A Study of Safety Issues and Accidents in Secondary Education Construction Courses within the United States

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I was pleased to review "A Study Examining Safety Issues and Accidents in Secondary Education Construction Courses within the United States". The subject is appropriate for Sustainability journal, yet I have some concerns on the paper:

1. The gap of the research is not clear and not sure how tried to bridge it. It needs more clarity.

2. Through reading the paper I lost the flow, instead I felt redundancy in the literature surveyed for the research. It may make more sense if you summarize some parts and take out some.

3. Discussion and Conclusion parts are, generally, too broad.

Author Response

Responses detailing our edits to address the concerns from this reviewer are in the attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

In the manuscript entitled “A Study Examining Safety Issues and Accidents in Secondary  Education Construction Courses within the United States”, I have some following observations:

1. The title should be started “A study of …….”. Please check and do it accordingly.
2. In the abstract, the whole concept of the work is not clear.
3. Keywords should be smaller. 
4. A literature review is not necessarily separately; it should be clubbed in the introduction section.
5. The methodology does not clear.
6. Review the conclusion.
7. The authors should update the reference

The paper should be a minor revision.

In the manuscript entitled “A Study Examining Safety Issues and Accidents in Secondary  Education Construction Courses within the United States”, I have some following observations:

1. The title should be started “A study of …….”. Please check and do it accordingly.
2. In the abstract, the whole concept of the work is not clear.
3. Keywords should be smaller. 
4. A literature review is not necessarily separately; it should be clubbed in the introduction section.
5. The methodology does not clear.
6. Review the conclusion.
7. The authors should update the reference
8. Minor editing of English is required. 

The paper should be a minor revision.

Author Response

Responses detailing our edits to address the concerns from this reviewer are in the attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Review report Sustainability -2479356-review-v1.pdf

Title of paper: A Study Examining Safety Issues and Accidents in Secondary Education Construction Courses within the United States

1.      Abstract to contain five key words in alphabetical order instead of large number key words connected with title of paper

2.      Abstract to have key conclusion

3.      Following papers to be cited in introduction session:

# A national study examining safety factors and training associated with STEM education and CTE laboratory accidents in the United States.

# Examining the influence that safety training format has on educators’ perceptions of safer practices in makerspaces and integrated STEM labs.

# Analyzing construction site accidents in Kuwait

# The impact of overtime and long work hours on occupational injuries and illnesses: new evidence from the United States. 

# Falls from height in the construction industry: A critical review of the scientific literature.

4.      Photographs of some important findings or limitation may be provided to have better understanding for readers

5.      Instead of graphs some graphs to be presented to have better understanding of this study

6.      Discussion session to be introduced  with following comparison

a.      Accident statistics of workers in construction industry to be compared with the present study

b.      From conclusion, “Bush and Andrews [47] provided a brief list of recommendations” to be brought under discussion

7.      Conclusion to have at least one key findings from each session

With above corrections, authors are requested to resubmit manuscript for final submission.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Responses detailing our edits to address the concerns from this reviewer are in the attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

This is a good research paper with solid data collection and analysis, generally good writing style and thoughtful discussion. Some suggestions are as follows:

- The introduction part sufficiently address the background. Perhaps the authors can also state the research questions and methods.

- For the research questions, I think it could be further improve. RQ2 aims to address “the extent” of difference, which is not sufficiently answered in the paper. The wording for RQ4 may also be improved for better clarity.

- For table 1, is the grade taught important? (Also, is there construction course for grade 5-8?)

- Table 2 is not clear, is that referring to the highest attainment or all education one has received? It that possible that one teacher did not receive any related education?

- For section 4.2, perhaps the Mann-Whitney U test can only state there is a different in distribution between minor accidents and major accidents. A rough calculation looking at the cumulative percentage in table 5 (accident 11-15) minor accident 91% < major accident 93%. Also the median is the same in table 6.

- More elaborations could be stated in section 4.3 for table 7.

- Maybe the section 5.3.1 to 5.4 can be trimmed down a bit but I am also interested in whether any key factors are not found important in the current study that contradicts with previous research.

Author Response

Responses detailing our edits to address the concerns from this reviewer are in the attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I do suggest accept the paper as it is now better and followed the reviewers' suggestions.