Scouts’ Perspectives on Learning Experiences from a Pedagogical Innovation Scope

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

The paper treats an interesting topic with a focus on the Portuguese education system.

First of all, the “Abstract” section is well-structured and contains all the necessary information for a high-level description of the paper's aim and implications, providing, at the same time, an innovative aspect of the study. Keywords/keyphrases are relevant to the study too.

By moving to the main part of the paper, it is also well-structured in clear sections. In terms of the literature review, the “Introduction” section is well elaborated while defining and analyzing the basic terms stated in the Abstract. Regarding the references used, a more holistic view of the topic would be provided by citing more references while at the same time, authors could still replace a few of them with more recent ones. 

Moving on to the Methodology of the study, this is quite clear and it is also helpful that the authors have separated the content of the "Materials and Methods" section into multiple subsections.

What's more, both the “Findings” and ”Discussion” sections are clear. The information in the corresponding Tables and Figures is well displayed, whilst the limitations of the present study and any suggestions for further research could be added to a separate section before "Conclusion" as well. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

see my peer review to the author 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

See attached file.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

I don't have any specific comments on the quality of English language. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

no comments

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

As you may have read in our response to Reviewer 3 during Round 1 of revision, the decision to share data from such extensive qualitative research as this one was a pivotal aspect of our study as we formulated the original manuscript in its unpublished version. However, given the data’s voluminous nature, we removed the participants when submitting the manuscript in order to enable its publication. This deliberate step allowed us to streamline the article significantly. 

Nevertheless, while our primary goal was to condense the content for publication, we also valued the importance of transparency in our data treatment process. In navigating this balance, during Round 1 of revision we opted to present a judicious selection of registration units, acknowledging the vastness of our dataset. This "compromise solution" involved showcasing a limited number of representative examples chosen for their relevance and illustrative nature. This approach ensures that the readers gain insight into the depth and diversity of our qualitative findings while acknowledging the impracticality of presenting the entire dataset within the constraints of a journal article. By providing these select examples, we aim to maintain transparency in our research process and offer a glimpse into the richness of the qualitative data collected – please see “Results”, pages 8 to 15.

Thank you for your feedback.
Kind regards

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for your revisions to “Scouts’ perspectives on learning experiences from a pedagogical innovation scope.” The inclusions of the non-formal education section and the anchor quotes in the findings—among other revisions—have helped to insert necessary pieces into the paper. However, I feel these revisions would benefit from additional work to smooth them in to the paper, and to enhance the clarity and presentation of this study—especially when it comes to its contributions to existing literature and scholarship.

 

A few thoughts:

 

1. With the inclusion of the non-formal education part in the “Introduction” section, it seems like this section is moving in the opposite direction logically that it should. The section now starts with Portugal, then widens its focus to non-formal education and the Scouting movement; since the latter two are not geographically bounded, the “Introduction” section with this structure is moving away from the context of this study (which is, of course, Portugal, and Scouting in this particular context). Since the paper now establishes that Scouting is a form of non-formal education, the more logical structure to me might be:

 

A.   Non-formal education

B.    Scouting movement, as a form of non-formal education

C.    The Patrol System, etc.

D.   Scouting and education in Portugal

 

This change in structure would help to better set up the research questions, the second and third items I wanted to discuss.

 

2. Your research questions aren’t “Materials and Methods,” so they would probably be more appropriately placed at the very end of the “Introduction” section.

 

3. The research questions start to anchor the inquiry, but their focus and readability could use tightening. For RQ1, whose subjective experiences are you looking at here? This has to be the Scouts who participated, right? Are the “pedagogical approaches and methods” all originating from the Scouts themselves? For RQ2 and RQ3, I don’t think the questions are written in a complete sentence, so it’s hard to understand what they are asking for. For RQ2, whose principles, values, and skills are you asking about? And who is observing them (the Scouts, right?) What does “in development” mean? How is RQ3 different from RQ1?

 

4. Perhaps the biggest lingering issue is in the “Discussion” and “Conclusion” sections. The paper now has referenced several of the Scouting-related papers I mentioned before, which I absolutely believe you should be speaking to with this piece and its findings. As I wrote before, the Urban, Linver, Tevington, etc. pieces are not exactly the same as your study, but they are at the very least adjacent; it’s hard to talk about pedagogies Scouts participate in without the adult leaders being referenced, and that’s what the other literature starts to address. In other words, you all are examining the same issue—teaching in non-formal education settings—but you’re coming at it from different angles.

