“I Wanted a Profession That Makes a Difference”—An Online Survey of First-Year Students’ Study Choice Motives and Sustainability-Related Attributes
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Title:
The title is very long and includes too much information. The method used and all the variables do not need to be mentioned in the title. I think the quote is not well chosen, it does not reflect the scope of the research (even if it sounds very interesting).
Introduction:
The introduction stresses the important role of high education students in promoting sustainable development – it is very good idea but it seems to be much less vital for the content of the article, for the hypotheses and for the conclusions. Much more attention should be paid here to the importance of beginning students' attitudes for further development in the area of sustainability development. The concept of attitudes should be introduced here and the decision to compare teacher-training and nonteaching training students should be better explained.
The objectives of the article must be expresses very clearly here.
Theoretical background
The range of variables presented is very wide, but it is not enough clear why exactly such variables were chosen. The respondents represent two nationalities – does it influence the results? Why these factors were not taken under consideration? Are the education systems in both schools comparable?
There is no clear independent variable pointed out. Hypotheses should be more precise. Hypothesis H1 is a bit surprising – it refers to gender – Authors’ assumption is not explained at all.
The explanation of sustainable attributes should be included in the main text because it is crucial to understand the hypotheses.
Method and results
The method used and the analysis conducted can be assessed well.
The choice of research group is a bit confusing – non teacher training students come from one university. What was the reason to divide students for two groups by age? Does the 21 years old ones differ from 22 or more? How old was the oldest one?
Discussion
The discussion part should be related to the hypotheses presented – if they were clearly formulated and more precise, it would be easier to justify the obtained results.
Students’ motives are discussed well but the links between them and students’ sustainability attitudes is not referenced and explained deeply. The concept as well as the results concerning sustainability-related self-efficacy are very interesting but the importance of high self-efficacy should be developed – how would the recommendation change in the case of low self-efficacy?
The results show more differences between technical and non-technical students’ attitudes towards sustainability. This this element could be discussed a bit more in relation to other sources.
Conclusions
Conclusions are very general, they could be divided to two parts: the future research implications and practical implications. The practical ones needs to be much more precise, for example they can be focused on the possibility to use students’ high sustainability-related self-efficacy as a strong basis for the creative implementation of the sustainability assumptions in the practice of professions relate to their fields of study.
It is great Authors plans are to research students’ attitudes development and self-efficacy factor in the context of sustainability. It would be great to it would be great to base this research on solid hypotheses and clearly define goals from the point of view of shaping attitudes towards sustinability.
Author Response
Title
The title is very long and includes too much information. The method used and all the variables do not need to be mentioned in the title. I think the quote is not well chosen, it does not reflect the scope of the research (even if it sounds very interesting).
Response #1-R1: We shortened the title (we replaced “sustainability-related conceptions, engagement and self-efficacy” with “sustainability-related attributes” and thus the detailed information on the variables is removed).
The quote comes from answers to the open question of study choice motivation. Even if the quote does not represent a majority opinion of the respondents, from our point of view it generates interest and shows connections between the potential motives to work in a certain professional field and the topic of sustainability. The topic of self-efficacy expectations can also be linked to the quote. To make the reference between the quotation and the paper clearer, we have now referred to it in the conclusion.
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Introduction
The introduction stresses the important role of high education students in promoting sustainable development – it is very good idea but it seems to be much less vital for the content of the article, for the hypotheses and for the conclusions. Much more attention should be paid here to the importance of beginning students' attitudes for further development in the area of sustainability development. The concept of attitudes should be introduced here and the decision to compare teacher-training and nonteaching training students should be better explained. The objectives of the article must be expresses very clearly here.
Response #2-R1: We add some explanations about the importance of beginning students’ attitudes for further development in the area of sustainability development: “Knowing learners’ personal experiences, motivations, conceptions and attitudes sup-ports to designing learning as interaction between these prerequisites and new structures and perspectives. Thus, students can be supported developing an entire network of mental structures, allowing them to establish rational and meaningful relationships with the environment and the society [33].”.
We have rewritten the second half of the introduction to gain more precise insights into the objectives, research questions and hypotheses of the study.
To keep the introduction as compact as possible, we decided to give more detailed explanations of the requested aspects in the later sections of the paper. Therefore, we added a more detailed explanation of the attitudes in section 2.1; the decision to compare teacher training and non-teacher training students we highlighted in sections 3.1, 3.3.2, and 5.4.
Additionally, we have adapted the spelling of the research questions in the introduction and in the discussion.
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Theoretical background
The range of variables presented is very wide, but it is not enough clear why exactly such variables were chosen.
Response #3-R1: We have added a short explanation of the individual variables before Fig. 1 and also a justification that they represent the cognitive or affective-motivational or behavioural dimension of competencies well. We also refer to the following chapters (2.2-2.5), where the corresponding theoretical background and the current state of research is presented.
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The respondents represent two nationalities – does it influence the results? Why these factors were not taken under consideration? Are the education systems in both schools comparable?
Response #4-R1: We agree that factors like nationality may influence the results. Therefore, various distinguishing characteristics, such as age, gender, previous experiences in education, services completed, and the tertiary education of the parents were already considered in the online-questionnaire as well as in the analyses. The results show, that female students were younger than male students (p < 0.001; Cohen’s d = 0.630). The first-year students from the UAS Grisons were significantly younger than those from the UCTEs (p < 0.001, Cramer’s V = 0.391). There are significant differences in the previous experiences in education by study programme: teacher training students‘ more often had general secondary education (teacher training students 88.4 %, non-teacher training students 32.8 %; p < 0.001, Cramer's V = 0.538), a non-teacher training students more often had vocational secondary education (teacher training students 10.4 %, non-teacher training students 60.5 %; p < 0.001, Cramer's V = 0,491). Correspondingly, non-teacher training students more often had previous vocational training (teacher training students 31.1 %, non-teacher training students 76.2 %; p < 0.001, Cramer's V = 0,444). Teacher training students more often completed a voluntary social/ecological year (teacher training students 7.5 %, non-teacher training students 2.7 %; p = 0.004, Cramer's V = 0.112). However, non-teacher training students more often attended civil/military civil/military service (teacher training students 7.9 %, non-teacher training students 29.2 %, p < 0.001, Cramer's V = 0,251). There were no differences in the tertiary education of the parents (p = 0.889, Cramer’s V = 0.005). We have now added these results and their significance in section 3.1.
Concerning the sustainability-related attributes, preliminary analyses showed no significant effects of the first-year students’ previous experience in education, service completed, age and the tertiary education of the parents. Therefore, these variables were not included in the final MANOVA. We added these point in 3.3.2.
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There is no clear independent variable pointed out. Hypotheses should be more precise. Hypothesis H1 is a bit surprising – it refers to gender – Authors’ assumption is not explained at all.
Response #5-R1: We assume that the statement "H1 is a bit surprising - it refers to gender - Authors' assumption is not explained at all." refers to hypothesis 2, since gender is not included in H1. We have now named the independent variables (degree programme and gender) more clearly (“There are indications in the scientific literature that variables related to value-oriented concepts – such as sustainability – vary depending on disciplinary and professional backgrounds and gender. Therefore, degree programme and gender were defined as independent variables”) and we have also formulated hypothesis 2 accordingly and thus made it more precise.
The current state of research does not allow a more precise specification of hypothesis H1.
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The explanation of sustainable attributes should be included in the main text because it is crucial to understand the hypotheses.
Response #6-R1: We have now included the explanation of sustainability-related attributes in the main text, instead of the footer, but not in 2.6 (this section no longer exists), but in the Introduction (as well as 2.1), as Reviewer 2 criticised the duplication between Introduction and 2.6 and requested that these aspects should be explained only in the Introduction.
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Method and results
The method used and the analysis conducted can be assessed well.
Response #7-R1: Thank you!
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The choice of research group is a bit confusing – non teacher training students come from one university.
Response #8-R1: The distinction between teacher-training students and non-teacher-training students is a consequence of the sample sizes, which do not allow the distinction by the different degree programmes from the UAS Grisons and necessitate a higher level of aggregation. This distinction is not a distinguishing characteristic of the “HEIs of origin”. Furthermore, the participants in the survey are students at the beginning of their first semester and the formative influence of the education of the respective HEIs can thus be excluded. We have now included a corresponding short explanation in section 3.1 and in the limitations in section 5.4.
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What was the reason to divide students for two groups by age? Does the 21 years old ones differ from 22 or more? How old was the oldest one?
