Sustainable Teaching and Learning through a Mobile Application: A Case Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

An interesting and widely debated study in the field of educational studies is presented. In this sense, the advantages of interdisciplinarity (engineering and education) in the advancement of this line of educational research (ICT in teaching and learning processes, in particular, through smartphones) are evidenced. To this end, an APP is designed, implemented and evaluated in an engineering course.

In order to increase its impact, it is recommended to address the following improvements:

1. Please reorganize the methodological section according to international standards of scientific-educational research. It is suggested to structure it more clearly: First, describe the sociodemographic profile of the participants, including the non-probability convenience sampling type; next, focus on the instrument applied, duly validated (Kuder-Richardson Formula 20 or KR-20), and from which you will obtain the data that will make up the 'Results' section (please describe or include the instrument –questionnaire-, measured in dichotomous values, as an appendix); then, incorporate a subsection on the design and procedure developed in this research; finally, describe the data analysis carried out. This information is partially described. As part of the 'procedure', section 3 should be included and not so much as part of the scientific literature review.

2. Considering the wide availability of scientific literature related to the research object addressed, it would be advisable to deepen and broaden the discussion of results section.

3. Finally, as prospective lines for the future, it would be convenient to highlight the convenience of carrying out a longitudinal study of repeated measures to verify the formative and didactic effectiveness of the application.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

I enclose responses to all your valuable comments

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper is not good and not bad, it is not relevant and not irrelevant. 

It is the umpteenth article on the use of apps & Company in the classroom, for teaching, and it is not very clear why the teaching itself, through this application / these applications or by using this application / these applications, should be "sustainable" - the only reason which pops up is that the article is submitted to Sustainability and, therefore, it needs to contain something "sustainable", to be considered suitable to the Journal. 

The main concern generates exactly from this point, it is really unclear if a paper like this is suitable to a Journal as prestigious as Sustainability, even in the context of a thematic Special Issue. 

That said, the Introduction is too short, it should really 'introduce' more the topic of the article, also highlighting its scope and its relevance in its field of studies. 

The Literature Review is 'scattered' here and there, if sections 2 and 3 want to be a Literature Review, while it would have been way more appropriate to have a single and 'punctual' section entitled "Literature Review", commenting and analyzing all the significant works used and cited by the Authors and relevant in the field in themselves. 

The Methodology is ok, explained clearly enough to allow for reproducibility. 

The Results are ok - please, guys, enough with questionnaires, it seems, lately, that scholars cannot write a paper about anything without questionnaires and without bothering subjects to answer this question and that question, generally to get self-evident results. 

The Discussion is monstrously short, it should be one of the main sections of the paper, while it is almost irrelevant in the article itself, and that is a major flaw. It needs to be significantly expanded and enhanced, by analyzing and commenting (more) the results, point-by-point, and providing an hermeneutic effort, which is completely missing. 

Conclusions and Future Work are there, 'without infamy and without praise' - at least the Conclusions should be expanded, by 'mirroring' the Introduction, stressing again on the relevance of the paper and explaining how the Authors have achieved their Research goals. 

The paper provides almost self-evident answers to the questions it rises and, therefore, the basic question is if a study like this is necessary, or, at least, relevant. 

If the answer is "yes", the article needs to be revised thoroughly and enhanced considerably before being considered for publication. 

A positive note is the English language, which is almost everywhere effective and does not require big changes, apart from some parts where the punctuation is weird (why do the Authors use often a comma where a full stop would be natural?) and some parts where the language is, simply, not English (for example, among others, what is the grammatical / orthographic meaning of the occurrences of "It [...] is encouraged", at page 14)? 

All in all, the paper requires a thorough revision, at the level of format and content, before being considered for publication. 

Thank you very much. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

I enclose responses to all your valuable comments

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Suggestions and recommendations have been, to a large extent, complied with.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Thanks to his wise recommendations, the article has a better presentation of the research carried out.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper has been considerably improved and, now, is, surely, a better piece of Research. 

  Independently from that, this Reviewer has still some concerns on the suitability of an article like this to a Journal as prestigious as Sustainability. 

  Nonetheless, the changes developed by the Authors and the work they produced in revising the article is commendable. 

  Surely, now, this paper has its merits. 

  Thank you very much. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Thanks to his wise recommendations, the article has a better presentation of the research carried out.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx