology used indicating as a technique a systematic literature review (SLR) supported by a bibliometric construction and visualization tool (VOSviewer). An express indication of the methodology used and the tools used would be welcome! The purpose of disseminating the results of a research can also be a support for a possible reproduction of that research.

Author Response

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Please see attachment where we address your comments and suggestions.

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper presents a literature review about "Scratch" and its incorporation in education. Even though the idea is promising, I find that the writing and presentation of the topic is slightly immature. To this end, I propose that the authors should make the following changes so that the article can be considered for publication: 

1. State the motivation, contribution and novelty of this research in the introduction.
2. Materials and methods should be section 2.
3. The authors are advised to include the following references to support several assertions:
   • C. Troussas, A. Krouska, C. Sgouropoulou, Collaboration and fuzzy-modeled personalization for mobile game-based learning in higher education, Computers & Education, Volume 144, 2020, 103698, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2019.103698.
   • J. Arnedo-Moreno and D. García-Solórzano, "Programming is Fun! A Survey of the STEAM Digital Distribution Platform," 2020 IEEE 32nd Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training, Germany, 2020, pp. 1-4.
   • C. Troussas, A. Krouska, M. Virvou and E. Sougela, "Using Hierarchical Modeling of Thinking Skills to Lead Students to Higher Order Cognition and Enhance Social E-Learning," 2018 9th International Conference on Information, Intelligence, Systems and Applications (IISA), Greece, 2018, pp. 1-5, doi: 10.1109/IISA.2018.8633669.
4. To better show the results, several tables (accumulating and highlighting the findings) should be added.
5. The subsections of the results should not be the answers of the RQs, but simple titles (reflecting them).
6. Limitations of this study are missing at the moment.

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Author Response

I would like to personally thank you for investing time in reviewing and suggesting improvements to our report.

Please see attachment where we address your comments and suggestions.

Regards..! 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

It is an interesting article, although the editor-in-chief should first review its suitability for the topics of this journal. Leaving aside this consideration, which is not my responsibility, I will now evaluate the article. The SLR is well thought out, the methodology seems solid and well documented. However, I believe that given that the main pillar of this article is the SLR results and their discussion, I think it is necessary to go a step further and incorporate powerful databases, such as WoS, beyond ProQuest. Without this, we are subject to bias and publications that may be less relevant, thus making their dissemination less far-reaching. Likewise, I would further develop a discussion of the threats to the validity of the study conducted, based on the methodology used for SLR (intrinsic threats, extrinsic threats, etc.) and how the authors have tried to narrow them down.

Author Response

I would like to personally thank you for investing time in reviewing and suggesting improvements to our report.

Please see attachment where we address your comments and suggestions.

Regards..! 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have adequately addressed the reviewers' comments and thus I recommend that the paper is accepted for publication.

Author Response

I would like to personally thank you for investing time in reviewing and suggesting improvements to our report.

Regards..!

Reviewer 3 Report

I believe that the authors have done a substantial job of improvement, and although there are still aspects that could be improved, as I commented in my first review, the scientific soundness has improved significantly.

Author Response

I would like to personally thank you for investing time in reviewing and suggesting improvements to our report.

Regards..!