Science Teachers’ Perceptions and Self-Efficacy Beliefs Related to Integrated Science Education

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The Introduction to the research adequately anticipates the content of the article. Subsection 1.1 is attached to the Introduction as a separate section. The Introduction fulfils its function on its own. It is proposed to integrate the sub-chapter 1.1 into the Theoretical Background.

I suggest in the theoretical part that more names be highlighted in the text because of the number-based reference system. It is much easier to navigate between the theories and ideas if author names are mentioned. This is done, e.g. Dewey, Choi and Pak, but could be indicated more often.

Within Methods, I suggest the following sections: Participants, Instruments, Design and Procedure and Data Analysis. Here the Authors are mixing Research Questions and Design. The Research questions section should not include a description of the research design. The title Survey is given to section 3.1, but 'Instrument' is described there. In 3.3.1 Exploratory Factor Analysis section, Authors’ own data is also indicated. It should be described in the 'Results' section. Here only describe what statistical analysis was used and what the Reader need to know about it. Note the KMO index value is not reasonably high, rather medium.

The 'Discussion' and 'Conclusion' sections should be clearly separated. The 'Limitation' section could be better emphasized. It now appears at the end of the 'Discussion and Conclusion' section.

The bibliography could be updated and more post-2015 literature could be used.

Author Response

Thank you for your insightful review. Here are our answers to the conserns and requests you made.

Section 1.1. introducing integration in the context of Finnish curriculum is not theory-based and, therefore, in our opinion should not be added to the theoretical background. We decided to keep it in place as its own section under introduction.

As requested, more names have been added to the text in Theoretical background to help navigate between theories and authors we refer to.

In Methodology (section 3) and Results (section 4) we made most of the changes based on comments from all reviewers.

1. Research questions were transferred to the end of Introduction (section 1.)
2. We omit methodological triangulation and instead speak of mixed-method research or of qualitative and quantitative methods.
3. Changed the title of section 3.1. to Survey Instrument.
4. Added further clarification on the labels and numbers of the Likert-scale (line 218).
5. In 3.3.1. the sentence mentioning the KMO value (lines 280-281) has been changes to "First, the Kaiser- Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy proved adequate (KMO = 0.672)".
6. To clarify the presentation of our empirical research we have rewritten the introductory paragraphs of section 4 (lines 316-244) and section 4.1. (lines 345-348).

According to our understanding methodology section is the place to describe not only the methods used, but also our choices, what we did to the collected data and why. In our opinion this is what we have done in section 3.3.1. Exploratory Factor Analysis and the numbers or results there relate to explaining our decisions in regards to the method (treating missing-value, factorability of the variables and the extraction criteria). Therefore we have decided not to move them to the Results section.

Your mentioned in your review that the sections Discussion, Conclusions and Limitations should be clearly separated. As we understood this request, it refers to the structure of our manuscript (all under one section) and not the content (these issues have been discussed well enough). However, we have decided to leave the structure of the section 5 as is for two reasons: 1) This (one section for discussion, conclusions and limitations) is in accordance with the guidelines of the journal and also a structure found in other articles 2) Other reviewers did raise this as an issue.

Bibliography: We've added few new references to add to the existing discussion with the latest literature. However, we would like to point out two reasons for using perhaps more than normal amount of pre-2015 literature 1) The research and instrument was designed in 2015 as the survey was distributed end 2015, just before the new curriculum came into effect. 2) When discussing about concepts we think it is important to refer to the original sources or sources that have had a clear impact on the development of the concept. For example self-efficacy is a concept proposed by Bandura (1997), integrated education derives from Dewey’s work in the early 20th century, Beane’s (1997) work on curriculum integration is fundamental and the definition by Lederman and Niess (1997) for interdisciplinary education is widely referred to.

Reviewer 2 Report

Updating the bibliography with the following citations, for example, may include:

• Gil, AJ, Antelm - Lanzat, AM, Cacheiro - González, ML, Pérez - Navío, E. El efecto del apoyo familiar en la participación de los estudiantes: hacia la prevención de la deserción. Psicología en las escuelas , 2021, 58: 1082–1095. https://doi.org/10.1002/pits.22490
• Melero García, L.; Hernández Fernández, A.; Pérez Navío, E. El deporte y su relación con la oncología en los futuros docentes de Educación Primaria. Educ. Sci.  2020 ,  10 , 167. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci10060167
• Román-Meléndez, G.; Pérez-Navío, E.; Medina-Rivilla, A. Perfil del docente inclusivo de básica primaria: orientado a la transformación del proceso formativo en las instituciones educativas oficiales del distrito de Cartagena-Colombia. Información Tecnológica , 2021, 32, 89-108

 

Author Response

Thank you for your review.

To clarify the presentation of our empirical research we have rewritten the introductory paragraphs in Results section (section 4, lines 316-244; and section 4.1., lines 345-348).

In addition, we have updated the bibliography with new references as you requested. However, we would like to point out two reasons for using perhaps more than normal amount of pre-2015 literature 1) The research and instrument was designed in 2015 as the survey was distributed end 2015, just before the new curriculum came into effect. 2) When discussing about concepts we think it is important to refer to the original sources or sources that have had a clear impact on the development of the concept. For example self-efficacy is a concept proposed by Bandura (1997), integrated education derives from Dewey’s work in the early 20th century, Beane’s (1997) work on curriculum integration is fundamental and the definition by Lederman and Niess (1997) for interdisciplinary education is widely referred to.

Reviewer 3 Report

This manuscript aims at understading teachers' perceptions of integrated science education, with a particular focus on the role of teachers' self-efficacy beliefs. Although the data collection took place in 2015, the research study is of interest for the research community, since integrated approaches have been a subject to debate in the last curricular reforms at the international level. The manuscript is overall well-written (despite some minor mistakes) and the content is well organized following a coherent structure. The research problem is clearly explained and the research study builds on a sound theoretical framework. The procedures for data collection and analysis are also suitable, despite some inconsistencies that can be easily corrected. The results are described in a clear way and the interpretation provided by the authors helps to understand the conclusions of the manuscript. Nevertheless, before being published, there are few minor changes that should be made.

Abstract. The first sentence is confusing. The clause "in practice better" seems grammatically wrong, and "in the context of ISE" is quite redundant. I suggest replacing it by "in this context", since the beginning of the sentence already states that the focus is on ISE. I also suggest reviewing the preposition in "teachers' perceptions of" in the sentence "Self-efficacy emerged as a key factor explaining teachers’ perceptions of and their lack of confidence in imple-10 menting ISE as well as their need for support."

Introduction. Although a definition of ISE is provided in the following section, I suggest giving a hint to what the authors understand by ISE already in the introduction, particularly, the first time they mention this concept. It is of particular interest the effort made by the authors in integrating all related notions later on within the theoretical framework, but I consider necessary to provide a cue on line 22. I also recommend to review the manuscript in order to be consistent with the abbreviation ISE. I also realized that the authors employed a different abbreviation in the research instrument (IE), so particularly when describing the results they sometimes use IE and other times ISE. Although the reader might come to the conclusion that both abbreviations represent the same concept, it is better to maintain consistency. Otherwise, the first time IE appears, the reader might think it is a typo.

I assume that in this sentence "However, science teachers’ perceptions regarding integration and the need for integration 52 vary [5, 29, 30] and evidence on science teachers’ self-efficacy for ISE is not comprehensive." the authors mean that research in this field is not very complete. However, this is not clear at all. I suggest reviewing the sentence and considering adding the word "research".

Methodology. It is more common to describe the research questions in the introduction, right after the research goals.

One of the main issues of the manuscript regards the methodological design. The authors state they used triangulation, but I do not agree with this statement. At least in social sciences context (which includes education sciences), triangulation refers to much qualitative research. Method triangulation requires using multiple methods, for example interviews and observation. When content analysis is applied, triangulation means at least three etnographers/researchers/observers do the analysis in order to increase validity. In this research study, data was analysed using different methods depending on its nature. In this sense, Likert-scale items were analysed using statistical descriptive analysis and EFA and open questions were analyzed using content analysis. The second help to understand the results of the quantitative analysis. However, it doesn't mean triangulation was used. Triangulation implies analyzing the same information through (at least) three different sources, whereas in this study quantitative data was analyzed by two methods and qualitative data by one. I suggest removing this consideration from the manuscript.

