Sustainability Education and Environmental Worldviews: Shifting a Paradigm

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper seems to be of current importance, it brings novelty to the field under consideration. However,

1. The  results and discussion sections should be coordinated more strongly and explicitly with the research questions.
2. The same comment refers to the subsections of the results and discussion 
3. The conclusion section should be arranged in line with those three  research objectives that are specified by the author.

Author Response

Reviewer 1

Thank you for your comments and constructive suggestions on improving the paper. Please allow us to address the points for improvement raised in turn:

1. The results and discussion sections should be coordinated more strongly and explicitly with the research questions. The results and discussion sections have been reorganized to better correlate with the research questions, improving the paper’s readability and the ease with which the results and subsequent discussions thereof can be related back to the research questions. In the discussion, further context for the results has been added to better situate them within the knowledgebase and current thinking.
2. The same comment refers to the subsections of the results and discussion. The subsections of the results and discussions were similarly revised as in response to point 1, above. More detail on the theoretical context of the variables retained by stepwise regression was added to clarify how results relate to the knowledgebase.
3. The conclusion section should be arranged in line with those three research objectives that are specified by the author. The conclusion section has been rearranged and augmented to maintain the continuity established by our responses to the previous two points. Subsections have been added, addressing the research results and discussion subsections in turn. The first two subsections summarise the results and discussion for their relevant subsections and set the stage for the larger concluding text on socio-demographic predictors of change in NEP scores, which the authors believe to offer the richest vein to tap for future research directions.

Reviewer 2 Report

Thanks for the opportunity to review this interesting paper. It is very well written, all aspects are clearly presented. Highlight are the discussion section and the conclusions, because the quantitative results are precisely explained and different explanations provided. Such extensive discussions can be read seldomly! 

minor comments for improvement:

section 1.4 "NEP in social psychological context" is quite short. you could expand this a little, to help the reader to better understand your discussion points later on. I was a bit confused first about the many links you sketch briefly (fig. 1) without elaborating. An impression was that this section is for strategic reasons, not for the readers.

The abbreviations are manifold (12 3-letter abbreviations), maybe add the whole constructs again in discussion to re-introduce the abbreviations. I had to flip back and forth to link all those constructs, it would help the reader.

Overall: congratulations to a wonderful manuscript and good research!

Author Response

Thank you for your comments and constructive suggestions on improving the paper. We have elaborated section 1.4 on the NEP’s social/psychological context to improve clarity. This section is primarily to delineate where the NEP sits with regard to social setting, values, beliefs, and norms as seen by the relevant theories (values-beliefs-norms, norm activation, and planned behaviour).

Furthermore, we have re-introduced the abbreviated terms used in the discussion and conclusion per your suggestion. This has improved the readability of these sections considerably, as you expected, and we thank you for bringing this to our attention.

Reviewer 3 Report

The overall paper is sound. The use of NEP is described well. It was appreciated that the authors detailed critiques of the NEP. In the end, how the NEP was used seemed appropriate, but it is important that readers were cautioned about its possible drawbacks. Situating the study within various learning theories was a strong point.

Author Response

Thank you for your feedback on this paper. We appreciate the time taken to review this work and are glad you find it to be a satisfactory contribution to the field.