Measuring Teachers’ Perceptions to Sustain STEM Education Development

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dears authors,

This is an interesting research and manuscript.
Nevertheless, there are things that could be improved the manuscript.

My suggestions:

- What makes the study an important issue?
There are 1 sentence missing in the abstract to attract the reader’s attention.
The sentence: “The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development emphasized teachers as the cornerstone for the betterment of education. “ is not enough.
Line 15-16: “understanding of STEM education, opinions about STEM competencies, and difficulties in STEM implementation.”
Understanding??? Opinion???
What does it mean? How can we distinguish between the “understanding” and “opinion”?
So, in the lines 153-154 and figure 1, I suggest:
“…measured teachers’ perceptions of STEM education following three components: (1) STEM education (STEMUnd); (2) STEM competencies (STEMCom); and (3) STEM implementation (STEMDif).”

- Lines 27-28: This sentence “These results provide valuable information to design effective teacher professional development to sustain STEM education.” this issue must be fully clarified in the section “Conclusion”.

- Line 45 to 49:
it seems, to us, that the STEM education has as main focus on instructional (learners acquire Knowledge and Skill) and it forget the focus educational (learns develop Knowledge and skills, but also attitudes and values, i.e. meaning develop competences). Please, attention to this concept and it would have been desirable to introduce another reference.

- Lines 53 to 54: “Schools have deployed STEM education with a variety of STEM activities [9].”?????????? “Schools”?? or “Teachers???” a variety of STEM activities”??? Explain and find another reference.

- Line 57: “However, teaching behaviors are strongly affected by teachers’ perceptions”??? Which Behaviors??? Emphasis should be placed on the process pedagogical-didactic.

- - line 144: “core competencies in STEM education”;
The authors must clearly define.

- Line 217: “Learning activities of teaching students must begin with knowledge, beliefs, and move towards skillsets following the subject matter [50].” In the context “ 1.4.3. Teaching subjects” is to be taken from the section.
But the recent didactic research suggests that the development of curricular understanding should start with students exploring their own personal experiences, understandings and knowledge. So, I suggest to rethink this approach and find another reference.

- The section “2.2. The development and validity of the instrument” the validity of the instrument has to be clarified. The reference used [51] it's not enough/appropriate.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, 

We appreciate thank you for your valuable comments as well as suggestions.

The file attached is our response. 

Thank you so much.  

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors need to describe more about the survey including how it was developed.  What was the design and how does a high mean score indicate a favorable position in relation to STEM education?  There are also terms that are not well designed.

Additionally, the research process used needs to be clarified.  Without a clear understanding of the survey and its design, it is impossible to interpret the ANOVA findings.

I have attached an annotated version of the manuscript as well.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear review, 

Thank you so much for your valuable comments on our manuscripts. 

We revised our writing, especially part 2.2. The development and validation of the instrument. We wrote more clearly our instrument and added the results of factor loadings for the validation of our instrument. 

The attached file is our replications of your comments. 

Thank you so much. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.