School Trips and Local Heritage as a Resource in Primary Education: Teachers’ Perceptions
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
- Authors are recommended to avoid using the term "excursion", since it is not used in the Spanish context. Others alternatives concepts are: educational trips, didactics journey, learning output.
- In general, this study has some limitations. The principal one, indicated by authors, is that the study is based in the Region of Murcia, one of the differents regions of Spain. Consequently, is not possible to conclue the real implications of this study in the educational context of Spain.
- In Table 1 is an typographic error in: Campo Cartagena
- Table 2 format is not correct.
- Table 4 is not a table, it is an image. It is recommended to convert to a real table or to indicate that it is an image and improve its quality.
- Several errors have been detected in the citation of the bibliography. It is mandatory to review the entire bibliography of the article:
Ex: 2. Julien, M
Ex: Tymms, P. Questionnaires. In Arthur, J., Waring, M., Coe, R., & Hedges, L.V. (eds.), Research Methods and Methodologies in Education, Thousand Oaks, 2012, pp. 231-240.,
Ex: Mateo, J. (2014). La investigación ex post-facto. In Bisquerra, R. (coord.), Metodología de la investigación educativa. Madrid, 20104, pp. 195-230.
Ex: Maurandi López, A. & González Vidal, A. (Eds.). (2022). Análisis de datos y métodos estadísticos con R. Murcia, 2022, 451 https://doi.org/10.6018/editum.2967
Ex: Menazel, Basil H. Upper Primary Level History Teachers' Attitudes toward the Use of School Field Trips as an Educational Aid throughout Schools in Irbid First Education Directorate. JEP, 20015, 6, 7-16.
Author Response
Please find attached a document with the answers to your comments and suggestions. Thank you very much for your contributions.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Thank you for the opportunity to review this article. The authors describe the findings from a survey on teachers’ opinions of school excursions in a region in Spain. Looking through the aims and topics of the Special Issue I am not sure that this article has addressed the brief yet.
That said I think the article needs considerable work to be published though I am sure the authors will find the correct journal. The article appears to be taken from one of the author’s thesis. However, a journal article is a different format so there will need to be some rewriting.
The introduction and literature appear to have been combined but there needs to be a separation. Whilst the aims of the research have been given there is(are) no research question(s). The research questions need to come from the gap identified from the literature and then to be referred to and answered in the conclusion.
On line 105 you state “It should be the case that these places become a natural extension of the classroom”. If this your opinion, say so or does it require a reference?
The approach and design include a lot of references to justify the use of survey which appears out of place following the short literature review given as part of the introduction. There is however very little given to justify the contents of the survey.
In Table 1 you give percentages but do not tell the reader what they are percentages of – the whole region perhaps? The third column has a heading of 5 rather than %.
Lines 147-148 are repeated in lines 158-160.
I wonder whether Table 3 is needed.
I am not sure what (2015-08-2014) means on line 200.
I am not sure about the placement of Table 4. It appears to be a section of the survey which contains at least 82 questions. This was not explained earlier when the when the survey was described. Are you only reporting on a few questions in this paper? That is fine but you need to explain this to the reader. As they are referred to later it would be better to retype rather than putting in a section of the survey which is difficult to read.
In line 206 you refer to matrices but do not explain which matrices.
I do not understand what “eminently descriptive-correlational-comparative way” (line 210-211) means.
In Table 5, I wonder are they teachers’ opinions or teachers’ responses? Is it relevant to give the minimum and maximum values?
In Figures 2 and 3 why are their percentages to 100% in both directions. You need to explain your graphs to support the reader. Also Figure 2 is not referred to.
In lines 250-251 you say “No significant differences were found in the rest 250 of the variables contemplated” but you have not referred to any significant differences yet. Which ones are significantly different?
In line 253 you say “can be observed” but I am not sure where to look.
Please explain Figure 3. Is this bilingual data? If there are significant differences, then you need to give p-values.
Is it appropriate to add means of survey responses to individual questions? You need to justify this.
On page 10 you quote the null hypothesis as “that the agreement of the first population (<44 years) is lower than that 291 of the second (>44 years).” The null hypothesis is usually that there is no difference between the samples.
I wonder whether presenting some of the data as the number of teachers who agreed or strongly agreed may have given a clearer picture than just presenting means.
You begin the discussion, (line 308) with “Some authors”. You need a reference. Then why not begin the discussion with the overall findings.
On line 324 you say that your data confirms Falk’s theories, but you haven’t told us what they are.
In lines 365-366 you say “… contributing towards the achievement of the SDGs within primary schools”. How did this come from what you have said above. This may be the story you are wanting to tell but I am not seeing it yet.
I found the article a little disappointing and was left wondering “so what?” What was the new knowledge this article is trying to tell me. You have a lot of data, so I assume there is a story in there, but you need to bring it to the surface. Having a clear research question(s) will help you to achieve this outcome.
Best wishes getting your article published.
