“A Little Less Conversation, a Little More Action Please”: Examining Students’ Voices on Education, Transgression, and Societal Change

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This was an interesting article to read, and I was excited to see the application of the T-Learning theoretical model for practical analysis of educational experience. This novel approach gives the article high significance.

Some minor improvements are suggested to improve the article.

• In Section 1.1 background/history, I personally was missing to see dates or timeline in this discussion. If this provides a history, then it is useful to see over what time period and when the main progressions were made.  (this may be in part this reviewers preference towards a referencing style that shows publication dates and makes this possible to follow. but since the reference style does not include dates, it would be useful to have some time indication in the actual text).
• Line 88-90, you discuss the the use of for or from in ESD. S. Sterling in Sustainable Education: Re-visioning learning and change (2001) discusses the differences in Education about / for / as Sustainable Development. Highlight the move from education about awareness on the the topic, to education for skills and competencies to act for sustainability, but also argues we need to move to education as an active model of sustainable development in practice.  This would overlap directly with the description of education form, and it is a distinction that was commonly been repeated and referenced during the Decade of ESD.
• Section 1.2 is difficult to follow/comprehend, this could be further improved. Especially regarding the common factors addressed on lines 136-40, some of these factors require more explanation for the reader to understand.
• Figure 1 is illegible in this format (the text is too small to read at normal size, and the image quality is too weak to zoom in).  It would be advisable not to copy the slide image from Lotz-Sisitka, and instead recreate the T-Learning Triangle in an easy to read format (and then reference it as adapted or recreated from Lotz-Sisitka).
• Section 2.1 Participants - The sample size of 12 is small, but acceptable for this study (and first attempt to apply a theoretical model to action-practice analysis). You mention about the diverse context of students (i.e. this would be an aim towards a sample reflective of the general population, although this is hard to achieve with such a small sample). But this description also requires an explanation of how the participants were identified and selected (as this also has influence on the sample and potential biasing of how reflective it is, i.e. were these participants self-selecting, nominated, etc.) ... I note this is not really a problem for this study, but just information the reader would want to know.
• Tables 1-4: you have the footnote a on each table indicating that the number after each quotation indicates the respondent (although the footnote is not in table 4, only after). This point would be better stated in the heading for this column of each table. Also, you mention that the themes are indicated in descending order of occurrence, is it possible to actually state the rates of occurrence per each theme?
• Line 478: you return to the action competence approach which when first indicated (line 80) was identified as crucial. But now in the discussion, you highlight that "action in practice was largely absent" (line 480). This is an important finding, but it also raises a critical question, does the action competence approach need further elaboration within the T-Learning Model (how do they link together) and does further reflection on the action competence approach need to be elaborated in educational practice. While the action competence approach is well introduced in the introduction text, and includes the rather truistic statement: "which is why we here find that action competence is not just about thinking about actions, but also about doing." (lines 159-60), based on the findings showing a lack of real action/doing, it feels that the crucial importance of the action competence approach is not well enough reflected in the discussions in Section 4.1 or how it can be related to the analytical approach using T-learning model discussed in section 4.2. Some more consideration on the linkage of these two dimensions (i.e. action competence and T-learning) and how it can be strengthed in the analytical approach would be valuable.
• Section 4.2, Line 499: you reflect on the value of the analytical approach using the T-learning model. Here it would be good to reflect on the replicability of this model and is it influenced by a level of subjective analysis by the research, i.e. would another researcher working with the same data set and model produce the same results? Would there need to be a more established criteria (applied with concentric circles) to replicate the placement of themes (as done in figure 2-4) between the three corners and in regards to there overall distance from the centre of the triangle. I really appreciate the approach taken by the authors in the use of the T-Learning model here, but I raise the question that if this analysis is to be replicated in a standard way by other researchers (and for other data sets), does there need to be a non-subjective set of criteria for properly coding this analysis in a uniform manner?
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Author Response

Se our reply in the attached file.

Reviewer 2 Report

My greatest concerns are the small sample, only 12 students and the implication that this can be extended to the population, and that there were no further attempts to gather additional sample support.

Data is well prepared and presented in table form.

Charts and visual effects are done well.

The information from the 12 students was very interesting and enjoyable to read.

The only issue I found was the very first citation #1, you cite Lotz-Sistka, et al.  It is not appropriate to use et al in the first citation and not appropriate to use et al in the reference list.  All of the authors are entitled to be named in the reference list.

Author Response

Please see the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx