An Action Research on the Long-Term Implementation of an Engineering-Centered PjBL of Sustainable Energy in a Rural Middle School

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I would like to congratulate the authors for having introduced important changes that substantially improve the quality of the text.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Many thanks for your encouragement and support!

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

Although some changes have been made (unfortunately non-essential), it remains that the scientific level of the paper is not corresponding to the level of the Sustainability Journal. I encourage you to try other journals that accept the descriptive type you approach in the paper.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Many thanks for your comments! 

Action research has become a significant methodology in education. It is promoted and implemented by many international development agencies. It is promoted and implemented by many international development agencies, university programs, and international organizations around the world, such as American Educational Research Association. In the Sustainability journal, this approach is not common, but it is not absent, and it is on the rise each year, with at least 13 studies highlighting this particular research method in the last five years in the Sustainability journal under the title of action research. 

In this revision, we have made structural changes mainly based on the editor's suggestions. We hope that such adjustments will help more readers of the Sustainability journal accept this paper.

Reviewer 3 Report

All suggested changes are integrated into the paper organically.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Many thanks for your encouragement and support!

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper has been improved.

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.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors in my opinion, the study needs some changes that I expose next.

INTRODUCTION.-

- In the introduction, the authors want to make clear the importance of the ideas of green energy, sustainable energy, and opportunities for practice and real action. This is done well, but they move from one part to another, without any order (lines 35-36, etc.). They should reorder some paragraphs of the introduction.

- 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 on the topic.

METHODOLOGY.-

- The study used multiple data sources to document the effects of engineering-centered PjBL on students' creativity and engineering skills, internalized environmental sustainability concepts, and learning attitudes. However, the authors do not indicate how the data analysis was carried out. The authors obtained a lot of qualitative data and used this qualitative data to answer their research questions (questions 2 and 3). If the authors explain how they analyze the data, the study results will be more convincing and meaningful to readers.

RESULTS.-

- The results of the study will be more convincing and meaningful (questions 2 and 3) if it is explained how the data from the different sources of information are analyzed.

Reviewer 2 Report

Although there are some interesting issues you've tackled, the scientific level is too low for Sustainability Journal

Reviewer 3 Report

The study presented here deals with a topic of great interest in the teaching-learning process of practices of environmental protection and sustainable energy.

The pedagogical experience is interesting, but it contains several important problems to be published in an impact journal such as Sustainability.

From a conceptual point of view.

The questions under study consider the following dependent variables: a) Creativity; b) engineering skills; c) Learning attitudes.

However, the theoretical framework does not extensively develop the reference theory on which each of these dependent variables is based. This is a key issue in the methodology, in the description of the data and the interpretation of the results. Without a rigorous and exhaustive theoretical development it is impossible to identify the different conceptual units, dimensions or factors considered.

The intervention programme functions as an "independent variable" in this research. The extent to which the pedagogical programme is compatible or not with co-operative work should have been justified much better. The specific literature on the use of co-operation states that it is very different from competition. However, in the pedagogical proposal, competition has been a key ingredient.

The wording of the objectives has been oriented towards the explanation of the pedagogical experience (typical of a divulgation article) rather than towards the identification of possible hypotheses or objectives in which the relationship between the independent variable and the dependent ones is established.

From a methodological point of view.

The text should better justify:

The study design

Participants: the code of the ethics committee that approved this research should be detailed.

Instruments. The use of validated instruments should be identified. In the case of instruments created by the authors themselves, the validity process followed should be explained.

Procedure and data analysis. The measures that were taken to ensure the quality of the data should be much better detailed. For example, the procedure followed by the observers to collect the information; the way the database was created; the way the content analysis was carried out (deductive or inductive view); phases of this process (identification of hermeneutic units, segmentation, categorisation...); software used for the content analysis (e.g., nudist, Atlas.ti...); criteria to guarantee the internal and external validity of the results.

If the approach is qualitative, then it would be convenient in the results section to put "quotes" from the comments identified from the participants of the experience.

The discussion should interweave the theoretical framework (reference theories on creativity, specific or transversal competencies studied, and attitudes) with the data obtained.

Furthermore, considering that the experience is situated in a very specific geographical and cultural context, an attempt should be made to show the contribution of the findings of this article to the scientific and academic community in other geographical and cultural contexts.

For all these reasons, this article should not be accepted for publication in this journal.