Innovative Approach to Assist Architecture Teachers in Choosing Practical Sessions

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is really well developed and presented. Ideas are clear. It is something difficult to follow because of the use of abbreviations. Indeed, there are too many tables and figures, which also contribute to the difficulty to easily follow the article. Nevertheless, it is fine and well done.

Author Response

Comments of the authors to reviewers

First of all, the authors of this manuscript would like to thank the reviewers for the time and efforts made. The comments, questions, and suggestions have helped to enhance the quality of the manuscript and to clarify some aspects that in the former version were rather confusing. The following pages show the changes performed.

Reviewer: The paper is really well developed and presented. Ideas are clear. It is something difficult to follow because of the use of abbreviations. Indeed, there are too many tables and figures, which also contribute to the difficulty to easily follow the article. Nevertheless, it is fine and well done.

Authors: The authors would like to thank the reviewer for the helpful comments. According to these comments and to ease following the article the abbreviations have been clarified in several parts of the main text and legends bellow tables. Moreover, the abbreviation RT that was not crucial has been substituted for the full meaning “requirements tree” in all the text. Figure 2b, which was the only one considered not essential by the authors, has been erased to ease the reading as well.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is interesting and actual for nowadays educators, however I have some suggestions for improvement.

11 p. The project is not mentioned however for me looks that this is the aim of the paper. Should be reformulated.

136 p. mentioned project is not identified.

161 p. too many abbreviations in the whole paper is difficult to read.

194 mentioned experts, however nothing is written about their coalification and selection for the model evaluation, there is not explained why 22 expert is the mostly appropriate number. Was the number validated?

263 p. not sure if I understood that MIVES-Delphi method was described. If no, please describe it.

 Table 5. Please check if the title is correct.

CBL and PBL are mentioned several times, however there are no explanations about the methods at all.

454 p. there is lost title of the picture

464 p. Figure 2a and 2b. Sensitivity analysis – this appears fro where?

464 p. and 466 pl. figure titles need to be bellow the figure.

478 p. table title should be above the table.

In the beginning there was mentioned a new model, however I couldn’t find any model scheme.

General: extremely big number of abbreviations making had reading of the paper.  

Author Response

Comments of the authors to reviewers

First of all, the authors of this manuscript would like to thank the reviewers for the time and efforts made. The comments, questions, and suggestions have helped to enhance the quality of the manuscript and to clarify some aspects that in the former version were rather confusing. The following pages show the changes performed.

1Reviewer: The paper is interesting and actual for nowadays educators, however I have some suggestions for improvement.

1Authors: The authors would like to thank the reviewer for the helpful comments. According to this comment the manuscript has been changed as follows.

2Reviewer: 11 p. The project is not mentioned however for me looks that this is the aim of the paper. Should be reformulated.

2Authors: Regarding this comment, the authors changed the beginning of the abstract as follows:

This article presents the first results of the project Architecture 360, which focuses on learning alternatives for developing working skills in higher education courses, and specifically construction competences for architecture students.

3Reviewer: 136 p. mentioned project is not identified.

3Authors: Regarding this comment, the authors changed Figure 1 caption as follows:

Figure 1. The six-phase methodological approach developed in this project Architecture 360. Legend: SWOT - strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

4Reviewer: 161 p. too many abbreviations in the whole paper is difficult to read.

4Authors: According to this comment and to ease reading the article the abbreviations have been explained in several parts of the main text and legends bellow tables. Moreover, the abbreviations RT and MCDM that were not so necessary have been substituted for the full meaning “requirements tree” and “multi-criteria decision-making” respectively in all the text.

5Reviewer: 194 mentioned experts, however nothing is written about their coalification and selection for the model evaluation, there is not explained why 22 expert is the mostly appropriate number. Was the number validated?

5Authors: Regarding this comment, the authors have changed the explanation in the fourth paragraph of section 3.2. Phase 3 as follows:

This project followed the Delphi-based approach explained by Casanovas-Rubio & Armengou [39] to define RT weights, choose the experts who participated in assigning the weights, and manage the related surveying process. First, the authors used Delphi to select and ask the participation of 22 qualified experts, the expertise and main data of which is summarized in Table A.4 in Appendix C. Twenty of them completed the surveying procedure and proposed weights by the direct assignment method. The number of experts was higher than the recommended minimum number of panellists for this approach [39]. 

6Reviewer: 263 p. not sure if I understood that MIVES-Delphi method was described. If no, please describe it.

6Authors: The method was described but to clarify it to potential readers the following has been added in section 3.5. Phase 6:

In this last phase, the teaching team chooses the best set of alternatives, taking into consideration the Knapsack results and their experience, expertise, technical literature, Bloom’s Taxonomy revised by Anderson, and neuroscience in education [41]. The Knapsack results include the MIVES-Delphi assessment (Section 3.2, Phase 3), which is based on feasible alternatives from the SWOT analysis.

7Reviewer: Table 5. Please check if the title is correct.

7Authors: To further clarify this title it has been changed as follows:

Table 5. Minimum number of sessions the activities require to be implemented.

8Reviewer: CBL and PBL are mentioned several times, however there are no explanations about the methods at all.

8Authors: According to this comment and to ease reading the article the abbreviations have been explained in several parts of the main text and legends bellow tables. Furthermore, in Section 5.2 the following has been added:

The aforementioned literature reviews [18] classified these alternatives into three types and three groups. Appendix B, Table A.2 classifies these learning alternatives and gives references to understand them in detail.

9Reviewer:

454 p. there is lost title of the picture

464 p. Figure 2a and 2b. Sensitivity analysis – this appears fro where?

464 p. and 466 pl. figure titles need to be bellow the figure.

478 p. table title should be above the table.

9Authors: This section of the manuscript had problems regarding the position of Figures and Tables and has been fixed.

10Reviewer: In the beginning there was mentioned a new model, however I couldn’t find any model scheme.

10Authors: The authors thank the reviewer for this comment. The use of the word model was introducing confusion to the text in several parts. So it has been substituted by the word approach were it required to be substituted. For example, in the fourth paragraph of the introduction:

This article presents a new approach that aims to assist teachers in choosing the best set of activities for the practical sessions of a specific course. The approach considers the characteristics of the learning alternatives, stakeholders and contextual factors. It draws on a previous review of related technical literature [18], based on which the authors defined this new approach and its six main steps following Delphi, expert seminars and focus groups. This article presents the first version of the approach, which focuses on practical learning in architecture schools. The steps include a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methodology called an integrated value model for sustainability assessment (MIVES) and a Knapsack algorithm, which was based on a similar approach by the authors that successfully helped teachers to choose the most suitable active learning activities in lectures for large groups [19]. Thus, the main difference in the present approach is its focus on practical sessions, and a general improvement based on the results of the previous approach’s implementation. To validate this new approach, the authors applied it for the first time to a specific course at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC). The next section describes potential learning alternatives. Then, Section 3 presents the new approach, Section 4 identifies the problem, and Sections 5 to 7 are the results, discussion and conclusions of applying this approach for the first time.

11Reviewer: General: extremely big number of abbreviations making had reading of the paper. 

11Authors: According to this comment and to ease reading the article the abbreviations have been explained in several parts of the main text and legends bellow tables. Moreover, the abbreviations RT and MCDM that were not so necessary have been substituted for the full meaning “requirements tree” and “multi-criteria decision-making” respectively in all the text.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf