“Building Roots”—Developing Agency, Competence, and a Sense of Belonging through Education outside the Classroom

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read your thorough and interesting paper. I enjoyed the detailed descriptions of the activities, that do make this paper different and very strong connected to practice. I do have some comments, mostly minor. Please see al these as point of discussion and suggestions, aiming to improve your paper.

Methods section:

For me, it’s a new style to write a paper in ‘me’ form. I wonder why this is necessarily? If you hold on to that form, from my point of view, the qualitative method used would be improved by then writing a bit more about your own background and position in the field – a kind of ‘disclaimer’ or description of your standpoint concerning EOtC – it seems as you are positive towards EOtC? Then it might affect your analysis and should be claimed somewhere.

Result section

Another issue is the results, the wealth of citations and themes.– it is very interesting, and I do love the detailed descriptions, but I also really have to keep track on what the point is. In some way, the codes are embedded in the paragraphs, but even if it is described in the beginning of the ‘chapters’ which codes are included, it just make it more confusing. Could the ‘codes’ either be integrated IN the text, or just be left as tools in the table?

Discussion

The discussion is clear and well written and follow the structure of the other paragraphs, but I am not familiar with the introduction of new theories in this paragraph. Maybe the ART and SRT theories described in the discussion (page 13) could be integrated in the introduction?

And a minor thing- please read the longer citations thorough again – there are some citation-marks missing, and many of those who are there are placed wrong (e.g. p. 9: …outdoors, not different (Teacher, 3 rd grade)¨ (The citationmark should be before the brackets). It is like this many places, e.g. also on page 11, section 3.4. I also wonder why you are SO close to the in Vivo transcriptions, sometimes they are very difficult to read, like the one low on page 10.

What do the // lines mean in the citations?

Page 1:

From my opinion, Education itself is not able to ’find new ways’ – may rephrase to something like: Finding new ways in education … as it must be people, that try out new ways, not education itself.

 

Page 3:

Maybe you are missing some of the results from the TEACHOUT study here – it does not show that students motivation is evoked, but it show that they do not loose motivation either?

The few studies on the children’s  views are mainly quantitative, and there have so far been no studies that investigate empirically how students’ motivation is evoked as a consequence of their participation in EOtC.

 

Page 4:

Please indicate the age of the students

Page 5:

It could be nice either with an in-text description, or with an appendix with the questions or areas that are used for the semistructured interviews – both for the teachers and the students. What were they asked? What questions did you want an opinion on from the interviees?

 

Page 7:

The quote from the head mistress starting section 3.2, does it tell about autonomy? Some of the later quotes from the students does, but to me the head mistress is more talking about agency…

 

Page 11:

Something happens with the fond here in some of the citations

 

Page 13

The section 4.4 introduced new theory, and is very short. May be some of the theory could be explained more thorough in the introduction, or the chapter maybe be a bit longer here+

Discussion:

You mention that the EOtC project has been going on for a while, and that the teachers volunteer for the project. Have you any idea of how this might have interfered with your results? This study is conducted in Germany – do you claim, that the results are universal?

Some of you findings confirms earlier research, but your reflection upon the students perception of time is new to me – could this part  get a bit more space – maybe also be included in the abstract and in the conclusion?.

 

Good luck

 

Author Response

R#1:

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read your thorough and interesting paper. I enjoyed the detailed descriptions of the activities, that do make this paper different and very strong connected to practice. I do have some comments, mostly minor. Please see al these as point of discussion and suggestions, aiming to improve your paper.

Author:
Thank you very much for your constructive feedback and your helpful suggestions to improve my paper.

 

Methods section:

R#1.
For me, it’s a new style to write a paper in ‘me’ form. I wonder why this is necessarily? If you hold on to that form, from my point of view, the qualitative method used would be improved by then writing a bit more about your own background and position in the field – a kind of ‘disclaimer’ or description of your standpoint concerning EOtC – it seems as you are positive towards EOtC? Then it might affect your analysis and should be claimed somewhere.

Author:
This is in fact a familiar point of critique for my writing style. I acknowledge that there are other areas in research where a more detached and impersonal writing style is preferred, but as I conducted an ethnographic case study, it is more appropriate and a form of good practice to use the “me” form. But you are right that including some sort of positionality statement would be helpful in this article. I have included remarks on my role as a researcher in a new chapter: 4.5 “Strengths and limitations”.

 

Result section

Another issue is the results, the wealth of citations and themes.– it is very interesting, and I do love the detailed descriptions, but I also really have to keep track on what the point is. In some way, the codes are embedded in the paragraphs, but even if it is described in the beginning of the ‘chapters’ which codes are included, it just make it more confusing. Could the ‘codes’ either be integrated IN the text, or just be left as tools in the table?

Author:
I fully understand this objection. I thought long about how to present the results and wanted to structure this as clear as possible and make the steps traceable for the reader. I ended up with this maybe a little cumbersome, technical introduction at the beginning of the chapters – which is by the way especially appreciated by reviewer 2 who writes that they “appreciate(s) the organization of the data including the advanced organizers for each set of presented”. As it would be rather difficult to integrate the codes into the text, and I incline to follow reviewer 2 here, and hope that you can accept this decision.

 

Discussion

The discussion is clear and well written and follow the structure of the other paragraphs, but I am not familiar with the introduction of new theories in this paragraph. Maybe the ART and SRT theories described in the discussion (page 13) could be integrated in the introduction?

This is a good point! I have now moved ART and SRT to the introduction.

And a minor thing- please read the longer citations thorough again – there are some citation-marks missing, and many of those who are there are placed wrong (e.g. p. 9: …outdoors, not different (Teacher, 3 rd grade)¨ (The citationmark should be before the brackets). It is like this many places, e.g. also on page 11, section 3.4. I also wonder why you are SO close to the in Vivo transcriptions, sometimes they are very difficult to read, like the one low on page 10. 

Author:
Thanks for pointing this out. I checked all the citations and added/changed the citation-marks where necessary.

When it comes to the quotes, I wanted to stay as close as possible to the original voices, only omitting or adding something when I thought it was absolutely necessary. But I did change the long citation on page 10 slightly to make it more readable.

What do the // lines mean in the citations? 

Author:
“/” means that there was a noticeable pause in the speech flow. I have added a footnote explaining this and also the other symbols I used in the quotes.

Page 1:

From my opinion, Education itself is not able to ’find new ways’ – may rephrase to something like: Finding new ways in education … as it must be people, that try out new ways, not education itself.

 Author:
You are right here, thanks for the comment. I have changed this in the text according to your suggestion (p.1).

 

Page 3:

Maybe you are missing some of the results from the TEACHOUT study here – it does not show that students motivation is evoked, but it show that they do not loose motivation either?

The few studies on the children’s views are mainly quantitative, and there have so far been no studies that investigate empirically how students’ motivation is evoked as a consequence of their participation in EOtC.

 Author:
I may have expressed myself a little unclear at this point. I wanted to talk about the mechanisms behind motivational effects that had not been studied in the TEACHOUT study and remain a gap in the literature about EOtC. I have now rephrased this sentence:

“The few studies on the children’s views are mainly quantitative, and there have so far been no studies that investigate empirically the mechanisms that explain the effects on students’ motivation as a consequence of their participation in EOtC”.

 

Page 4:

Please indicate the age of the students

Author:
Done.

Page 5:

It could be nice either with an in-text description, or with an appendix with the questions or areas that are used for the semistructured interviews – both for the teachers and the students. What were they asked? What questions did you want an opinion on from the interviees?

 

Author:
I have now included a short description of the questions for students and teachers in chapters 2.4.3 and 2.4.4.

 

Page 7:

The quote from the head mistress starting section 3.2, does it tell about autonomy? Some of the later quotes from the students does, but to me the head mistress is more talking about agency…

 Author:
The point with this quote was that when the students feel agentic, they also act more autonomously, so it actually goes hand in hand, and the quote is meant for the whole chapter which is on the connection between autonomy and agency.

Page 11:

Something happens with the fond here in some of the citations

Author:
Thanks for noticing. I have corrected this.

 

Page 13

The section 4.4 introduced new theory, and is very short. May be some of the theory could be explained more thorough in the introduction, or the chapter maybe be a bit longer here+

Author:
see above. The theories SRT and ART are now presented in the introduction.

 

Discussion:

You mention that the EotC project has been going on for a while, and that the teachers volunteer for the project. Have you any idea of how this might have interfered with your results? This study is conducted in Germany – do you claim, that the results are universal? 

Author:
It may of course have had an influence that the teachers who were part of my case study wanted to work with EOtC and therefore could at least be considered as having a positive attitude towards this teaching approach. Nevertheless, this was also the only option that was available to me. And although I did have one more experienced EOtC teacher (the class teacher of the second grade) and one newcomer (both to EOtC and the school) in my project, the results and mechanisms concerning EOtC in both classes were very similar. Furthermore, as the school continued with EOtC and had a strong advocate in the headmistress, there were more and more teachers who became interested in it so that in the end, almost every single teacher did use some form of EOtC in their teaching, although not as regularly as the teachers in my study. Therefore, I do believe that the results would have been quite similar, even if other teachers of this school had been participating.

When it comes to universal claims: this is of course always a question with this sort of qualitative in-depth studies. These case studies do not aim to claim an overall truth but want to present in detail a specific case in a specific context in a way that is comprehensible for the reader.

I added those reflections in a brief chapter 4.5 “Strenghts and limitations”.

Some of you findings confirms earlier research, but your reflection upon the students perception of time is new to me – could this part  get a bit more space – maybe also be included in the abstract and in the conclusion?.

Author:
I have added this to the conclusion. However, due to wordcount-restrictions, I did not include this in the abstract.

 

Good luck

Author:
Thank you very much!

 

 

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This reviewer appreciates the opportunity to read and provide feedback on this manuscript. The author is to be commended for a very well-grounded and developed paper.