Response #9-R1: In the questionnaire, age groups were measured as follows: 18-21 (49,9 % of respondents), 22-28 (40,8 %), 29 -39 (9,2 %), 40 and older (0,0 %). The age at 21/22 split was chosen because we wanted to analyse two age groups of equal size. This is the best strategy for the multivariate analysis to guarantee enough cases in each subgroup and the highest test power (Lee, 2003).
Lee, J. (2003). The Effect of Design Imbalance on the Power of the F-test of a Variance Component in the One-Way Random Model. Biometrical Journal, 45(2), 238–248. https://doi.org/10.1002/bimj.200390009
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Discussion
The discussion part should be related to the hypotheses presented – if they were clearly formulated and more precise, it would be easier to justify the obtained results.
Response #10-R1: We have emphasised the hypothesis reference more clearly in the discussion. E.g. the hypothesis is introduced again at the beginning of 5.3 and then discussed regarding the differences in the degree programme (paragraph 2-5) and gender (paragraph 6-7). “In this section, we firstly discuss hypothesis 2: “There are differences in the sustainability-related attributes (sustainability conceptions, engagement in sustainability and sustainability-related self-efficacy) according to the degree programme, expecting higher values for teacher training-students and according to gender, expecting higher results for females.”
“Regarding the differences due to the degree programme hypothesis 2 can be confirmed. ….”
“Regarding gender differences, hypothesis 2 is only partially confirmed in the present study….”
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Students’ motives are discussed well but the links between them and students’ sustainability attitudes is not referenced and explained deeply.
The concept as well as the results concerning sustainability-related self-efficacy are very interesting but the importance of high self-efficacy should be developed – how would the recommendation change in the case of low self-efficacy?
Response #11-R1: With regard to the reference to the missing link between students’ motives and students’ sustainability attitudes: we did not explore links between these concepts, we only discuss the results to the study choice motivation from the perspective of ESD, see 5.1 – paragraph 2-5 (which role play aspects of social engagement, future-related aspects, extrinsic motives etc.). In general, no correlations between different variables were investigated. However, we have included this as an interesting aspect for further analysis of the data and further research in section 6.2.
So far very little research has been done on study choice motives in relation to sustainability attitudes, a lack which we mentioned in the last paragraph of 5.1. Therefore, there are hardly any possibilities to conduct a discussion that goes beyond the already in the paper referenced literature.
The comment regarding sustainability-related self-efficacy were considered by expanding the corresponding explanations and justifications in the discussion. “The fact that the mean values of sustainability-related self-efficacy are in the upper third - for the collective even in the upper quarter – is a surprising result. This means that students are already quite strongly convinced that they can contribute to shaping the world in the sense of sustainable development. Therefore, universities should provide learning experiences that reinforce students in these beliefs, e.g. through project- and action-oriented learning settings (cf. [96,107,108]). In this way, feelings of self-efficacy can be directly accessed, reflected upon and strengthened in concrete experiences of action. This is promising, especially regarding the fact that sustainability-related self-efficacy is an important prerequisite for sustainable behaviour [38,39,120]. At the same time, it seems particularly important in the complex and controversial field of sustainability to reflect on learners’ expectations of desired outcomes. The consequences of action cannot be experienced directly [97]; at the same time, working on a sustainability problem does not necessarily mean developing a solution, but rather understanding the problem, elaborating it, developing options for action, generating ideas and visions and critically and reflectively dealing with them. Well-dosed experiences of success and a critical reflection of challenges and conclusions for further expectations can be gained in action-, problem- and project-oriented learning environments. When sustainability-related self-efficacy is low, more effort is required to discuss existing barriers to self-efficacy beliefs in the complex field of sustainability.”
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The results show more differences between technical and non-technical students’ attitudes towards sustainability. This this element could be discussed a bit more in relation to other sources.
Response #12-R1: That's a valid point. We have added a corresponding discussion in paragraph 5.3 that addresses the differences between technical and non-technical students’ attitudes towards sustainability.
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Conclusions
Conclusions are very general, they could be divided to two parts: the future research implications and practical implications. The practical ones needs to be much more precise, for example they can be focused on the possibility to use students’ high sustainability-related self-efficacy as a strong basis for the creative implementation of the sustainability assumptions in the practice of professions relate to their fields of study.
Response #13-R1: We have implemented the corresponding changes: The conclusions are now subdivided into practical and further research implications, and the conclusions are now more precise.