 

To me, the goal of the “Discussion” should be to speak directly to the non-formal education and Scouting literature—not just to cite those pieces. What does this study set in Portugal tell us about teaching or pedagogy in Scouting? What, if anything, does it suggest about adult roles and adult leader training (again, the topics of those other articles)? If the goal is to conduct an intrinsic case study that only focuses on Portugal, maybe you could get away without discussing topics like non-formal education or the Scouting movement in general. But, as the other reviewer pointed out as well, there’s a relevance question in all of this. Why would an international audience—which I believe this particular journal has—be interested in a purely intrinsic case study of Scouting in a single country? Maybe I’m in the minority here with this opinion, but as a scholar I’m much more interested in what the Portuguese scouting case can tell me about non-formal education and Scouting, and teaching/pedagogy within/across the two.

 

5. Related to #4—I’m less clear about the value of Morin and Dewey bits in the “Conclusion”—or the ‘grammar of schooling’ part, which at least does get mentioned earlier in the paper. For these scholars/perspectives to be in the conclusion, they need to be introduced earlier. The grammar of schooling bit seems like it could be an interesting theoretical orientation for the paper, but the idea isn’t developed sufficiently in my reading to actually use it this way. I would reconsider these revisions, or at least revise them to better situate them within the paper’s overarching argument.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

See comments above about research questions. Generally, the revised portions from the previous draft would benefit from proofreading.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We thank you sincerely for your attentive reading and insightful review.

Upon careful consideration of your comments and taking into account the positive evaluations from Reviewers 1 and 2, who acknowledge that the current form of the manuscript meets the publication requirements, we aim to preserve the essence of the revised manuscript. We firmly believe that it significantly contributes to educational development at a global scale.

Nevertheless, we have carefully read your compelling observations and have thoroughly reflected upon each one. We would then like to offer our perspectives on each of the lines of thought you have presented, through a point-by-point response:

1. We are grateful for your suggestions and have considered it dearly. Nevertheless, we would like to maintain the current version of the manuscript. The foundational premise of this research stems from the identification of significant deficiencies in the formal education context, both within Portugal and internationally. Our exploration is grounded in a concept we find to be unifying and highly pertinent - the "grammar of schooling" - along with other closely associated central themes. From there, we have intended to look for inspiration from non-formal education settings, particularly the Scouts movement, with the Portuguese case of CNE (the largest Portuguese Scouts association) serving as a potential research context, while still framing these issues in the broader international panorama – a reflection that we have refined further following the contributions of the manuscript reviewers.
2. We have followed your suggestion and have placed the Research Questions at the end of the “Introduction” section.
3. We agree that the focus and readability of these research questions could have used some tightening and we have thus revised the questions’ formulation, as well its quality of English language, in order to better convey their original meaning and intent.
4. The option for the empirical study was focusing on the Scouts learners’ subjective experiences of the pedagogies they participate in, whose results seemed to underscore that the identified pedagogical methodologies and approaches (pages 3 through 7), which are applied in practice and in context by educators, play a pivotal role in these experiences.
   

   However, we recognize that much is left to be researched and said about how Scouts educators implement these methods into practice, and so we tried to convey this message in the Possibilities and Limitations section (point 8), as we acknowledge that this educational system is necessarily built upon the pedagogical role of adult leaders. This is why future research on this topic is needed, from our perspective, to unveil possible key success factors in these practices and enriching the potential for Scout movements to inspire formal education. We underscore the significance of this study for an international audience, as it contributes not only to the understanding of the Portuguese educational context but also offers insights that can be applied globally.

5. Regarding the question raised concerning the inclusion of the Morin bit, from which prompted the revised version of the Conclusion section, we consider this idea of “metamorphosis” to helpfully illustrate the imperative for global education systems not only to respond to emerging challenges, but also to undergo transformative changes in their "grammar of schooling," incorporating new inspirations while preserving essential elements. This analogy further helps to reinforce Ken Robinson's argument of, instead of taking a single model to scale (as we talk about on page 20), education stakeholders on a global level could consider examples such as the Scouts pedagogical experiences into consideration when looking for inspiration for educational change. Finally, we have included the last reference to John Dewey (as other related reflections from international reports) due to his notable contribution to the field of learner's active participation.

Regarding your comments on the Quality of English Language, apart from the comments about research questions (which we covered above), we thank you for your feedback and have refined the quality of the English language in the revised portions. These enhancements have resulted in significant improvements in the clarity and effectiveness of the messages we intended to convey.