Students’ Perception of Elementary School Teachers’ Competency: Indonesian Education Sustainability
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors:
After the analysis and reflection on your manuscript, I was left with many basis questions about strength of argument and logical coherence that I leave for your consideration:
- the theoretical referential used is not scientific production published in relevant indexed journals (WOS or Scopus).
- Reading the sentence "The professional development of teachers will support the achievement of the 2013 curriculum objectives. " it is not clear why after 9 years (2022) it becomes relevant to do this research.
-Lacks the hypothesis of research and definitions of the constructs.
-There is a need to define the scope (understanding) of each one of analysis categories.
- It is relevant to understand which items of the questionnaire were included in each category of analysis.
- Section 3.1 does not clarify/fund/ explain the choice of sample.
Rew
Author Response
The revisions made following the reviewer comments/ inputs are marked/ highlighted in yellow.
The paper also has been checked for English editing through proofreading by MDPI English Editing. The Certificate can be seen in the end of the paper.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Editor,
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to review this manuscript. This survey with 1281 elementary school students investigated students’ perceptions about their teachers’ competencies. I believe that this paper can be published, but before that, some major issues should be solved. I enclose the key suggestions with this letter that can certainly improve the quality of this work.
1. The authors should present previous works about the investigation of teachers’ competence as well as, previous work about the teachers’ competence explanation according to region, school accreditation, and school status
2. The authors should give us more detail about the sampling method. Moreover, they should give us more details about the sample characteristics.
3. The authors should mention previous works about the measurement of teachers’ competencies in various ways as well as, details about how they construct the four scales (Pedagogic, Professional, Personality, and Social competence). Although the authors present (lines 63 to 68) some statistics, they didn’t give us more details.
4. The authors should present in the appendix the research instrument
5. The authors should mention how have they established psychometric properties (e.g. validity, reliability) of the four scales. Pay attention, that is very important taking into account that the participants are very young.
6. I don't understand the value of figure 1. I suggest substituting it with a table.
7. Sometimes, the difference could be statistically significant but negligible this is due to the sample size being huge. Therefore, the authors should calculate and present the effect sizes for each case.
8. Regarding 4.4, the authors should apply a multi-comparison approach, to reveal the group (schools that have not been accredited, accredited) that is different from the others.
9. The authors should follow very strict proofreading across all of the text. I found many ambiguities. For example, lines 83, 193, 352
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
The revisions made following the reviewer comments/ inputs are marked/ highlighted in yellow.
The paper also has been checked for English editing through proofreading by MDPI English Editing. The Certificate can be seen in the end of the paper.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear authors,
It is an honor for me to review your paper titled “Students’ Perception of Elementary School Teachers’ Competency: Indonesian Education Sustainability”.
All references are misreferenced. The standards for references of the journal establish that references must be numbered in order of appearance in the text (including citations in tables and legends) and listed individually at the end of the manuscript.
In the introduction, lines 54-56 are confused. I don´t understand what do you want to explain when you say “One of the problems of primary education in Indonesia is the problem of teachers and teacher competence.”
In lines 178-187, where they addressed social competence, they probably go a little deeper into social skills as operative elements of social competence; as well as include some more references. I suggest:
Sánchez et al.. (2022). Motivation of university students in educational sciences according to gender, religious culture, and social skills during the COVID-19 pandemic. Educar, 58(1), 205-220. https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/educar.1353
Sánchez-Bolívar, L., Escalante-González, S., & Martínez-Martínez, A. (2022). Motivation and Social Skills in Nursing Students Compared to Physical Education Students . SPORT TK-EuroAmerican Journal of Sport Sciences, 11, 5. https://doi.org/10.6018/sportk.462121
Villardón-Gallego, L.; Flores-Moncada, L.; Yáñez-Marquina, L.; García-Montero, R. Best Practices in the Development of Transversal Competences among Youths in Vulnerable Situations. Educ. Sci. 2020, 10, 230. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci10090230
Regarding the method, they mention that they built the questionnaire. This raises methodological questions for me, such as what authors or instruments have been based on for its construction? What are the psychometric properties of the instrument? What variables does it measure? What dimensions does it cover? What validation procedure was followed? What are its validity and reliability indices? All this has to be reflected.
Regarding the results, figure 1 is recommended to be eliminated, since it does not contribute anything, since its content is developed in its entirety in the following paragraph.
The discussion is well worked.
However, the conclusions are insufficient. What the results contribute to education and skills training must be exposed.
On the other hand, an epigraph must be included with the limitations that have arisen during the investigation and the future lines of investigation that have arisen as a consequence of this study.
The paper addresses a useful and interesting topic in the field of pedagogy and education, but it has some deficiencies that must be corrected in order to be published in the short-medium term.
Author Response
The revisions made following the reviewer comments/ inputs are marked/ highlighted in yellow.
The paper also has been checked for English editing through proofreading by MDPI English Editing. The Certificate can be seen in the end of the paper.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The revised version of the paper has been significantly improved.
Researchers could use the work of Lavidas et al., (2022) to increase students’ participation in a web-survey.
Lavidas, K.; Petropoulou, A.; Papadakis, S.; Apostolou, Z.; Komis, V.; Jimoyiannis, A.; Gialamas, V. Factors Affecting Response Rates of the Web Survey with Teachers. Computers 2022, 11, 127. https://doi.org/10.3390/computers11090127
Moreover, as another limitation the fact that the study used self-reports runs the risk of socially desired responses and measurement bias (Lavidas et al., 2022).
Lavidas, K.; Papadakis, S.; Manesis, D.; Grigoriadou, A.S.; Gialamas, V. The Effects of Social Desirability on Students’ Self-Reports in Two Social Contexts: Lectures vs. Lectures and Lab Classes. Information 2022, 13, 491. https://doi.org/10.3390/info13100491
Author Response
Thank you for the feedback and inputs. We have completed revisions as requested. Hopefully it meets your requirements. Thank you.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Estimated authors,
After a second review, I want to thank you for applying all my suggestions. I also want to offer my most sincere congratulations for your work.
Author Response
Thank you very much your positive feedback given. We do much appreciate it.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
