Enhancing Active Learning through a Holistic Approach: A Case Study of Primary Education in Lithuania

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper formulates a clear research question, which concerns the teaching methods (Transactional & Transformational) applied in Primary Education, based on the renewed Lithuanian General Framework for Education.  This question is answered with methodological adequacy and clarity: construction of a representative sample and questionnaire, appropriate data analysis, triangulation of findings based on observations and their comparative analysis. 

 

What is missing from the paper and needs to be filled in is an attempt to interpret the results. In order to do this, some information about specific characteristics of the Lithuanian educational system is needed. For example, 

we read that 71% of teachers have more than 25 years of experience. Does this fact (the long tenure and the possible consolidation of previous practices) affect the prevalence of Transactional over Transformational approaches? 

15% of study programs in primary schools it is not Traditional. Does this play a role? 

Have information and training procedures for teachers been implemented in the renewed Lithuanian General Framework? Is there evaluation data to show whether or not these were widespread and successful? 

… …    

 

On the other hand, the two t-tests applied are presented in the text (266-283 and 328-346) and the Appendixes (E and D) with details and length that are not, in my opinion, required. For example, the values ​​of the t, df and Sig variables are sufficient to convince of the results described in 284-288 and 347-351 and the Figures 3 and 5.

 

Finally, a linguistic editing of the text even for spelling errors (see for example “sintesys” on 192) is always necessary.

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Arabic	Hebrew	Polish
Bulgarian	Hindi	Portuguese
Catalan	Hmong Daw	Romanian
Chinese Simplified	Hungarian	Russian
Chinese Traditional	Indonesian	Slovak
Czech	Italian	Slovenian
Danish	Japanese	Spanish
Dutch	Klingon	Swedish
English	Korean	Thai
Estonian	Latvian	Turkish
Finnish	Lithuanian	Ukrainian
French	Malay	Urdu
German	Maltese	Vietnamese
Greek	Norwegian	Welsh
Haitian Creole	Persian

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Author Response

First, we would like to express our sincere thanks for your comments on the article.

Based on your comments, it has been decided to add an additional section to the analysis of the results (3.1.3. Data interpretation with demographic variables). In this section, we discuss how teachers' seniority and the curriculum (i.e. traditional and non-traditional) used in the school affect their responses about the educational methods used. The surprising results show that teachers with more seniority are even more likely to use some active teaching methods than teachers with less seniority. It also shows that teachers working in non-traditional curricula use more transformative teaching methods than those in traditional curricula (see lines 431-507). Also, the updated curricula are still being rolled out in Lithuania, so there are no results on their implementation yet. However, the teacher's age is often cited as a barrier to implementing the upgrades in Lithuania. 

We have also removed Appendix E and D on your advice as they were redundant. 

Based on your advice on correcting the English language, a professional Grammarly program was installed on the computer, and the English language errors were corrected throughout the manuscript. The programme now shows a 98% grammatical correctness of the text. 

Thank you for your comments, which helped us improve our work. 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The work deals with an extremely important area of modern education. Active learning and teaching is an irrefutable prerequisite in modern systems of child education. Therefore, I think that the topic of the work is well chosen and well anchored in the legal and theoretical framework. Furthermore, the methodology used to test the clearly stated objective was correctly planned and implemented. Accordingly, the conclusions are relevant and credible. The recommendation would be for the authors to look a little more closely at the methodological limitations of the work, which could be overcome in future similar studies. Can it be said that it is a random sample? If yes, you should describe the sampling method more precisely and argue whether it is a representative sample or an opportunity one. And accordingly reduce the conclusions that the results can/cannot be applied to the whole of Lithuania.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

First of all, we would like to thank you for your insights and recommendations. Your comments are correct and appropriate. Based on your comments, I have added subsection (2.4. Limitations) to the text (see lines 321-332). In this section, we explain that the survey sample of primary school teachers is representative of the situation in Lithuania, while the observations in schools reinforce and complement the data obtained. 

You are right that a random sample was used for the observations. Although the schools were selected using a criterion sample, the lessons observed were assigned by the school leaders. We, therefore, add this in the text (see lines 304 - 306). 

So, based on your insights, we have revised the methodology part of the study. Thank you.  

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The study is really interesting. The theoretical framework is well structured, making clear the main topics under study. Perhaps it would be good to rely on more current bibiographical sources. Active methodologies are undoubtedly very useful in all educational stages, especially in Primary Education. In the methodological framework, the type of study, the instruments used and the analyses carried out are clear. I find the results really interesting and visual. Perhaps in the discussion I again miss some current bibliographical references. I think it is a good work with a great contribution to the scientific community.     

 

 

I consider the study to be very good. The only improvement I consider is an update of the biblographic references as indicated in the report. Otherwise, I think it is a clear and concise research, which deals with a very relevant topic and really makes a great contribution to the field.  

 

Thank you very much for allowing me to review such interesting work.  

 

Best regards,

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

First of all, we would like to thank you sincerely for your review and suggestions. At the beginning of our work, we tend to be dominated by older literature, but in the discussion part, more recent research has been chosen to complement the most recent literature. Based on your comments, we have added more recent studies to the study. Here's a list of the most recent scientific articles over five years old used in our study: 

1. Lytras, M. D., & Housawi, A. Chapter 1 - Active learning in healthcare education, training, and research: A digital transformation primer. In M. D. Lytras, & C. Vaz de Almeida (Eds.). Active Learning for Digital Transformation in Healthcare Education, Training and Research, 2023, 1-11. Available online: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780443152481000060 (accessed on 28.04.2024).
2. Fixen, M., Wald, N. Obstacles Overcome: A Universal Guide to Active Learning. Journal of Higher Education Theory and Practice 2021, vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 106-110. Available online: https://doi.org/10.33423/jhetp.v21i4.4212 (accessed on 28.04.2024).
3. Nesra, Y. et al. Active learning: "Hands-on" meets "minds-on". Science, 2021, 374, pp. 26-30. Available online: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abj9957 (accessed on 28.04.2024).
4. Michael, K., Alemu, M., Desie, Y., Atnafu, M., Assefa, S., Regassa, C., Abate, A. Understanding and practice of active learning among upper primary school science and mathematics teachers. Heliyon, 2023, 9(6). Available online: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e16854 (accessed on 28.04.2024).
5. Ichikawa, V. Active Learning. In: Okada, A., Bamkin, S. (eds) Japan's School Curriculum for the 2020s. Education in the Asia-Pacific Region: Issues, Concerns and Prospects, vol 67. Springer, 2022, Singapore. Available online: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-2076-9_4 (accessed on 28.04.2024).
6. Koç, A. The Impact of Self-Efficacy Perceptions of Imam Hatip Secondary School Teachers on Students and Educational Environment. International Journal of Curriculum and Instruction 13 (1), 2021, pp. 169-182. Available online: https://ijci.globets.org/index.php/IJCI/article/view/512/235 (accessed on 24.05.2024).
7. Colomo-Magaña, Colomo-Magaña, Cívico-Ariza, Basgall. PRE-SERVICE PRIMARY TEACHERS' PERCEPTIONS OF GAMIFICATION AS A METHODOLOGY. Journal of Technology and Science Education, 2024, 14(1): 109-122. Available online: https://doi.org/10.3926/jotse.2204 (accessed on 26.05.2024).
8. Makar, K. Primary teachers' early and retrospective instructional vision of mathematical inquiry. Journal of Educational Change, 2024, 25, 173–196. Available online: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-023-09487-5 (accessed on 26.05.2024).

Thank you for your work and comments.