Evidence-Informed Teaching: Investigating Whether Evidence from ‘Flipping the Classroom’ Research Improves Students’ Motivation for Mathematics

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to read an interesting study. The text is an attempt to integrate several interesting areas of research, which are: shaping mathematical competence (one of the key competences), activation of students (flipped classroom model) and increasing motivation. The text has a correct structure in the area of introduction, methodological framework, description of research procedure, presentation of research results. The research was carried out on a relatively small sample of 59 students (experimental and control group), so the results should be treated more as the results of a pilot study than an experiment that allows generalization. I have a few remarks that may improve the readability of the text:

1. The year of the research conducted and the age of the pupils should be added in the abstract.
2. In the introduction there is no information (e.g. definition) what kind of motivation will be considered in the article.
3. The description lacks the date of the research.
4. It is worth justifying methodologically why the quantitative perspective was combined with the qualitative perspective. The teachers' statements are extensive quotations without interpretation.
5. The discussion section should be before the conclusion. The discussion section needs a reference to the literature.
6. The issue of lack of statistical significance differences between the control and focus group should be discussed more deeply.
7. The study also lacks a subsection related to the methodological limitations of this research.

I keep my fingers crossed for changes in the text.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you very much for your thorough review. I will give my responses preceded by A3 which is an abbreviation for my first name.

…………so the results should be treated more as the results of a pilot study than an experiment that allows generalization.

A3: This is correct. It is a try-out for al larger European study (4 countries) funded by the European commission, that why I used try-out in the title

Your remarks:

1. The year of the research conducted and the age of the pupils should be added in the abstract.

A3: I was not aware that the year of research should be in the abstract. I added 2019 and the age op the students.

 

1. In the introduction there is no information (e.g. definition) what kind of motivation will be considered in the article.

 

A3:

I added: We define motivation as the desire and willingness to actively participate in the learning process offered by the teacher.

1. The description lacks the date of the research.

 

A3: I added the year 2019 in the method section.

 

1. It is worth justifying methodologically why the quantitative perspective was combined with the qualitative perspective. The teachers’ statements are extensive quotations without interpretation.

A3: I added: “Because of pilot status of this study and we only followed teacher A, we choosed to combine the quantitative perspective for students with a qualitative perspective for teacher A as a mixed method research [ 41b]”

 

            Also I added: “In this reflection we see that the teacher is very positive about evidence informed education. He thinks using evidence is important and inspiring to change his everyday teaching. The project helped him to fill somehow the gap of not knowing how to use research in his profession and stimulated him to continue using evidence during preparation for classes.”

 

1. The discussion section should be before the conclusion.

A3: My apologies. I had not read the template correctly. I’ve now combined it and left out the conclusion section.

The discussion section needs a reference to the literature.

A3: I added some references

1. The issue of lack of statistical significance differences between the control and focus group should be discussed more deeply.

A3: I made an attempt in the new section methodological limitations

1. The study also lacks a subsection related to the methodological limitations of this research.

A3: I added an section methodological limitations

I hope this is enough for you. Thank you again.

Reviewer 2 Report

It is a great scientific effort, both using active methodologies, as flipped-classroom, and evaluating them which will contribute to improve education research, for sure.

Methodology and results are built consistentely and are very coherent.

Although, it is possible to improve the paper in the Theoretical background and in the Conclusions. The author can refer to other, and recent studies as:

• Gómez-Carrasco C-J, Monteagudo-Fernández J, Moreno-Vera J-R, Sainz-Gómez M. Effects of a Gamification and Flipped-Classroom Program for Teachers in Training on Motivation and Learning Perception. Education Sciences. 2019; 9(4):299. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci9040299
• Gómez-Carrasco CJ, Monteagudo-Fernández J, Moreno-Vera JR, Sainz-Gómez M (2020). Evaluation of a gamification and flipped-classroom program used in teacher training: Perception of learning and outcome. PLOS ONE 15(10): e0241892. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0241892 

In these studies, authors reach a similar conclusion when they comment that flipped-classroom (and, in this case, gamification) improve student's motivation and the perception of learning, but instead, the evaluation of the program does not show a significant improvement on the results.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

 

Thank you for your kind words and suggestion to add Gomez and colleagues to my document.

Of course I added this. Especially because it is a Education Sciences paper.

 

Thank you again.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to read the text again. The authors have very conscientiously addressed all the comments from the first review. The text was supplemented with some important methodological information and a definition of motivation.

In its present form, I can with full conviction recommend the text for publication.