Thank you for the idea to build on the high self-efficacy expectations of the students. This is very plausible and we have taken it up.
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It is great Authors plans are to research students’ attitudes development and self-efficacy factor in the context of sustainability. It would be great to it would be great to base this research on solid hypotheses and clearly define goals from the point of view of shaping attitudes towards sustinability.
Response #14-R1: Thank you for this appreciation. We will base the further research projects within the long-term study on solid hypothesis and clear research objectives.
We have added some further explanations. Nevertheless, we would like to point out that, a detailed elaboration is hardly possible due to the many uncertainties in the current first phase of the long-term study.
Reviewer 2 Report
It is an interesting research in which first-year students in teacher training are compared with first-year students in other study programs and research their reasons for choosing study, as well as conceptions related to sustainability and beliefs of commitment and self-efficacy. . To obtain the results, the authors use a semi-standardized online questionnaire.
The article is well written and correctly structured. The methodology is correct and the conclusions are based on the results obtained.
However, below I propose some changes that I hope will add value to the manuscript:
Abstract: The phrase “Higher education institutions are obliged to facilitate students in the development of sustainability competencies, which enable them…” may be too forceful. I would recommend changing it to: the sustainability competencies appear in the Higher Education curricula ... "
In scientific research the term “research” is more common than “investigation”. I recommend changing it where appropriate throughout the manuscript, as it appears in many places.
1. Introduction:
There is a jump between these two paragraphs:
“As innovative pedagogical approaches, based on a constructivist understanding of learning, are increasingly gaining importance in higher education, research into students' individual learning prerequisites is also of increasing relevance, as is a field of research on which there is little literature in many areas of study.”
Jump
“The Austrian University College of Teacher Education Tyrol (UCTE Tyrol) and the Swiss University of Applied Sciences of the Grisons (UAS Grisons) have been in the pro-cess of a strategic implementation of ESD since 2019. Within the framework…”.
I mean, suddenly the authors are talking about Austrian universities. I would recommend, to avoid the jump, saying something like: "... in the Austrian university environment, in which this research is carried out..." in this way the reader knows why the authors refer to that particular country.
I congratulate the authors for finishing the introduction with the “Research questions”, although later, in 2.6, they present hypotheses. It is necessary to review this, unify criteria and avoid duplication.
2. Theoretical Background and State of the Art
I congratulate the authors for the bibliographic review carried out and for the contextualization of their research in the current state of the art, although I recommend some changes:
I recommend highlighting that a research that the authors cite as relevant to their research is recent (reference number 17, is from the year 2019). It is, in turn, a review literature in the context of the research carried out, so it is important to note that it is recent.
In the sentence “Furthermore, in the study of Summers et al. [73], approximately one-third of the participants recognized all three dimensions as relevant… ”I recommend that the authors contribute the % of the participants instead of“ approximately one-third… ”.
I have found that, when referring to previous research, the authors interchangeably use the present continuous “… While Tuncer [78] shows that females have a higher understanding and perception towards sustainable development, Azapagic et al. [75] find… ”and the past“… He et al. [81] found that university students in China show positive environmental attitudes and encourage-ment toward environment-friendly behaviors. Oguz et al. [82] reported that… ”, and then return to the present “They see students as choosing a field of study based upon their existing ”… I recommend using only one tense throughout the paper.
Point 2.6 does not really belong to the Theoretical Background and State of the Art. I would carry this point to the Introduction section.
3. Materials and Methods
Regarding the participants: did they sign any type of informed consent to participate in the study? It begins to be a necessary requirement for this type of study. If the authors did, it is necessary to say so in the manuscript.
On the other hand, the authors provide the Cronbach's alpha values to show the reliability of the questionnaire, which I think is correct, although they should indicate the thresholds of this value, that is, a scale of how the values should be interpreted.
4. Results
Table 3 is not cited in the text of the manuscript. It is necessary to do so.
In 4.1 replace “Tab. 4 "by" Table 4 ".
In the paragraph “There are no significant differences between the conceptions of teacher-training and non-teacher-training students, although answers addressing the idea of intergenerational justice and a multidimensional understanding (2 or more of the three sustainability dimensions were ad-dressed) are more frequently given by UCTE-students (5% more students in each of the two cases) ”. I recommend that the authors provide the p-value that shows that there are no significant differences.
In Table 5 indicate that S.D. is the standard deviation
5. Discussion
The authors present their discussion and contextualize it with previous research, which I think is correct and necessary.
The phrase "In summary, hypothesis 1 (The study choice motives differ between degree programs) can be confirmed." I recommend moving it to the beginning of section 5.1, eliminating “In summary”.
In 5.2 the authors wrote, "In general, our research shows positive scores for most sustainability-related variables, which is largely consistent with previous study results." I invite the authors to reconsider the term "In general"; it is not very accurate and imprecise. I recommend changing it strictly adhering to the discussion of the results obtained.
I cannot find, in the discussions, an answer to hypothesis 2. Since the authors did refer specifically to H1, it is necessary that they do the same with H2.
The authors wrote, “The hypothesis regarding gender differences is only partially confirmed in the pre-sent study. The female… ”. This hypothesis, as such (H3, H4…?), is not previously presented in the manuscript. As I have commented before, the approach of the “Research Hypotheses” and / or “Research questions” is confusing and it is necessary to clarify it both at the beginning of the manuscript and in the discussion of the results.
6. Conclusions
I recommend that the authors raise their conclusions based on the fulfillment (or not) of the hypotheses raised.
Author Response
It is an interesting research in which first-year students in teacher training are compared with first-year students in other study programs and research their reasons for choosing study, as well as conceptions related to sustainability and beliefs of commitment and self-efficacy. To obtain the results, the authors use a semi-standardized online questionnaire. The article is well written and correctly structured. The methodology is correct and the conclusions are based on the results obtained.
However, below I propose some changes that I hope will add value to the manuscript:
Response #1-R2: Thank you for your kind words and comments, we are convinced that the reviewer's advices added value to the manuscript!
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Abstract: The phrase “Higher education institutions are obliged to facilitate students in the development of sustainability competencies, which enable them…” may be too forceful. I would recommend changing it to: the sustainability competencies appear in the Higher Education curricula ... "
Response #2-R2: That is a valid point. We have made an error in the choice of words. Instead of "obliged" it should have been "obligated". We have corrected it accordingly, making the statement less forceful and we have also corrected the same error in chapter 2.1, line 4.
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In scientific research the term “research” is more common than “investigation”. I recommend changing it where appropriate throughout the manuscript, as it appears in many places.
Response #3-R2: We have adjusted it accordingly throughout the manuscript.
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Introduction
There is a jump between these two paragraphs:
“As innovative pedagogical approaches, based on a constructivist understanding of learning, are increasingly gaining importance in higher education, research into students' individual learning prerequisites is also of increasing relevance, as is a field of research on which there is little literature in many areas of study.”
Jump
“The Austrian University College of Teacher Education Tyrol (UCTE Tyrol) and the Swiss University of Applied Sciences of the Grisons (UAS Grisons) have been in the pro-cess of a strategic implementation of ESD since 2019. Within the framework…”.
I mean, suddenly the authors are talking about Austrian universities. I would recommend, to avoid the jump, saying something like: "... in the Austrian university environment, in which this research is carried out..." in this way the reader knows why the authors refer to that particular country.
Response #4-R2: We have eliminated the jump by introducing the sentence as follows: "In the context of an increasing orientation of higher education institutions towards the idea of ESD, also the Austrian University College of Education Tyrol (UCTE Tyrol) and ...".
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I congratulate the authors for finishing the introduction with the “Research questions”, although later, in 2.6, they present hypotheses. It is necessary to review this, unify criteria and avoid duplication.
Response #5-R2: We have adapted it accordingly. To avoid duplication, research questions and hypotheses are now explained more clearly in the last part of the introduction. Chapter 2.6. does no longer exist.
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Theoretical Background and State of the Art
I congratulate the authors for the bibliographic review carried out and for the contextualization of their research in the current state of the art, although I recommend some changes:
I recommend highlighting that a research that the authors cite as relevant to their research is recent (reference number 17, is from the year 2019). It is, in turn, a review literature in the context of the research carried out, so it is important to note that it is recent.
Response #6-R2: That is a valid point. We have added that it is a recent study and we included the time period of the reviewed literature (2008-2019) as follows:
“A recent study conducted by Sundermann and Fischer [17] is highly relevant to the present study. In a literature review, they first examine 17 studies, published from 2008 to 2019, in which sustainability concepts…”
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In the sentence “Furthermore, in the study of Summers et al. [73], approximately one-third of the participants recognized all three dimensions as relevant… ”I recommend that the authors contribute the % of the participants instead of“ approximately one-third… ”.
Response #7-R2: Done. “Furthermore, in the study of Summers et al. [73], 36 % (22 out of 61 participants) recognize all three dimensions as relevant and the same percentage mentioned two of these.”
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I have found that, when referring to previous research, the authors interchangeably use the present continuous “… While Tuncer [78] shows that females have a higher understanding and perception towards sustainable development, Azapagic et al. [75] find… ”and the past“… He et al. [81] found that university students in China show positive environmental attitudes and encouragement toward environment-friendly behaviours. Oguz et al. [82] reported that… ”, and then return to the present “They see students as choosing a field of study based upon their existing ”… I recommend using only one tense throughout the paper.
Response #8-R2: We have checked and corrected the manuscript for consistent use of tenses.
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Point 2.6 does not really belong to the Theoretical Background and State of the Art. I would carry this point to the Introduction section.
Response #9-R2: We have adapted it accordingly and integrated the point into the introduction section.
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Materials and Methods
Regarding the participants: did they sign any type of informed consent to participate in the study? It begins to be a necessary requirement for this type of study. If the authors did, it is necessary to say so in the manuscript.
Response #10-R2: Yes, they signed an informed consent. We added the information to the manuscript in section 3.1. “All students in their first semester were invited to take part in the survey and they signed an informed consent.”
The different data protection regulations in Austria and Switzerland required different handling. In Austria, participants had to provide a written consent. In Switzerland, a reading confirmation, and a consent to the information text at the beginning of the online questionnaire was sufficient.
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On the other hand, the authors provide the Cronbach's alpha values to show the reliability of the questionnaire, which I think is correct, although they should indicate the thresholds of this value, that is, a scale of how the values should be interpreted.
Response #11-R2: The value of Cronbach’s alpha as a measure of internal consistency of a scale can be between 0 and 1. Acceptable values range from 0.70 to 0,95 (Tavakol & Dennick, 2011) but the value also depends on the number of items. For example, if a scale has 10 items and Cronbach’s alpha is 0.71, then the average correlation coefficient of the items is 0.2. However, if a scale has only 5 items and the average correlation coefficient of the items is also 0.2, then Cronbach’s alpha is only 0.56. Thus, Cronbach’s alpha is dependent on the number of items (Pallant, 2020). Therefore, our scales show acceptable values, e.g., strong (weak) sustainability has 4 items, Cronbach’s alpha = 0.61.
We added the following Note to Table 2: “Note: For scales with fewer than 10 items it is acceptable to find Cronbach’s α range between 0.50 and 0.70.”
Tavakol, M. & Dennick, R. (2011). Making sense of Cronbach's alpha. International journal of medical education, 2, 53–55. https://doi.org/10.5116/ijme.4dfb.8dfd
Pallant, J. (2020). SPSS survival manual: A step by step guide to data analysis using IBM SPSS (Seventh edition). Routledge.
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Results
Table 3 is not cited in the text of the manuscript. It is necessary to do so.
Response #12-R2: We added this information on page 12.
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In 4.1 replace “Tab. 4 "by" Table 4 ".
Response #13-R2: This has been corrected accordingly.
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In the paragraph “There are no significant differences between the conceptions of teacher-training and non-teacher-training students, although answers addressing the idea of intergenerational justice and a multidimensional understanding (2 or more of the three sustainability dimensions were ad-dressed) are more frequently given by UCTE-students (5% more students in each of the two cases) ”. I recommend that the authors provide the p-value that shows that there are no significant differences.
Response #14-R2: We added the p-value and the effect size (p = 0.535, Cohen’s d = 0.093; Cohen’s d should be at least 0.2 even for a weak effect).
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In Table 5 indicate that S.D. is the standard deviation
Response #15-R2: This has been corrected accordingly.
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Discussion
The authors present their discussion and contextualize it with previous research, which I think is correct and necessary.
The phrase "In summary, hypothesis 1 (The study choice motives differ between degree programs) can be confirmed." I recommend moving it to the beginning of section 5.1, eliminating “In summary”.
In 5.2 the authors wrote, "In general, our research shows positive scores for most sustainability-related variables, which is largely consistent with previous study results." I invite the authors to reconsider the term "In general"; it is not very accurate and imprecise. I recommend changing it strictly adhering to the discussion of the results obtained.
Response #16-R2: Correspondingly, we have moved the sentence on hypothesis 1 to the beginning of the paragraph where the corresponding justifications and explanations are stated. The sentence does not fit at the very beginning of 5.1, because the explanations in the first two paragraphs of 5.1 do not refer directly to the hypothesis.
We also removed the term "In general".
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I cannot find, in the discussions, an answer to hypothesis 2. Since the authors did refer specifically to H1, it is necessary that they do the same with H2.
Response #17-R2: Thank you, that is important. We have specified hypothesis 2 and structured section 5.3 in the discussion more clearly and accordingly. There are now precise references to the hypothesis, which are introduced once again at the beginning and discussed regarding to the differences in the degree programme (paragraph 2-5) as well as gender (paragraph 6-7).
“In this section, hypothesis 2 is discussed first: “There are differences in the sustainability-related attributes (sustainability conceptions, engagement in sustainability and sustainability-related self-efficacy) according to the degree programme, expecting higher values for teacher training-students and according to gender, expecting higher results for females.”
“Regarding the differences due to the degree programme hypothesis 2 is confirmed. ….”
“Regarding gender differences, hypothesis 2 is only partially confirmed in the present study….”
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The authors wrote, “The hypothesis regarding gender differences is only partially confirmed in the present study. The female… ”. This hypothesis, as such (H3, H4…?), is not previously presented in the manuscript. As I have commented before, the approach of the “Research Hypotheses” and / or “Research questions” is confusing and it is necessary to clarify it both at the beginning of the manuscript and in the discussion of the results.
Response #18-R2: See response before (#17-R2). We specified the hypothesis in the introduction and discussed them more explicitly in section 5.3.
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Conclusions
I recommend that the authors raise their conclusions based on the fulfillment (or not) of the hypotheses raised.
Response #19-R2: We have revised the conclusions and made a stronger reference to the (partial) verification of the hypotheses.
Reviewer 3 Report
- The title is long, but concrete and representative.
- The abstract is perfect, direct and detailed. It includes all relevant aspects: description of the problem, methodology, results and conclusion.
- The text is very well written but some paragraphs are very short and others very long. I would look for a harmonious development of the paragraphs, where all of them have 5-7 lines. This gives clarity and readability to the text. It is especially recommended in the theoretical framework that refers to sustainability.
- In Materials and Methods there is no reference study that has carried out similar research and validates the methodology used. It would be good to look for them and cite them, even if there are only 3 or 4 works.
- The results are impeccably presented.
- I value very positively that the discussion includes limitations.
- It would be good to summarise the discussion in a figure, which would make this research replicable, beyond the valuable and pertinent figures of results.
Author Response
The title is long, but concrete and representative.
Response #1-R3: Thank you. We have shortened and changed considering the feedback from all three reviewers.
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The abstract is perfect, direct and detailed. It includes all relevant aspects: description of the problem, methodology, results and conclusion.
Response #2-R3: Thank you.
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The text is very well written but some paragraphs are very short and others very long. I would look for a harmonious development of the paragraphs, where all of them have 5-7 lines. This gives clarity and readability to the text. It is especially recommended in the theoretical framework that refers to sustainability.
Response #3-R3: We have implemented this advice as far as possible, but due to content-related aspects we sometimes have still more lines.
Especially in the Theoretical Background, this adjustment has improved readability.
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In Materials and Methods there is no reference study that has carried out similar research and validates the methodology used. It would be good to look for them and cite them, even if there are only 3 or 4 works.
Response #4-R3: We integrated such references more explicitly in the first paragraph of section 3.2., see: “In the present study, a semi-standardized questionnaire was used, following the methodology and structure of recent studies in the field [27, 116, 117] (for a critical review and analysis on respecting instruments see Redman et al. [13]).”
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The results are impeccably presented.
I value very positively that the discussion includes limitations.
Response #5-R3: Thank you!
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It would be good to summarise the discussion in a figure, which would make this research replicable, beyond the valuable and pertinent figures of results.
Response #6-R3: Because it is unusual to use a graphic in a discussion and we have been not able to find any other example in the journal Sustainability, we would like to do without it. Furthermore, we refer to the Graphical Abstract and suggest incorporating such aspects into it.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I appreciate a lot all the changes made and explanations sent by the Authors
