Research Insights and Challenges of Secondary School Energy Education: A Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells Case Study
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors in my opinion, the study needs some changes that I expose next.
INTRODUCTION.-
- The abstract should be improved for publication of the paper in this journal. Include a sentence about the design and underscore the scientific value added of your paper.
- The introduction and theoretical background needs to be adjusted so as to provide a deeper background on the subject matter. Add more recent/relevant and diverse references.
METHODOLOGY.-
Section 2 can be broken down into: research objective or questions, data collection instruments, sample, data analysis, etc. The Material and Methods section should be improved:
- Authors should clearly state the objective or questions of their research.
- Why these research instruments and tools? On what theory are the applied questionnaires based?
- The authors do not indicate how the data analysis was carried out.
RESULTS.-
- Section 4.4 of results is in the conclusions section. It is not right.
CONCLUSIONS
- The concluding section should synthesize the research done by the authors and avoid new theories.
FORMAL ISSUES.-
- Authors should strive to be more synthetic in their work. Sometimes authors repeat arguments already given.
Author Response
Dear reviewer
Thank you for your carefulness and professional review comments. All reviewer's comments are very useful for us. We’ll response the reviewer comments point-by-point as below:
Point 1: Dear authors in my opinion, the study needs some changes that I expose next.
INTRODUCTION.-
The abstract should be improved for publication of the paper in this journal. Include a sentence about the design and underscore the scientific value added of your paper.
Response 1: Thanks for the reviewer's suggestions. We have revised the abstract and added that the research method is to use action research.
Point 2: The introduction and theoretical background needs to be adjusted so as to provide a deeper background on the subject matter. Add more recent/relevant and diverse references.
Response 2: Thanks for the reviewer's suggestions. We have revised the introduction and cited relevant references. This should enable readers to understand the theoretical background of the article.
Point 3: METHODOLOGY.-
Section 2 can be broken down into: research objective or questions, data collection instruments, sample, data analysis, etc. The Material and Methods section should be improved:
- Authors should clearly state the objective or questions of their research.
- Why these research instruments and tools? On what theory are the applied questionnaires based?
- The authors do not indicate how the data analysis was carried out.
Response 3: Thanks for the reviewer's suggestions. We deleted some literature review in the second paragraph and reorganized the structure of the second and third paragraphs. The second paragraph mainly described how we developed suitable DSSCs teaching modules from the university science laboratory and explained our goals are to develop the course of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary integration for secondary school students. In the third paragraph we write that the research process is divided into five steps to develop the Hands-on course. First, we simplify the DSSCs experimental equipment developed by the university and reduce the cost. Second, the experimental modules developed by the university were revised through the participation of high school scientific research club students, so that the experimental activities can be implemented in high schools. Third, we design feasible hands-on experiment to integrate into high school energy elective courses. Fourth, the high school Hands-on energy course is simplified and used to out-of-school science activities. Fifth, after the primary and secondary school teacher workshops, the participating teachers will evaluate whether the Hands-on course can be integrated into their teaching.
Our research instruments used mainly the information-choice questionnaire(ICQ) method to collect data. In step 2，we designed the open-ended questionnaire to collect science club students’ suggestions. In step 3 to 5，the questionnaires are adapted 5-point Likert scale to collect students’ responses. All the questionnaires’ cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient were higher than .91.
Point 4: RESULTS.-
- Section 4.4 of results is in the conclusions section. It is not right.
Response 4: Thank’s for the reviewer’s reminding. The section 4.4 of result ran into the conclusion was happening, something trouble of software on my computer. We have reorganized of it.
Point 5: CONCLUSIONS
- The concluding section should synthesize the research done by the authors and avoid new theories.
Response 5:Thanks for the reviewer's suggestions. We have rewritten the conclusions. We only made the conclusions from the results and discussions. We delete the new theories in the conclusion section.
Point 6: FORMAL ISSUES.-
- Authors should strive to be more synthetic in their work. Sometimes authors repeat arguments already given.
Response 6:Thanks for the reviewer's suggestions. We have rewritten to become more structured, and have deleted some repeat arguments.
Thank you for your kind and professional suggestions!
