Dimensions of Subject Knowledge and Their Perceived Significance for Teachers in Romania

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I find this a very thoughtful paper, well hypothesized with clear conclusions. It is definitely worthy of publication. My suggestions relate to the presentation and ordering which I feel could do with a little more thinking through. In particular:

1. The methods aren't all stated up front, or at least not clearly. The documentary analysis is actually analysis of an existing dataset. In the methods section the way the questionnaire is structured, including the section on perceptions of the way forwards for teacher assessment, rather than in the findings section. (Materials and Methods section also needs to be in the past tense.). No mention of ethics in the methods section (apologies if I missed).

2. Likewise the description of the way and order in which the tests take place should be mentioned earlier (prior to Methods?). In addition, lose subjective terms e.g. l344 ‘unfortunately’.

3. The descriptions of the filters should remain where they are but much of the discussion around them could be streamlined or moved to the Discussion section for ease of reading. I think the Discussion section could be bolstered by keeping the findings section as purely the presentation of findings and the discussion could then expand in one place what this all means.

4. I would have liked to have known (although retrospectively this may not be possible) when the participating teachers themselves took the teacher tests (not just whether or not they passed) as this may have been influential.

5. Figure 1 I’m not entirely sure I understand the positioning of P.C.E. and P.E.E.. Can this be explained a little more clearly?

 

6. Table 3 I don’t think you need the pie charts – they are quite difficult to read and the detail is already in the tables.

7. Table 5 is teacher perceptions of the extent to which these tests assess these aspects? Needs to be stated clearly.

 

 

8. Finally a brief paragraph on strengths/limitations may be useful. 

 

 

See above - documentary analysis should be rephrased, methods in past tense.

Author Response

Thank you so much for your review. I learned a lot while implementing your suggestions.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper shows one interesting country case of teacher's quality and perceptions of it. In the paper, the introduction should describe more deeply the previous findings in the field. It is generally known and accepted that teacher needs subject knowledge, pedagogical knowledge and pedagogical subject knowledge. These concepts are shortly mentioned however the relationship between the these concepts and those in this paper is difficult to understand. The relationship could be described more deeply. This could then allow better discussion between previous findings and the results in the paper which at the moment is very short (only one reference). Even that the the selection system is unique in Romania, the importance of subject knowledge, pedagogical knowledge and pedagocial subject knowledge is obvious.

Material and methods sounds to be written clearly as well as results. Discussion should be improved (see above).

English is quite complicated with complex concept definitions.

Author Response

Thank you so much for your review. I learned a lot while implementing your suggestions.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for the clarification. I accept you point of view.