Learning Patterns in STEAM Education: A Comparison of Three Learner Profiles

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The title as well as the introduction raised expectations about your manuscript and research. The topic you are addressing would be a relevant addition to existing literature. Thank you for this valuable contribution. I will structure my feedback in (a) general remarks (these comments cover feedback applicable in the entire manuscript), and (b) specific remarks (feedback on sentence and/or word level). The specific remarks can include a quote from your original manuscript to refer to a specific section. The specific remarks will refer to page (emphasis added in boldface; e.g., 1.15/16).

 

General remarks:

The overall manuscript is neat and written concisely—with relevant information for existing literature. One aspect that you can focus on in-text referencing. I think the “[]” were deleted? It makes your work hard to read. Furthermore, some sentences contain redundant words. One serious issue I spot is the lack of coherence in the theoretical framework. You can solve this by restructuring your sections (start with STEAM, end with learner profiles). Also the use of signaling words can help you create more coherence.

 

Specific remarks:

p.abstract        You label the profiles; however, you do not give any information what behavior patterns you include in the profile. Shortly address these in your abstract to prepare the reader. In addition, the last sentence contains a statement that needs to be explained in detail in your manuscript later on.

p.1/2                You insert a quote from Dörnyei; however, the sentence after that is not properly introduced. All of a sudden you introduce terms such as cognitive and noncognitive. In a similar vein, you introduce cognitive and emotional engagement as concepts. And then your research questions involve collaborative learning performance? This is also not properly introduced. The introduction is lacking coherence.

p.2                   The first sentence of the section “2.1. Learning Profiles” needs to be supported by sources.

p.2                   The following sentence is incorrect: “There are several learning profiles the in…”. The word “the” is erroneous.

p.2                   You need to elaborate on the difference between motivation and emotion (you mentioned emotional engagement and motivational variables whilst discussing the study by Merceron (2004). Later on (page 3) you discuss motivation and emotion. I would start with the STEAM education and end with learning profiles. In that order, you can discuss the learning profiles in the context of STEAM.

Again in this section, there is a lack of coherence (p. 2). The studies are discussed separately. What do they have in common? What does the reader need to know from these to understand your study? Restructuring your section and add explicitly the link between concepts (or signaling words) will increase the coherence.

p.3                   Add the SD for the students’ age. Moreover, in “the whole project” the word “whole” is redundant.

p.4                   Figures and images needs to serve a purpose in manuscripts. The photos you have in your manuscript do not serve a purpose. I would suggest to move them to the appendix. If they are only to illustrate collaboration without any elaboration, they do not have a purpose.

p.4                   The data collection paragraph can be more detailed. What did you do when you were cleaning up the sample? What did you do with missing data? Your statement is too general.

p.5                   The learning behaviors are not properly introduced in your theoretical framework. Moreover, the HOT behaviors also need an explanation because the source is unknown. You explain in the main text what it entails; however, you do not mention the source of data. In addition, both the verbal communications and body gestures and eye contact require more information. If you code something for “tone”, you need practice. How did you make sure you had sufficient practice to code this? I am surprised there is no intrarater nor interrater reliability?

p.x                   I also do not read anything about informed consent? These are primary school students. Their parent(s)/caretaker(s)/guardian(s) need(s) to provide consent for participation.

p.7                   Place parameters in italics (SD, n, M). Also check the remainder of your manuscript for this.

p.7                   I did not read anything about gender differences in your research question. Again this aspect is not introduced properly.

p.figure5         You should increase its size. It is hard to read.

p.11                 In your discussion you miss something crucial: do teachers have the knowledge and ability to recognize certain gestures and facial expressions? Are they able to interpret these correctly without losing too much time on them? The idea you propose is relevant from a theoretical perspective, but it does not hold in practice. A teacher probably does not have time to go over all these variables.

References      The hyphen needs to be replaced by an en dash. Sometimes you do this (ref. 4) and sometimes you do not (ref. 1). Moreover, the capital letter use in the titles is inconsistent (compare ref. 7 with 8).

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper estimates the number and characteristics of the different learner profiles that we meet in STEAM educational setting in primary education. It is based on a limited population, which is a limitation, but it still has some interesting findings. To the best of this reviewer's knowledge, this is one of the first, if not the very first, study to examine learner profiles specifically in the STEAM setting, so the smaller data size is not a very important limitation.

The authors' approach to the analysis of the data is reasonable and the discussion is well supported by the reported findings.

One limitation concerns the gathered data. Not enough information is provided regarding the data gathered, the way it is processed or what the actual data looks like.

On more detailed comments:

It will enhance readability if references are put in brackets, eg [1].

In the first paragraph:

"STEAM is an essential tool for covering the growing demand for human capital and economic development 35." Perhaps the reference is not for paper 35 but rather for the range 3-5? Similarly, later in the paper, references 1617, 1920, 212122 and so on.

In the second paragraph:

"Learner profiles can visually mark and classify learners". It is not clear what it means that learner profiles *visually mark* learners. Perhaps it could be further explained?

Section 2.1:

There is an "Error! Reference source not found..", probably from MSWord and an error in adding references?

Section 3.1:

"A total of 94 sixth-grade students". Perhaps this was meant to be "A total of *91* sixth-grade students"?

Page 4:

"Figure 1 shows the performance of students’ collaborative learning in different lessons.". The figure only shows some students implementing some tasks, there is no information if the figure about the students *performance*. This also applies to the figure caption.

Section 3.2:

"Through data collection, cleaning, and pretreatment, this study eliminated some erroneous samples and variables with many missing data". This overly generic sentence does not carry any specific information. What data were initially gathered? What data cleaning was done? What was the pre-treatment method applied? What were the criteria to classify samples as erroneous? Why where there missing data and what was the threshold to determine that there were "many missing data"? 

Section 3.2.1:

"we coded students’ emotions through their facial expressions or tone". There exist many classifications for emotions, which one was used in this work? The detail of the classification (one of two axes, few or many distinct classes, consideration of neutral state or not) can have a major effect on the subsequent analysis.

Section 5: 

"the number of Followers in STEAM learning needs to be minimized"

This phrase goes against the whole concept of the paper. If the three categories that the authors identified are indeed "learner profiles" as both the title and full text suggest, then they classify the internal characteristics of the students rather than their external behavior. Then, it cannot be changed. Earlier in the paper, in the motivation, the authors explain that they wish to identify the different learner profiles so that each type of student can be taught in a more suitable way; that makes more sense that this suggestion of somehow "fixing" the student by changing their internal characteristics.

Section 5.1

I would like to take this opportunity to comment of how interesting and useful section 5.1 is, taking the theoretical findings of the work and transforming them into specific advice for STEAM educators. Congratulations!

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

There should be a capitalized letter in the header of section 3.2.3 (page 6).