Sincerely,
Corresponding Author
Chin-Cheng Chou
Professor and Chairperson
Department of Science Education,
National Taipei University of Education, Taipei,Taiwan;
Additional Contact
Sen-I Chien
Doctoral Candidate
Institute of Organic and Polymeric Materials,
National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei , Taiwan
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript "Transforming University Research Outcomes into A Secondary School Energy Education and It's Challenges: A Case Study in Dye-Sensitised Solar Cells" deals with creating, implementing and evaluating a high school course on dye-sensitised solar cells (DSSC) in the framework of STEM education. This question could be of interest in the field of research in science didactics and specifically STEM. However, I have found major limitations in the presented work which I detail below.
The introduction does not present a coherent argumentative thread presenting the problem to be addressed that would lead to the establishment of a clear and concise research objective.
There are serious shortcomings in the literature review section, especially in relation to the authors' epistemological assumptions about STEM education.
The method section does not explain what type of study was performed. It begins by naming the implementation of a questionnaire in a totally decontextualized manner. Furthermore, the process of creating and validating the questionnaire is not explained, which negates its reliability and, therefore, that of the research. It is not enough to indicate Cronbach's alpha, but to explain the entire process of creating the items, dimensions, etc., a much more complex and detailed process.
On the other hand, only the activities of the program are named but no complete information about them is given in detail, not allowing to understand the STEM nature of the design.
Finally, the manuscript does not present any discussion of the results with other results already present in the literature, when there is enough literature on the effects of STEM education.
Author Response
Dear reviewer
Thank you for your carefulness and professional review comments. All reviewer's comments are very useful for us. We’ll response the reviewer comments point-by-point as below:
Point1: The manuscript "Transforming University Research Outcomes into A Secondary School Energy Education and It's Challenges: A Case Study in Dye-Sensitised Solar Cells" deals with creating, implementing and evaluating a high school course on dye-sensitised solar cells (DSSC) in the framework of STEM education. This question could be of interest in the field of research in science didactics and specifically STEM. However, I have found major limitations in the presented work which I detail below.
The introduction does not present a coherent argumentative thread presenting the problem to be addressed that would lead to the establishment of a clear and concise research objective.
Response 1: Thanks for reviewer’s suggestions. We have revised the introduction and try to to coherent the research objective and research framework in the article. Our original course design adopted the STEM framework, but other reviewers felt that the data we collected could not explain the effectiveness of all aspects of the STEM curriculum. Therefore, we no longer emphasize the structure of STEM, and use interdisciplinary integrated course to describe our course design.
Point 2:There are serious shortcomings in the literature review section, especially in relation to the authors' epistemological assumptions about STEM education.
Response 2:Thanks for the reviewer’s suggestion. We have deleted the STEM literature reviews and wrote directly that the research objective is to find a way to put the university's new technology experiments into the middle school curriculum. Let readers know more clearly that the focus of the article lies in the development process of the hands-on experiment course and whether it can improve students’ learning attitude and motivation.
Point 3: The method section does not explain what type of study was performed. It begins by naming the implementation of a questionnaire in a totally decontextualized manner. Furthermore, the process of creating and validating the questionnaire is not explained, which negates its reliability and, therefore, that of the research. It is not enough to indicate Cronbach's alpha, but to explain the entire process of creating the items, dimensions, etc., a much more complex and detailed process.
Response 3: Thanks for the reviewer’s suggestion. We have revised the research method section. This research methodology was action research, and we developed the DSSCs course by five steps. The development process of the questionnaire is also described.
Point 4: On the other hand, only the activities of the program are named but no complete information about them is given in detail, not allowing to understand the STEM nature of the design. Finally, the manuscript does not present any discussion of the results with other results already present in the literature, when there is enough literature on the effects of STEM education.
Response 4: Thanks for the reviewer’s suggestion. At the beginning, we used the STEM approach as a framework. From the other reviewers’ suggestions, we don’t emphasize STEM framework. have made significant corrections. The focus of this article is on the process of how to transform experiments developed in university laboratories into high school experimental teaching aids. We expected that students can have interdisciplinary integrated learning, and confirm whether this experiment can be an out-of school experiment activity. We conduct teacher workshops and evaluate the feasibility of integrating into school teaching through participants. We refocus on the process of transforming university experiments into middle schools, and no longer use STEM curriculum design as the core structure of the article.
