Factors Constraining Teachers’ Wellbeing and Agency in a Finnish University: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

It is a study that complements the studies present in the specialized literature regarding the challenges that teachers and students had to face during the pandemic crisis. It also highlights some aspects that should be given special importance in the design of future educational strategies (from the perspective of global sustainable development objectives - SDGs, that include the digitization of education, apart from pandemic crises); one of these key aspects is the training of teaching staff for online education.

As recommendations:

The references in the text of manuscript do not comply with the requirements of the journal: “In the text, reference numbers should be placed in square brackets [ ], and placed before the punctuation”. Also, at the References section  the journal requirements are not met – please see the instruction for authors: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/education/instructions

It is not clear why in fig. 1.2 the number of respondents for the six analyzed items is not 297 for T1 and 246 for T2. Didn't all the participants answer? If not, how were the two reference numbers of participants (297 and 246) validated?

Another limitation of the study may be the relatively low response rate to the addressed questionnaire (approximately 28% in spring and 24% in autumn).

Author Response

Thank you for your positive feedback and constructive suggestions. We have considered them as described below:

1. The references in the text of manuscript do not comply with the requirements of the journal: “In the text, reference numbers should be placed in square brackets [ ], and placed before the punctuation”. Also, at the References section  the journal requirements are not met – please see the instruction for authors: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/education/instructions
   1. References in the text and the References section have now been modified to comply with the requirements of the journal
2. It is not clear why in fig. 1.2 the number of respondents for the six analyzed items is not 297 for T1 and 246 for T2. Didn't all the participants answer? If not, how were the two reference numbers of participants (297 and 246) validated?
   1. Thank you for noticing this. 297 (T1) and 246 (T2) represent total numbers of respondents for spring (T1) and autumn (T2). Our online questionnaire system counts each submitted questionnaire. However, responding to these particular six items was not mandatory. As we can see, in spring there was a little bit more missing data than in autumn. Due to the missing data, the number of respondents vary item by item.

   2. We added the note to the Figure, in which we explain why the number of respondents varied:

      Note: The number of respondents for each item varied in spring (T1) between 284 and 289 from respondents and in autumn (T2) between 244 and 246 as it was not mandatory to respond to all items.
3. Another limitation of the study may be the relatively low response rate to the addressed questionnaire (approximately 28% in spring and 24% in autumn).
   1. This was now added to limitations in order to better acknowledge it:We also acknowledge that the respondent rate was relatively low. It is possible that teachers who experienced more difficulties during the pandemic, found responding as an additional burden and left answering. Methods such as teacher interviews could  provide additional insight on constraining factors also amongst teachers struggling with many challenges  and on how to overcome these constraints.

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to review this proposed article.  I thought this was a very well organised and well written paper. It is impressive that the study was able to start collecting relevant data in March 2020. Being able to offer a pre- and post- account of activity during the pandemic is relatively rare – which is understandable given the unforeseen nature of events. 

There’s not much I have to offer in terms of criticism as I feel the paper is publishable in its present form, but I have the following suggestions for ways that the manuscript might be improved:

·      I encourage you to look again at figure 1 and choose a clearer colour scheme.  In general, I would welcome the use of more tables and charts in the presentation of results.

·      I did not get a strong sense of the Finnish perspective – and indeed Finland is only mentioned in the abstract and final notes.  I think that providing some more context about the Finnish case could improve the contribution of the paper.

·      I agree that teachers need to be heard and supported – but wondered whether this was true all of the time in the same way that it was during the pandemic.

·      The present conclusion seems to me a little generic; could the authors be a little bolder in their recommendations? The final line reads: “This accumulated understanding should be carefully considered when deciding courses of action concerning the development of higher education.“  I would have thought the data showed something more direct about supporting staff under difficult circumstances.

Author Response

Thank you for your positive feedback and constructive suggestions. We have considered them as described below:

1. I encourage you to look again at figure 1 and choose a clearer colour scheme.  In general, I would welcome the use of more tables and charts in the presentation of results.
   1. Thank you for your suggestions. We have now clarified a colour scheme in Figure 1.
   2. About the suggestion for using more tables and charts: We considered it but we did not identify any other results that could be presented as a table/chart/figure. We thus think that the article includes all relevant tables and figures that are needed to open up the results.
2.  I did not get a strong sense of the Finnish perspective – and indeed Finland is only mentioned in the abstract and final notes.  I think that providing some more context about the Finnish case could improve the contribution of the paper.
   1. We added some reflections related to this comment to Discussion section:

      When comparing our results with articles reporting experienced constraints in different parts of the world, we could see that many of them were internationally shared but some of them could also be related to the specific context of our study.

      ...
      

      An obligation for transforming teaching and dealing with constraints related to the research  may have been particularly burdensome for teachers in countries such as Finland, in which teachers traditionally have strong academic autonomy as well as freedom of teaching and research  (see Nokkala & Bladh, 2014).

      ...
      

      This may be explained by the good availability of technological equipment in the Finnish context. 

3.     I agree that teachers need to be heard and supported – but wondered whether this was true all of the time in the same way that it was during the pandemic.
4.    The present conclusion seems to me a little generic; could the authors be a little bolder in their recommendations? The final line reads: “This accumulated understanding should be carefully considered when deciding courses of action concerning the development of higher education.“  I would have thought the data showed something more direct about supporting staff under difficult circumstances.
   1. Thank you for these comments. Based on them, we decided to remind the reader about more concrete  recommendations given at the end of Discussion section as well about the importance of hearing and considering teachers at all times. In addition to practical recommendations for supporting teachers presented above, the findings highlight the importance of hearing and considering teachers’ both internationally shared and locally specific needs for support not only when extensive changes in teaching are expected on a rapid schedule but at all times.