Author Response
Please find attached a document with the answers to your comments and suggestions. Thank you very much for your contributions.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
I recommend the authors to use the concept of outdoor learning environment and to explain the meaning of learning environment as the context of this research is education and learning.
Also I recommend to re-write the last mentioned study question regarding the abstract. What do student´s families think as that leads the reader to think that the opinion of parents was asked which was not the case.
The overall value of the results was not surprising.
Author Response
Please find attached a document with the answers to your comments and suggestions. Thank you very much for your contributions.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Review of School trips and local heritage as a resource in primary education: teachers' perceptions.
Major Revisions
Thank you for the opportunity to review this article. The authors describe the findings from a survey on teachers’ opinions of school excursions in a region in Spain.
The authors have addressed some of my concerns in their revisions but there are still more. Literature has been added to the Discussion and Conclusion. I feel these should have been included earlier in the article and used to identify the gap that the authors are trying to fill. Falk’s theories need to be explained as other findings have been compared with them.
The research questions were not given until the Results section, and these are based on the statements in the questionnaire. Is there an overarching research question that comes from the literature and is being answered by the participants responses to the statements in the questionnaire? This research question can then be answered in the conclusion.
In Table 2 it is not appropriate to give a standard deviation for a median and it is usual to quote “Q1, median, Q3” in that order. I suggest that these be corrected and Median or Med. at least be used as the heading for median.
The authors state that “the contents and technical and methodological aspects were subject to the validation of expert judges”. Explain what this means. What makes them experts.
I am not sure of the value of Table 3. You have already listed the socio-economic variables lines 181-182. Could these just be described as the predictor variables here. You then define the criterion variables as “educational field trips” and then list 11 separate statements in Table 4. At different times you refer to these as a single variable “educational field trips” and at other times to the individual statements. I would like to see how the term “educational field trips” is used in the discussion and conclusions clarified. For example, do you mean each of the 11 separate statements showed no statistically significant difference in line 306.
On page 10 you quote the null hypothesis as “that the agreement of the first population (44 years) is lower than that of the second (>44 years).” The null hypothesis is usually that there is no difference between the samples. Then you say that there is a significant difference and so the alternate hypothesis is accepted that younger teachers “show more agreement in the variable “educational field trips” than those aged 44 or older”. Previously, line 263-265 you said that 100% of teachers aged over 44 agreed that “educational trips should not be merely recreational”. You need to be very specific with your language as here you are referring to the wording of only 1 statement and that statement needs to maintain its particular meaning.
Also check lines 306-309 to ensure that what is said will be clearly and precisely understood by the readers.
The discussion and conclusions are quite brief. Having a clear overarching research question(s) will help you to tie together the teachers’ responses to the different statements in the questionnaire.
Learning has been mis-spelt repeatedly.
Author Response
Please find attached a file with the answers.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 3
Reviewer 2 Report
Third review of School trips and local heritage as a resource in primary education: teachers' perceptions.
The authors have addressed some of my concerns in their revisions but there are still more. It was disappointing that the authors have not explained how they addressed the feedback and why some changes were not made. Also it would have been helpful to just include the track changes for revision 3.
Lines 130-131 The authors claim “Survey-based studies do not only analyse the frequency with which a phenomenon appears (levels of a variable), seeking to identify response patterns in a sample” The surveys don’t analyse the frequencies, the authors do.
The authors have claimed that the survey was validated by expert judges but have not specified how.
Is the first paragraph in the results needed when all the survey questions have been previously listed and then the questions are listed again as the results are presented.
In Table 5 I assume that Av is mean and Mn is median. This is confusing as in Table 2 median is listed as Me but then followed by the standard deviation and mean is written out in full but included between Q1 and Q2. Statistically it is appropriate to list the mean and standard deviation together and Q1, median, and Q3 as that aids interpretation of the data. Currently, the paper implies that the authors do not have strong statistical knowledge.
Line 250 “learning” is misspelt.
In lines 293-297 the authors state “assuming 293 the null hypothesis that the agreement of the first population (<44 years) is lower than that 294 of the second (>44 years).” The null hypotheses is that there are no differences in the sample. Then when the p-value is less than 0.05 the authors claim that “the alternative hypothesis is accepted, namely that the surveyed teachers younger than 44 years of age show more agreement in the variable “educational trips” than those aged 44 or older.” This was their null hypothesis. This has not been corrected from the previous version.
Line 314-315 this article is not describing an experiment but rather a survey.
Line 324 “learning” is misspelt.
Line 329. What are Falk’s theories?
The first 3 paragraphs of the Discussion introduce new literature. It is usual to include this before the methodology so that you justify your study as addressing a gap in the literature.
In lines 361-363 the authors state “e 2030 Agenda to educate responsible and critical citizens who learn to care for and appreciate the natural environment and the heritage of 362 their surrounding area.” But there is no reference. Whose Agenda is this? Are schools expected to address this agenda?
Author Response
The response is in the attached file
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