Thank you for your kind and professional comments
Sincerely
Corresponding Author
Chin-Cheng Chou
Professor and Chairperson
Department of Science Education,
National Taipei University of Education, Taipei,Taiwan;
Additional Contact
Sen-I Chien
Doctoral Candidate
Institute of Organic and Polymeric Materials,
National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei , Taiwan
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
This is an interesting article, but not well presented and it is somewhat unclear as to whether it is about research, or a new example for STEM teaching. The contribution to research is via qualitative questionnaires and interviews, but the actual focus seems to be more on the development of new teaching materials. In this regard, the title is somewhat misleading - indicating a focus on the transforming of University research for school teaching, while the text is more interested in promoting an example of a STEM approach (and the article definitely relates to this) so much so that the focus seems to be motivational STEM teaching.
By and large, the article is not well focused and is too long If the article is intending to focus on the transformation of DSSC research for school STEM teaching, then it can be modified by concentrating on modifications seen as appropriate and providing updated learning related to solar cells. The article then shows how students are not only able to cope with this, but find it meaningful and motivational, while teachers are also interested. The research focus is, in this case, more on the development of new STEM- related teaching materials.
Alternatively, the focus may be more on out-of-school learning and the role of Universities in this. Then it seems to be more preparing students for the ways of research.
Overall the questionnaires are fine but relatively trivial and tend to provide a check on how far students are finding the involvement meaningful and relevant. As such, the questionnaires are fine, but the actual research questions are missing and again the concept of a case study approach is somewhat misleading. What is the case study? - is it developing a new STEM experimental experience, or is it promoting the inquiry-based approach? If it is the latter, how is this evaluated?
Why does the article seek to cover so much? I appreciate the creation of the STEM experimentation (although I do not see the need to dwell, in the literature review, on the meaning/value of STEM). And I appreciate the adaption process to meet student learning capabilities. But the trying out in high school camps and seeking teacher comments, I see, as really validating aspects for the adaption process and while validation is important in seeking the challenges or concerns in the approach, I feel it needs to be labelled and handled as such, rather than a major focus (in this specific article).
Thus I am suggesting a rewrite. First reconsidering the title - it seems to me the article is really updating solar cell learning and I strongly support that. It seems the introduction makes the case for solar cell development, although I am not sure why the paragraph on lines 43-49 is needed. The introduction is then expected to lead to the research question(s) on addressing the concerns for the re-development of the University research for suitability in school. The literature reviews seems to be about the importance of STEM and I suggest largely irrelevant in the intended narrow field of DSSC learning - rather the educational gains, linked to students being involved in inquiry-based learning can be more of a focus. I am afraid the methodology is far from that expected - more, it is expected to cover the persons involved, the operational process(es) and instrument development, data collection and data analysis and ending with addressing validation plus, as appropriate, reliability, concerns. The focus I feel needs to be on the STEM learning gains, rather that simply related to attitudinal aspects (although the attitudinal questionnaires associated with the developing the experiment as a learning exercise I feel are very appropriate). The results and their interpretation are essential, but I feel the discussion can link more with the literature on seeking the success of the intended learning. The conclusion can be expected to answer the research question(s).
Author Response
Dear reviewer
Thank you for your carefulness and professional review comments. All reviewer's comments are very useful for us. We’ll response the reviewer's comments point-by-point as below:
Point 1: This is an interesting article, but not well presented and it is somewhat unclear as to whether it is about research, or a new example for STEM teaching. The contribution to research is via qualitative questionnaires and interviews, but the actual focus seems to be more on the development of new teaching materials. In this regard, the title is somewhat misleading indicating a focus on the transforming of University research for school teaching, while the text is more interested in promoting an example of a STEM approach (and the article definitely relates to this) so much so that the focus seems to be motivational STEM teaching.
Response 1: Thank you for your professional key opinions. The aim of this article is focused on developing a DSSCs teaching module hands-on course to high school students. Initially, the DSSCs module need more expensive equipments and materials in the university laboratory. The author reduced the cost of the equipments, and make this experiment possible to implement in high school science teaching. We use an action research method to develop the course by five steps. Finally, the research showed that the hands-on energy course is successful.
Point 2: By and large, the article is not well focused and is too long If the article is intending to focus on the transformation of DSSC research for school STEM teaching, then it can be modified by concentrating on modifications seen as appropriate and providing updated learning related to solar cells. The article then shows how students are not only able to cope with this, but find it meaningful and motivational, while teachers are also interested. The research focus is, in this case, more on the development of new STEM- related teaching materials.
Response 2: Thanks for your suggestions. The goal of this article is focused on transforming the teaching module into the high school hands-on course. The aim is to promote students’ learning motivation. The students not only study the interdisciplinary learning but also increase their aware to renewable energy issues. To avoid misleading of readers, the other reviewer suggested us to modified the article, and we don’t need to stress the STEM framework in order to let the purpose of this article more clearly.
Point 3: Alternatively, the focus may be more on out-of-school learning and the role of Universities in this. Then it seems to be more preparing students for the ways of research.
Response 3: Thank you very much for your kind suggestion. The out-of-school learning is the part we will focus on the next study. The role of the university is to develop higher efficiency , low cost, harmless, safe, and fabricatable teaching module which we had published on the Journal of Chemical Education in 2018. (Chien, S. I.; Su, C.; Chou, C. C.; Li, W. R. Visual Observation and Practical Application of Dye Sensitized Solar Cell in High School Energy Education. J. Chem. Educ. 2018, 95, 1167-1172)
Point 4: Overall the questionnaires are fine but relatively trivial and tend to provide a check on how far students are finding the involvement meaningful and relevant. As such, the questionnaires are fine, but the actual research questions are missing and again the concept of a case study approach is somewhat misleading. What is the case study? - is it developing a new STEM experimental experience, or is it promoting the inquiry-based approach? If it is the latter, how is this evaluated?
Response 4: Thank you very much for your caring opinions. The methodology was action research which is a systematic process of inquiry conduced by and for taking the action, and the participants identify that the problematic situation is worth investigating in order to bring critical and informed changes in practice. This article was action research, the case study of the questionnaires were aiming to gather students’ response of their interdisciplinary learning, learning renewable energy motivation, and environment concerning.
Point 5: Why does the article seek to cover so much? I appreciate the creation of the STEM experimentation (although I do not see the need to dwell, in the literature review, on the meaning/value of STEM). And I appreciate the adaption process to meet student learning capabilities. But the trying out in high school camps and seeking teacher comments, I see, as really validating aspects for the adaption process and while validation is important in seeking the challenges or concerns in the approach, I feel it needs to be labelled and handled as such, rather than a major focus (in this specific article).
Response 5: Thank you very much for reviewer’s suggestion. In this study, we concern about interdisciplinary learning during the hands-on course. To avoid misleading of readers, the other reviewer suggests us to weaken STEM approach contents. The focus of this article is to develop a hands-on energy course step by step, and the purpose of the course design is tend to interdisciplinary approach learning.
Point 6: Thus I am suggesting a rewrite. First reconsidering the title - it seems to me the article is really updating solar cell learning and I strongly support that. It seems the introduction makes the case for solar cell development, although I am not sure why the paragraph on lines 43-49 is needed. The introduction is then expected to lead to the research question(s) on addressing the concerns for the re-development of the University research for suitability in school. The literature reviews seems to be about the importance of STEM and I suggest largely irrelevant in the intended narrow field of DSSC learning - rather the educational gains, linked to students being involved in inquiry-based learning can be more of a focus. I am afraid the methodology is far from that expected - more, it is expected to cover the persons involved, the operational process(es) and instrument development, data collection and data analysis and ending with addressing validation plus, as appropriate, reliability, concerns. The focus I feel needs to be on the STEM learning gains, rather that simply related to attitudinal aspects (although the attitudinal questionnaires associated with the developing the experiment as a learning exercise I feel are very appropriate). The results and their interpretation are essential, but I feel the discussion can link more with the literature on seeking the success of the intended learning. The conclusion can be expected to answer the research question(s).
Response 6: Thank you very much for your suggestions. We rewrote the article, including deleting the paragraph on lines 43-49. We rewrite the introduction. First, we wrote the brief development of solar cell and what we did in the university chemistry laboratory. Second, we rewrote the research purpose in this article and described lab work and hand-on practice learning is very important to inspire high school students on renewable energy learning. We are also rewriting the section 2 to introduce our purpose and how we design the hands-on course. We were also rewrote the section 3(Methodology), including the objectives of the study and the research instruments. In order to coherent to the section of results and discussion, we rewrote the conclusions and modified the section 4. We wish the readers can be more clearly to realize the meaning and value of this article.
Thank you for your kind and professional comments!
