Review Reports - Examining the Relationship between the Dimensions of the Climate-Change Competence (C3): Testing for Mediation and Moderation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is an interesting paper about an important topic, namely, the approach of Climate Change Competences (C3), in particular, the analysis of the positive relationship between the different dimensions (knowledge, attitudes, and ability), regarding online teacher training through a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). The sample used is sufficient, including both Spanish and Latin American individuals.

The paper could be improved in several ways. First, providing additional context would be helpful in the introduction, particularly in relation to previous research on the Spanish and Latin American Education for Sustainability context and regarding Environmental Health competences. For example, it is important to include the interrelation of Climate Change with other socio-environmental problems that all together constitute a planetary emergency (e.g. Bybee, 1991; Vilches et al., 2004).

Bybee, R.W. (1991). Planet Earth in Crisis: How Should Science Educators Respond?, The American Biology Teacher, 53(3), 146-153.

Vilches, A., Gil-Pérez, D., Edwards, M., Praia, J., & Vasconcelos, C. (2004). A actual crise planetária: uma dimensão esquecida na educação em ciência. Revista de educação, 12(2), 59-73.

Regarding the importance of the knowledge dimension and the importance of knowing what science says on Climate Change, Wynes & Nicholas (2017) should be also cited.

Wynes, S., & Nicholas, K. A. (2017). The climate mitigation gap: education and government recommendations miss the most effective individual actions. Environmental Research Letters, 12(7), 074024.

The method used is fine and clearly explained but need some clarification when coming to the questionnaire/instrument. In the methodology section it is said that the Appendix includes the questionnaire but as it is included in Table A1 it is not clear what participants are asked to do (multiple choice?…). If the Annex is really the questionnaire, it should also include the instructions for participants.

The instrument (2.2) needs some clarification so that the difference between items and the questions made to participants are clear. Mentioning the content of Table A1 could help understand better Figure 1, but it is needed to know the difference between the content of C3 and of the questionnaire.

The design (2.3) needs to be clarified as it seems that there were two editions of the MOOC.

Please, for detailed comments, additional feedback and recommendations see the attached version of the paper with my remarks and underlines.

The references section requires a major overhaul, not only to include those references required in the introduction but also to ensure that the format is as requested by Sustainability. Authors should check the formatting very carefully and adhere to the following: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/instructions#references

Overall, this paper concerns a very interesting topic and one that is certainly extremely valuable, particularly given the long-term impact on teachers and their work in classrooms. The paper has merit in its current form, but additional revision and some reconceptualization would provide further strength.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Referee 1

We thank the referee for his/her comments.

Bybee, R.W. (1991). Planet Earth in Crisis: How Should Science Educators Respond?, The American Biology Teacher, 53(3), 146-153.

Vilches, A., Gil-Pérez, D., Edwards, M., Praia, J., & Vasconcelos, C. (2004). A actual crise planetária: uma dimensão esquecida na educação em ciência. Revista de educação, 12(2), 59-73.

Regarding the importance of the knowledge dimension and the importance of knowing what science says on Climate Change, Wynes & Nicholas (2017) should be also cited.

Wynes, S., & Nicholas, K. A. (2017). The climate mitigation gap: education and government recommendations miss the most effective individual actions. Environmental Research Letters, 12(7), 074024.

We agree with the referee, we have modified the introduction to provide more context in relation to previous research on Education for Sustainability including the interrelation of Climate Change with other socio-environmental problems. We have included the recommended references and some more in the introduction.

We have completed the description of the questionnaire including the instructions.

We have added a more detailed description of the instructions to the participants.

The design (2.3) needs to be clarified as it seems that there were two editions of the MOOC.

There have been two editions of the MOOC but the data was collected only in the second edition. We have included this information in the description of the sample.

Please, for detailed comments, additional feedback and recommendations see the attached version of the paper with my remarks and underlines.

We have read and made all corresponding corrections from the notes in the pdf file.

We have changed the format of all the references in the new version of the paper.

We thank the referee again for the comments and suggestions.

Reviewer 2 Report

The article might be interesting. However, more information is necessary to evaluate its relevance. The objective of the study is to analyze the positive relationship between different dimensions (knowledge, attitudes, and ability) of the Climate Change Competence in the participants of a course. It involves two main questions: RQ1: Can attitudes about CC mediate the correlation between knowledge and ability towards CC in students? and RQ2: Can attitudes strengthen or moderate the relationship between knowledge and 161 abilities? It may be interesting, but it is important to clarify what is the novelty of this study. The defense about the importance of these three dimensions in education is not new. In addition, the authors mention in the Discussion section that other studies have similar results. Therefore, it is important to illuminate what is the novelty in this research. Furthermore, is not clear what is the difference between mediation and moderation. This information can be improved.

Secondly, it is important to better explain the importance of this article. The researchers state that a closer look at these interactions of different dimensions can help us to define effective educational strategies, but it not is clear how it is possible. To understand it is essential to comprehend the possibility of the article´s impact.

The methodology and the results are not so clear for researchers without statistical background. For example: What means: “(χ2(24, N = 530) = 40.15, p=.021, χ2/gl = 1.67, CFI = .988, TLI = .982, 226 RMSEA = .036, and SRMR= .046)” in line 226 and 227 and the similar data in the next paragraphs. What is p in table 1? What is B. or z? Etc.

Author Response

Referee 2

We thank the referee for his/her comments. The novelty in our study is that we investigate these correlations in the framework of Climate Competence. Knowledge dimension is considered essential to understanding the scale and urgency of the problem, but it is not enough to drive action which is often related to abilities and attitudes. Therefore, we need to know what the correlation between these concepts in this context is, which is essential to our capacity to educate present and future students.

In this study, the definitions of meditation and moderation are well defined. The Moderation analysis also allows you to test for the influence of a third variable, Z, on the relationship between variables X and Y. However, the mediation analysis tests a hypothetical causal chain where one variable X affects a second variable M and, in turn, that variable affects a third variable Y.

We have added a paragraph describing the novelty of our contribution and the definitions of meditation and moderation in our paper.

We agree with the referee, and we have included a small paragraph about how our contribution can help to define an educational strategy.

We have included the definition of these variables and their meaning in the paper.

Reviewer 3 Report

First of all, thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to review the paper entitled “Examining the relationship between the dimensions of the Climate Change Competence (C3): Testing for mediation and moderation” – the paper analyses the relationship between knowledge, attitudes, and ability towards climate change with the use of mediation and moderation. Data were collected from students participating in a MOOC course.

Some recommendations and suggestions are provided:

Abstract should include or described the method used - … process macro was used to ….
Introduction is fine – setting the background of the study seems adequate. Line 141 = [27], [28]. Should be [27, 28].
Method section: first part should be the study design, try to separate the study design and the MOOC description, should also expand the description of the course, the type of activities, how students engaged with the lessons. Since it is the experience taking this MOOC Awareness and training on Climate Change for Primary and Secondary teachers course that provided the background for the analysis.
“et. al" should be “et al.” – line 214, should be “under review”
Just wondering what background demographics were collected and should they be used as controlling variables? For instance, some participants are teachers, and some are students (would teachers tend to have higher knowledge? This might affect the analysis), and as I gather some are foreigners, are they all Spanish speaking, there might be some issue with the answering of the survey, if Spanish is not their first language.
The data analysis for mediation and moderation appears appropriate, but, as already mentioned, the inclusion of control variables can be considered

Line 379: Waris & Hameed – should be Waris and Hameed

For the last section: Conclusions, implications, and limitations authors should think about how the investigation ended, how it should look different next time, and make more specific suggestions for future research. Discuss the shortcomings of the study and any other problems encountered.
In addition, how can these findings benefit the design of the MOOC course?
Ethical issues for the study, institutional review board approval? Consent to participate?

In sum, the study is adequate, statistically sound, just the issue on the implications for the course design and the background demographics of the participants

Author Response

Referee 3

We thank the referee for his/her comments.

Some recommendations and suggestions are provided:

Abstract should include or described the method used - … process macro was used to ….

We have introduced a brief description of the methods in the abstract.

Introduction is fine – setting the background of the study seems adequate. Line 141 = [27], [28]. Should be [27, 28].

We have corrected the numbering of the references.

Method section: first part should be the study design, try to separate the study design and the MOOC description, should also expand the description of the course, the type of activities, how students engaged with the lessons. Since it is the experience taking this MOOC Awareness and training on Climate Change for Primary and Secondary teachers course that provided the background for the analysis.

We have changed the methods section slightly to introduce the study design and later the MOOC description. We also describe in more detail the contents of the MOOC and the related activities.

“et. al" should be “et al.” – line 214, should be “under review”

We have changed this

Just wondering what background demographics were collected and should they be used as controlling variables? For instance, some participants are teachers, and some are students (would teachers tend to have higher knowledge? This might affect the analysis), and as I gather some are foreigners, are they all Spanish speaking, there might be some issue with the answering of the survey, if Spanish is not their first language.

We have no demographic variables other than those described in the paper. We tested the analysis of these variables and observed no differences in the results.

The data analysis for mediation and moderation appears appropriate, but, as already mentioned, the inclusion of control variables can be considered

The peculiarities of the inclusion of control variables are described on other papers.

Line 379: Waris & Hameed – should be Waris and Hameed

We have changed this

For the last section: Conclusions, implications, and limitations authors should think about how the investigation ended, how it should look different next time, and make more specific suggestions for future research. Discuss the shortcomings of the study and any other problems encountered.

We have introduced a new conclusions section with all these issues.

In addition, how can these findings benefit the design of the MOOC course?

We have made a section about outlook and how to use the results from the paper to do an educational intervention.

Ethical issues for the study, institutional review board approval? Consent to participate?

We have made a note discussing these issues.

In sum, the study is adequate, statistically sound, just the issue on the implications for the course design and the background demographics of the participants

We thank the referee for his/her comments

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Congratulation!

On my view, is a good paper.

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for reviewing our paper.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors considered all suggestions sent in the previous review. I just have not identified where B and z meanings are explained.

Author Response

We have added the meaning of both statistics, which can be found below table 2 and 3, as well as in figures 4 and 5. Finally, We thank the reviewer for critically reading our work, and for offering detailed and constructive comments.

Reviewer 3 Report

thank you very much for letting me review the revised version of the paper, the authors already made the paper much clear and appropriate information are all presented. Great job.

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for critically reading our work.