Learning Organization Practices in Latvian Schools: Perspectives from School Staff, Students, and Parents

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is a very interesting article with regard to "public policy". Presenting options and/or research aimed at improving teaching in basic schools in a country in times when changes are generally almost instantaneous is the duty of the academic society of each country. Although there are possibly other types of similar proposals, for example, in my country (which I will omit for obvious reasons) significant changes have recently occurred in educational organization, note that my country is not in the bibliographic reviews.

But I believe that this is not a burden for this paper which, in my view, is well written, the logical sequence of the text is very clear, the target audience (school staff, students and parents) is in a good amount for an evaluation and comparison with other situations, with special emphasis on the use of statistics to validate the results (cronbach's alpha test).

I believe that MDPI's editing process, if this article is accepted, will pay attention to numerous formatting errors, such as words stuck together, extra spacing between "," or ".", etc..

Finally, I believe that an analysis of direct citations in the text is necessary, because, when passing the article through a plagiarism software, it accused suspects of similarities in 18.3%, I believe that it is necessary to pay attention to the correct citation of the sources .

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, 

The authors of the article would like to express a gratitude for the review of the article. We highly appreciate your contributions and the comments provided.

Several improvements have been made to the article, including reducing the text's similarity to other published studies. Unfortunately, we cannot avoid this in all cases, for example, the names of the SLO model dimensions need to be mentioned in all sections of the research results.

 

Sincerely,

The authors of the article

Reviewer 2 Report

We appreciate that the work has been carried out with accessible instruments allowing its replication. We also appreciate the fact that it has addressed an issue of capital importance for the development of education today. The results confirm the generalized perception, at least in our field, of a certain dissatisfaction among students and their families. We agree that the empowerment of leadership within the educational team and its projection outside it throughout the educational environment is essential to achieve the involvement of all parties involved. It would be very useful to replicate the study in different national and territorial areas.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, 

The authors of the article would like to express a gratitude for the review of the article. We highly appreciate your contributions and the comments provided.

 

Sincerely,

The authors of the article

Reviewer 3 Report

This is an overall well-written paper on a very interesting topic regarding the implementation of the school as a Learning Organisation (SLO) model in Latvia. The structure is clear, the rational is concise and it portrays well a rich set of research data. The manuscript could benefit from the below changes:

In some parts, sentences that are too long are observed that hinder reader’s understanding e.g. lines 25-30, 101-107, whereas some sentences are missing the verb, thus, need rephrasing e.g., 623-627.

A suggestion would be to compare point by point the cases of different countries regarding the SLO model implementation both in the introduction and in the discussion/conclusions. These would greatly enhance readers’ understanding as well as highlight common achievements or challenges, and last but not least, make for a more intriguing presentation.

Perhaps, the research questions could be rephrased in a more detailed way or/and further divide in order to guide the presentation and discussion of the research results in the relevant chapters. The same applies for the SLO dimensions in the Discussion part.

Methodological speaking, it is unclear why the researchers opted for a four-point scale which casts a shadow of ambiguity over the responses of the participants.  

Moreover, further statistical analyses (besides the triangulation) would significantly strengthen the insights revealed by the research data or/and possible interpretation which at the moment the manuscript lacks e.g., lines 605-607.

Finally, there are is no clear mention of limitations and further research suggestions. It would be an advantage if certain references that date before 2012 would be replaced, if possible, by more recent studies.

 

Kind Regards

 

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, 

The authors of the article would like to express a gratitude for the review of the article. We highly appreciate your contributions and the comments provided and would like to thank you for your suggestions to improve the article.

As far as possible, the following improvements have been made in the article:

1. In some parts, sentences are shortened.
2. The research questions have been slightly refined.
3. In the discussion section, there is an addition of information about the countries mentioned in the article's introduction (Portugal, Greece), and provided information on limitations and further research suggestions. The discussion section has been supplemented with some references to the research results. 
4. Certain references that date before 2012 are replaced by more recent sources.

 

Sincerely,

The authors of the article