Sincerely
Corresponding Author
Chin-Cheng Chou
Professor and Chairperson
Department of Science Education,
National Taipei University of Education, Taipei,Taiwan;
Additional Contact
Sen-I Chien
Doctoral Candidate
Institute of Organic and Polymeric Materials,
National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei , Taiwan
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
The topic of the paper is interesting and fits the scopes of the Journal and of the Special Issue.
Nevertheless, the manuscript requires extra efforts to improve its quality and presentation. After a careful revision, a set of comments are given below.
- Regarding the format of the document, some suggestions are as follows.
The caption of figure 1 lacks the terminal period (punctuation) and the last word is incorrect, “coursre”.
The acronym DIY stands for Do It Yourself; however, this is not provided in the manuscript.
Titles of tables 3 and 9 lack the terminal period (punctuation).
The section Conflicts of interest is missing.
- About the content of the manuscript, these issues are commented.
“STEM” could be added as keyword, if the authors agree.
The Introduction is well scheduled and properly contextualizes the topic of the research. Nonetheless, at least a brief mention to photovoltaic energy could be given. In fact, in the whole manuscript only solar cells are commented; however, their application consists on composing photovoltaic modules.
Still in the Introduction, a good practice consists on placing a paragraph indicating the structure of the rest of the paper in order to facilitate the reading of the document.
At least a brief statement should be included before the subsections that compose the sections 2, 3, and 4. This will help to the readability of the paper.
Concerning the questionnaires described in the subsection 3.2, were they completed in an anonymous manner? In affirmative case, this detail should be indicated.
The achieved results are properly expounded and analysed.
The authors could consider including at least a brief mention to the main limitations of the proposed methodology or of the reported research, if any. This is a common practice in scientific papers and would enhance the presentation of the manuscript. This could be conducted within the Conclusions.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer
Thank you for your careful reading and valuable suggestions. We response your comments point by point as below:
Comment: The topic of the paper is interesting and fits the scopes of the Journal and of the Special Issue.
Nevertheless, the manuscript requires extra efforts to improve its quality and presentation. After a careful revision, a set of comments are given below.
Regarding the format of the document, some suggestions are as follows.
The caption of figure 1 lacks the terminal period (punctuation) and the last word is incorrect, “coursre”.
Response: Thanks for reviewer’s careful reading and suggestions. We modified spelling errors correctly in figure 1 and added a terminal period ( line 124)
Comment: The acronym DIY stands for Do It Yourself; however, this is not provided in the manuscript.
Response: Thanks for your comment. We corrected the DIY to do it yourself in the article. (lines 433-434, and Table 5)
Comment: Titles of tables 3 and 9 lack the terminal period (punctuation).
Response: Thanks for your comments. We added terminal periods at table 3 and 9. (lines 281, 487)
Comment: The section Conflicts of interest is missing.
Response: This article has been checked in the journal’s submission system, we claim no conflict of interest on system. The conflict of interest statement section will be presented automatically when the article is published.
Comment: About the content of the manuscript, these issues are commented.“STEM” could be added as keyword, if the authors agree.
Response: Thank you for your kind recommendation, we added the keyword “STEM approach”. (lines 30-31)
Comment: The Introduction is well scheduled and properly contextualizes the topic of the research. Nonetheless, at least a brief mention to photovoltaic energy could be given. In fact, in the whole manuscript only solar cells are commented; however, their application consists on composing photovoltaic modules.
Response: Thanks for reviewer’s suggestions, we added a brief introduction to photovoltaic energy in section 1. (lines 41, 55-59 )
Comment: Still in the Introduction, a good practice consists on placing a paragraph indicating the structure of the rest of the paper in order to facilitate the reading of the document. At least a brief statement should be included before the subsections that compose the sections 2, 3, and 4. This will help to the readability of the paper.
Response: Thanks for reviewer’s suggestions. We added a short paragraph in section 2, 3, and 4 to make it easier for readers to understand and readability of the article. (lines 126-127, 185-193, 311-312)
Comment: Concerning the questionnaires described in the subsection 3.2, were they completed in an anonymous manner? In affirmative case, this detail should be indicated.
The achieved results are properly expounded and analysed.
Response: Thanks for reviewer’s suggestions. We added a brief sentences to claim in the subsection 3.2 that “the participants had to fill out the questionnaires, but signing their name was optional”. (lines 278-279)
Comment: The authors could consider including at least a brief mention to the main limitations of the proposed methodology or of the reported research, if any. This is a common practice in scientific papers and would enhance the presentation of the manuscript. This could be conducted within the Conclusions.
Response: Thanks for reviewer’s suggestions. We added a brief paragraph about the limitations of this research conducted within the Conclusions. (lines 542-544)
Thank you for your kind and professional suggestions
Sincerely,
Corresponding Author
Chin-Cheng Chou
Professor and Chairman
Department of Science Education,
National Taipei University of Education, Taipei, Taiwan
Additional Contact
Sen-I Chien
Institute of Organic and Polymeric Materials,
National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei , Taiwan
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
I thank the authors for their efforts. However, I do not feel that they have adequately responded to my comments or made changes accordingly that address the main issues I raised in my first review.
First, I do not agree with the idea of, all of a sudden, eliminating the STEM framework. In fact, a number of synergies between the different constituent disciplines are still present in research. Therefore, authors should deepen their knowledge of the STEM framework to present their research, otherwise, the research is presented epistemologically decontextualized.
Second, there are serious deficiencies in the information needed to understand and test the reliability of the instruments. For example, the values of the different items and the process of creating their dimensions, essential issues that totally invalidate the validity of the instruments presented here, are still not provided.
Finally, there are still no in-depth discussions of the results reported; the authors have limited themselves to including a sentence at the end of certain paragraphs without making any type of inference, ending up presenting conclusions that are too lax.
Author Response
Dear reviewer
Thank you for your comments. We response the comments point-by-point as below:
Point 1: I thank the authors for their efforts. However, I do not feel that they have adequately responded to my comments or made changes accordingly that address the main issues I raised in my first review.
Response 1: Thanks for the reviewer's suggestions. We strive to revise the paper based on all reviewers’ recommendations, but the recommendations of the reviewers are partly inconsistent. Therefore, we revised it after considering all the committee members’ suggestions. We apologize for not fully following your suggestions.
Point 2: First, I do not agree with the idea of, all of a sudden, eliminating the STEM framework. In fact, a number of synergies between the different constituent disciplines are still present in research. Therefore, authors should deepen their knowledge of the STEM framework to present their research, otherwise, the research is presented epistemologically decontextualized.
Response 2: Thanks for your suggestion. We have re-added relevant STEM journal articles in the literature review part (lines 136-151) and added the STEM framework to the interdisciplinary course development description.
Point 3: Second, there are serious deficiencies in the information needed to understand and test the reliability of the instruments. For example, the values of the different items and the process of creating their dimensions, essential issues that totally invalidate the validity of the instruments presented here, are still not provided.
Response 3:: Thanks for your suggestion. We have described the four main dimensions of questionnaires in the Instrument session, which are the science knowledge, experiment skills, learning motivation and attitude toward sustainability (lines 242-250). The standard deviation is also added to the questionnaire statistics. We try to increase the validity of the questionnaires (Table 6-9).
Point 4: Finally, there are still no in-depth discussions of the results reported; the authors have limited themselves to including a sentence at the end of certain paragraphs without making any type of inference, ending up presenting conclusions that are too lax.
Response 4:Thanks for your suggestion. We have added some explanations of the correlation between research findings and literature reviews in the discussion section (lines 327-330, 338-340, 346-348, 360-364, 394-397, 441-446). In the conclusion session, another reviewer suggested that we should reduce and reorganize the conclusion part. So we followed the reviewer’s suggestion to revise the conclusion. In the second round of review, the reviewer agreed our revised version. We tried our best to correspond the suggestions of the review committee, but we are still deeply sorry for our shortcomings.
Thank you for your comments
Sincerely,
Corresponding Author
Chin-Cheng Chou
Department of Science Education,
National Taipei University of Education, Taipei,Taiwan;
Additional Contact
Sen-I Chien
Institute of Organic and Polymeric Materials,
National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei , Taiwan
Reviewer 3 Report
The revised format is seen as a meaningful step forward, but I feel the article is not so much a case study on DSSCS as it is on a course in which DSSCs provide the focus. In this respect I suggest it is not just a question of indicating the steps as outlined in the abstract, as it is realizing the purpose of the course. In this respect, the title "Transforming University Research Outcomes into A Secondary School Energy Education and Its Challenges: A Case Study in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells" does not seem to be the most appropriate. The action research seems to relate the suitability of a modified DSSC University research outcome for teaching energy development at the school level, although the purpose for this is not specifically identified except for promoting multidisciplinary integration learning, even though the data collection includes student attitudinal responses. The article is actually covering the development of a course in the field of energy transfer and its outcomes. Unfortunately the paper side-tracks from the action research and in places over-describes the course, or other matters.
The English still needs attention. Besides the frequent change of tense of the verb within a paragrph, there are errors, for example, on lines 36/7, 50, 111, 134, 155, 159, 270, 272, 318, 347, 436.
Author Response
Dear reviewer
Thank you for your comments. All your comments are very useful for us. We response the comments point-by-point as below:
Point 1: The revised format is seen as a meaningful step forward, but I feel the article is not so much a case study on DSSCS as it is on a course in which DSSCs provide the focus. In this respect I suggest it is not just a question of indicating the steps as outlined in the abstract, as it is realizing the purpose of the course. In this respect, the title "Transforming University Research Outcomes into A Secondary School Energy Education and Its Challenges: A Case Study in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells" does not seem to be the most appropriate.
Response 1: Thank you reviewer for your detailed reading and suggestions. We have rewritten the title to "Transforming University Research of Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells into A Secondary School Interdisciplinary Energy Course" according to your suggestion (lines 2-3). Bring the topic closer to our research axis.
Point 2: The action research seems to relate the suitability of a modified DSSC University research outcome for teaching energy development at the school level, although the purpose for this is not specifically identified except for promoting multidisciplinary integration learning, even though the data collection includes student attitudinal responses.
The article is actually covering the development of a course in the field of energy transfer and its outcomes. Unfortunately the paper side-tracks from the action research and in places over-describes the course, or other matters.
Response 2: Thanks for reviewer’s comments. In addition to multidisciplinary integration, the action research also explores students’ learning motivation, experimental skills and attitude towards sustainable development in the questionnaire.。We have added Table 3 in section 3.2 to illustrate (lines 242-250), and discussed its research results in Results and Discussion. The results of the questionnaires found that regardless of the students' interdisciplinary knowledge learning, learning motivation, experimental skills and sustainable concerned attitudes, there are positive development (lines 322-330, 346-348, 359-363, 380-383, 394-397, 406-410, 422-427, 438-446).
Point 3: The English still needs attention. Besides the frequent change of tense of the verb within a paragrph, there are errors, for example, on lines 36/7, 50, 111, 134, 155, 159, 270, 272, 318, 347, 436.
Response 3: Thank you reviewer for your detailed reading and suggestions. We have revised all the places you suggested, and the revised content is as follows
(1) lines 36-37: Therefore, the development and installation of renewable energy technologies popularly are considered urgent.
(2) line 50: Crystalline silicon and thin film solar cells are the first two generations [3,9]. However, these technical lines are too complicated and unsuitable for high school students.
(3) line 111: Mayrinck et al. developed an interdisciplinary undergraduate course that focuses on hands-on experiment using DSSCs module [21].
(4) line 134: The hands-on DSSC course addresses to two major aspects ( Figure 3 ).
(5) line 155: This research methodology adopts action research method.
(6) line 159: Yildirim developed an action research into a hands-on solar energy, not only enhanced students’ understanding of physics concepts, but also promoted students’ awareness of renewable energy [29]. We followed the following five steps to develop the DSSCs module for high school energy hands-on course:
(7) line 270: 4.1. The modification of materials and experimental procedures based on the science club students’ feedback
(8) line 272: With the help of the science club students to simplify the experiments
(9) line 318: 4.2 Postive responses of 10th-grade students to the DSSCs experiment
(10) line 347: 4.3 The evaluation of the hands-on DSSCs course for a junior high school summer science camp
(11) line 346: 5.Conclusions
The research explores the development, transformation, and disseminate of interdisciplinary hands-on solar energy course.
In addition to the above revised content, we did carefully review the full text again. Thank you very much.
Thank you for your kind and professional suggestions
Sincerely,
Corresponding Author
Chin-Cheng Chou
Department of Science Education,
National Taipei University of Education, Taipei,Taiwan;
Additional Contact
Sen-I Chien
Institute of Organic and Polymeric Materials,
National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei , Taiwan
