Teachers’ Pedagogical Beliefs in a Project-Based Learning School in South Africa
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Thank you for the opportunity to review your paper. It has many interesting aspects and is generally well-structured and well written. I have a few comments that I hope will be helpful.
One area where I think more detail is needed is on the ethical protocols and permissions followed. I felt that the natural position to place discussion of these issues was on p.4 whereas you only come to them on pp.7-8. For example, were teachers promised anonymity? What was the relationship between the researchers and the school and the participants? You say (quite late on in the paper) that one of the authors owns the school and is the CEO. How was the possibility that participants would say what they thought they ought to say taken on board? Would the participants remain anonymous from the author who was also the owner and school CEO? You say that the participation rate of 87% underlines the voluntary nature of participation, but that is a very high participation rate and so, to me, does the opposite. The role of one of the authors as the owner and the CEO of the school involved needs to be highlighted at the beginning of the paper. In addition, such identification is going to mean that the school cannot remain anonymous.
This raises another issue which is that this is effectively a report on a single institution and, moreover, one which has an explicit commitment from the ‘top-down’ to PBL. In that context the findings are as would be expected as, for example, when you write:
“The participants were found to hold more constructivism-based beliefs than traditional teaching beliefs, which could be due to ongoing pedagogical training for these teachers’ professional development and the top-down implementation of PBL strategies at the curriculum level”;
“participants with more years of teaching experience at N school were found to hold fewer traditional teaching beliefs (TM and TT) than newcomers at N school”;
“Participants reported their understanding of what a good teacher was according to three characteristics: knowledge about the subject and curriculum, teaching competencies, and interpersonal values”.
I also noted the comment that “participants also emphasized the importance of taking on the role of psychologists in order to support students’ mental health, well-being, and personal growth. On the one hand, the teachers’ roles as healthcare workers and psychologists encouraged closer relationships between them and their students: the teachers reassured students of their safety, took care of their emotions, and asked about their families or friends”
This to me raises some serious issues. Teachers are, for the most part, not trained psychologists or healthcare workers and so I thought that this raised some potentially interesting and problematic issues.
In Table 1, the position of the ‘Total’ line at the bottom is a bit misleading, and the thickness of the line under ‘Newly joined’ looks thicker than the others. It needs a bit of tweaking to be clearer.
I am not a statistician and so cannot comment on the statistics included in the paper.
In Table 2, I have some reservations about the Items listed which seem very simplistic.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
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Reviewer 2 Report
Thank you for the opportunity to review your submission. The authors have made a significant contribution to an important issue in education - especially where traditional perspectives are still very much considered and adopted in their everyday pedagogical practices in educational contexts (and the problems associated). Some may argue that traditional vs constructivists' views in education is an outdated debate. However the authors have well considered its relevance to today's practice which I am sure, like myself, that others will also find relevant and useful. The discussion on teachers' beliefs (and its relevance) was also well discussed. The examples of methods and strategies teachers adopt was also well noted. Some of the limitations noted by the authors could have been minimised in the current study however overall, this paper has an important input in this very important discussion on education and quality.
Author Response
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Reviewer 3 Report
I really appreciate your conclusion that moving from traditional to constructivist perspectives among teachers will require positive attitudes toward constructivist practices and adoption of an innovative approach.
Thank you for sharing your study. It is well done and follows established methodologies.
Author Response
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Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Thank you for the amendments to your paper, which I think have improved it.
As regard the point about teachers taking on the role of psychologists and healthcare workers (lines 451-459), I fully get the point you make on your comments about this. In fact, I think if you could use the wording you used in Comment 3 to make the point that teachers were using these terms colloquially in the ways that you describe there. This would make that point even clearer for the readership.
Author Response
Thanks very much for your comments which have certainly improved the article. We have marked up and included the following explanation of the use of the term 'psychologist' and 'heath-care workers' in line 404 to 411 of the article. The term 'psychologist' and 'health care workers' were mentioned and used colloquially by participants. Such terms were used as self-perceived which did not reflect on any officially defined concepts. In the emergent Covid-19 cases, various employees including security guards, administration staff, secretaries, and teachers who are not professionally trained as 'psychologists' or 'heath care workers' were involved in various forms of Covid-19 protocols including temperature scanning, sanitizing people, and some form of pastoral care and psychosocial support.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