From subsection 3.1 onwards, the authors refer to the sections and subsections of the manuscript as "chapters", which I consider not very appropriate.

The authors should consider including the research instrument as an appendix.

On line 213, the authors should clarify the relation between the labels and the numbers of the Likert-scale in order to better understand the descriptive analysis. I assume 1 represents "strongly disagree" and 5 represents "strongly agree". This clarification should be added in order to prevent wrong assumptions.

Regarding the Results section, there are also a couple of issues that need clarification. The introductory paragraphs of section 4 need to be rewritten in order to better explain how many factors were found and the interpretation made by the authors. I do not understand the interrelation between the self-efficacy factor (explaining 23.04% of the variance) and what the authors called "the final factor solution" and the four factors considered within (explaining 52.5% of the variance). I suggest reconsidering the order in which this information is presented in order to guarantee understanding. Also, within section 4.1, I do not understand why the factors are described in reverse order (starting from F4).

I am also a bit puzzled by the information presented in some of the tables. For instance, Table 2 refers to categories of IE. Where do these categories come from? In particular, what does the category "other" represent and how is it possible that it has a positive frequency when no variables or statements are related to it? Also, what does the frequency of the last column represent? How is it calculated? The same happens on Table 3 regarding categories of POSS and on Table 5 regarding categories of CHAL. On Table 4, how can the total of frequencies of teachers be higher than 100%? What does this mean?

Figure 1. I suggest replacing "research findings" by "research methods". Nothwithstanding, the authors should reconsider the purpose of this figure considering my previous comment about the triangulation method.

There are some minor mistakes in the writing. Overall, the English writing is of quality, but I encourage the authors to carefully review their manuscript again paying attention to the language. For instance, British and American English are equally used (see for instance line 64 "organise" and line 78 "organized"). I suggest choosing one (British or American) and maintining consistency. Also on line 66, a preposition is missing: instead of "subjects and involve pupils", it should be "subjects and to involve pupils". On line 82, the dot should appear after the bracket. i.e., "materials [32].". In the second research question, the preposition "of" should be removed: "How do science teachers perceive their self-efficacy in relation to ISE?" Also, on line 270, the authors state "was checked and does not cause issues", but it should be "was checked and did not cause issues". These are only some of the minor mistakes found in the manuscript, which might no be the only ones. Therefore, I recommend a detailed review.

Author Response

Thank you for your thorough and insightful review. Here are our answers to the concerns and requests you made.

First, the manuscript has been reviewed in order to correct the minor grammatical mistakes found (including consistent use of abbreviation ISE and British English and speaking of sections and subsections, not chapters). In addition, the requests to rewrite sentences have been taken into account (for example the first sentence of the abstract) and we  added a brief definition of ISE to Introduction (lines 25-28).

In Methodology (section 3) and Results (section 4) we made most of the changes based on comments from all reviewers.

1. Research questions were transferred to the end of Introduction (section 1.)
2. We omit methodological triangulation and instead speak of mixed-method research or of qualitative and quantitative methods.
3. Changed the title of section 3.1. to Survey Instrument.
4. Added further clarification on the labels and numbers of the Likert-scale (line 218).
5. In 3.3.1. the sentence mentioning the KMO value (lines 280-281) has been changes to "First, the Kaiser- Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy proved adequate (KMO = 0.672)".
6. Figure 1 has been updated.
7. To clarify the presentation of our empirical research we have rewritten the introductory paragraphs of section 4 (lines 316-244) and section 4.1. (lines 345-348).

Answers to your questions relating to the tables:

1. The categories of integrated education (IE) in table 2, categories of possibilities (POSS) in table 3 and categories of challenges (CHAL) in table 5 come from the content analysis. This is mentioned more clearly in the revision (section 4 and table captions).
2. The frequencies for essential aims of ISE in table 4 are shown per occurence and per teacher. Teachers could choose up to three aims and most did choose more than one aim. It follows that the total number of frequencies (256) is more than the total amount of teachers (95) and when stating the freq of chosen aims per teacher (% of teachers) the total percentage is over hundred (256/95=2,6947; 269,47%).