Introduction

The introduction is clearly written and provides a solid foundation for the research. However, the author uses both child/children and student(s) when referencing the learners. This reviewer recommends choosing one way of referencing the learners in this paper. It would also be helpful to define who is being referenced in the studies highlighted for the background of the current manuscript. Are they young children (for example, under the age of 8), or youth, teenagers, etc.?

An additional area that could be considered as background for EOtC is project-based learning. After reading the manuscript, there are certainly connections that could be made to PBL as a way to increase motivation and positive outcomes of various learning environments and bringing teaching and learning content back into the physical classroom space to continue that motivation and engaged learning.

Material and methods

The methods for the study are discussed and provide a clear description of each of the components of data collection.

In addition to noting the grade levels of the classes followed, this reviewer suggests including the age of the children.

Again, the author shifts between “children” and “students” when referencing the learners. Since the children are younger (2^nd and 3^rd grade), this reviewer suggests using “children” when discussing the learners in the classrooms of the study. This issue should be reviewed throughout the paper as it continues in subsequent sections.

Results

This reviewer appreciates the organization of the data including the advanced organizers for each set of presented.

This reviewer finds the outcomes related to child-teacher and child-community very interesting and would be unique topics with which to expand the research.

It may be a result of the submission system but the font for the typing seems to change some and not just between straight font and italics. This should be checked.

Were there any data aligned with the child with Down syndrome? This would be interesting to note for purposes of inclusion and education of children with disabilities particularly with the connections to children with ECBD referenced in 4.1.

The phrase “one boy with migration background…” was used on page 9. This reviewer suggests a more appropriate phrase such as “the child from the family who immigrated to the community…” to be used.

On page 11, 3 teachers are noted as providing information. If there are 2 classrooms being studied, who is the 3^rd teacher?  Is that the assistant for the child with Down syndrome or the headmistress?

Discussion and conclusion

The author provides clear connections and discussion with the data results.

Author Response

R#2

 

This reviewer appreciates the opportunity to read and provide feedback on this manuscript. The author is to be commended for a very well-grounded and developed paper.

Introduction

The introduction is clearly written and provides a solid foundation for the research. However, the author uses both child/children and student(s) when referencing the learners. This reviewer recommends choosing one way of referencing the learners in this paper. It would also be helpful to define who is being referenced in the studies highlighted for the background of the current manuscript. Are they young children (for example, under the age of 8), or youth, teenagers, etc.?

Author:
I would rather like to keep the distinction between child/children and student/students, as I try to use the respective term to refer to their “function” as learners (students) or in a more general way (children).

I have added statements about the age group (seven -13 years old) referenced in background articles in the introduction.

 

An additional area that could be considered as background for EOtC is project-based learning. After reading the manuscript, there are certainly connections that could be made to PBL as a way to increase motivation and positive outcomes of various learning environments and bringing teaching and learning content back into the physical classroom space to continue that motivation and engaged learning.

Author:
Thank you for this comment. The PBL approach is certainly an interesting connection to EOtC – however, due to word limit restrictions, it is unfortunately not possible to add another theory chapter in this study. But I will keep this in mind for the next article on this data set.

 

Material and methods

The methods for the study are discussed and provide a clear description of each of the components of data collection.

In addition to noting the grade levels of the classes followed, this reviewer suggests including the age of the children.

Author:
Done. This was also mentioned by reviewer 1.

Again, the author shifts between “children” and “students” when referencing the learners. Since the children are younger (2^nd and 3^rd grade), this reviewer suggests using “children” when discussing the learners in the classrooms of the study. This issue should be reviewed throughout the paper as it continues in subsequent sections.

Author:
see my comment above.

Results

This reviewer appreciates the organization of the data including the advanced organizers for each set of presented.

This reviewer finds the outcomes related to child-teacher and child-community very interesting and would be unique topics with which to expand the research.

Author: I have written more about this in another article on the same data set which has been published in this journal.

It may be a result of the submission system but the font for the typing seems to change some and not just between straight font and italics. This should be checked.

Author:
Thank you for this observation. I have corrected this.

Were there any data aligned with the child with Down syndrome? This would be interesting to note for purposes of inclusion and education of children with disabilities particularly with the connections to children with ECBD referenced in 4.1.

Author: this is another article in itself and is partly already touched upon in the above mentioned article on the inclusive potential of EOtC.

The phrase “one boy with migration background…” was used on page 9. This reviewer suggests a more appropriate phrase such as “the child from the family who immigrated to the community…” to be used.

Author: Thank you for helping with the appropriate language here. I have changed this sentence according to your suggestion.

On page 11, 3 teachers are noted as providing information. If there are 2 classrooms being studied, who is the 3^rd teacher?  Is that the assistant for the child with Down syndrome or the headmistress?

Author: I have now introduced the three teachers in chapter 2.2 “Participants/the field”.

Discussion and conclusion

The author provides clear connections and discussion with the data results.

Author:
Thank you very much for your constructive and encouraging comments.