Trends in Educational Research for Sustainable Development in Postgraduate Education Programs at a University in Peru

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This article is focused on a crucial topic, and the study provides a good contribution to the current knowledge about sustainable education and sustainable development. However, the current form of the article lacks in many areas, and extensive revision is required before it is accepted for publication. Please find my comments below; 

Title: title does not provide the main information about the research, but rather provides a broad topic. A more coherent title should be designed, that provides, the topic, contents of research, location, and level of education. 

1. Introduction: the information provided in the introduction require restructuring and reshaping. Many paragraphs have only one sentence. It would be better if paragraphs in a similar context are combined. 

2. Methods: The methods section is confusing, and it is difficult to really understand what methods were used, and how those methods were applied in data collection as well as in data analysis. It is suggested to read some of the papers published in this journal to re-design the methods section. It would be better to add sub-headings for each type of information, such as participants, methods for data collection, and data analysis techniques.

2.1.As study used documentary review, focus group, and interviews, it is not clear how were the focus group conducted, what were questions/topics of discussion were given to the participants, how many students/teachers participated in the focus group discussion, and how did the authors collect information from focus groups (audio recording, video recording, etc. ). 
For interviews,  what methods were used to conduct an interview, and what questions were asked to the participants? Interviewing 200-plus participants requires a lot of effort and time, so how did this research collect information from interviews, (audio recording, video recording), were these interviews one-on-one? ,

In summary, a lot of information is required to report in the methods section. 

3. The results are also confusing. the first part of the results section provides the results of a documentary review of the thesis published in an institutional repository. However, it was not clear whether the documents reviewed were involved in one specific university/country/region or the whole world. 

3.1. The results of interviews and focus groups are not reported except in figure 1. again, a lot of questions are not answered here, like what were the results of focus groups and interviews? how these results are linked to the documentary review results? etc.

4. DIcussion: This part intends to discuss the findings of current research, and argue these findings against the findings of previous research.  The discussion section in this research does not provide any discussion on the findings of this study, rather it provides literature on the topic. 

5. Conclusion: this is written better, and provides the necessary information concluded from the results.  Adding practical implications will add more value to this. 

Overall, the topic is interesting but requires extensive revision. 

Author Response

LETTER OF INTRODUCTION OF CHANGES

Dear editors' and referees’, thank you very much for your feedback, your timely appreciations have allowed us to improve our work. The following are the changes we have made. In black color the observations made and in red color our change report.

Attached is a letter with control and change report.

Cordially, Angel Deroncele Acosta

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper entitled Trends on educational research for sustainable development is 19 pages long and is written in English language. The first page contains the summary and ten keywords. The chapter titles are: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion (with subsections Quality educational management, Teaching-learning-evaluation, Educational innovation and ICT and Training, research and psychosocial factors in education) and Conclusions. The paper contains six tables and one figure. For the purpose of writing the paper, 151 bibliographic units were used.

The aim of the paper is to present a study conducted on educational research for sustainable development. Main contributions refer to the implementation of a thorough and holistic approach in the research (e.g. using triangulation) of a current topic.

As a weakness, the need for additional clarification and specification of certain key terms is highlighted.

In the title it is suggested to mention the higher education level since sustainable development is discussed in the context of higher education and the topic and study include university teachers and students.

It is recommended to broaden the introduction with the short description of sustainable development, more precisely what it entails, its global significance, which is promoted by international organizations and included in national policies. In this regard, it is proposed to link content, more precisely, to explain and argue the importance of the role of higher education in general in the promotion and implementation of the SDG goals. For this purpose, it is recommended already in the introduction to list and explain the SDG goals that are important for this context (SDG 3 and 4), since they are mentioned only in the conclusion.

In the second chapter, it is proposed to formulate the research aim and the tasks of the research or the research questions that arise from it.

On page 8 it is also suggested to briefly clarify the TPACK framework.

On page 10, the trinomial "pedagogy-andragogy-andragogy-heutagogy" is mentioned, whereby it is suggested to omit the repetition of the term "andragogy".

„Psychosocial“ factors are mentioned in some places as one word, and in other places as "psycho-social".

In the conclusion, it is proposed to supplement the stated need for cooperation and interdisciplinarity with a more precise application aspect of this research, that is, to list proposals or guidelines in which ways sustainability in higher education as a system can be achieved, whether for example by updating strategic documents of higher education institution and/or in form of continuous professional development of university teachers and similar.

Author Response

LETTER OF INTRODUCTION OF CHANGES

Dear editors' and referees’, thank you very much for your feedback, your timely appreciations have allowed us to improve our work. The following are the changes we have made. In black color the observations made and in red color our change report.

Attached is a letter with control and change report.

Cordially, Angel Deroncele Acosta

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

1.      What is the main question addressed by the research?

The aim of the reviewed work was to identify and characterize the specific directions of the educational search for sustainable development at a private university in Lima, in particular in postgraduate education.

2.      Do you consider the topic original or relevant in the field? Does it
address a specific gap in the field?

The title of the article and its content are part of the very fashionable topic of sustainable development in recent years. The authors, however, do not define what they understand as sustainable development in the education they are trying to present. In my opinion, the lack of such a definition significantly weakens the cognitive value of the reviewed work.

3.      What does it add to the subject area compared with other published
material?

The reviewed material tries to implement the issue of sustainable development in education, but as mentioned before, it does not define this issue.

4.      What specific improvements should the authors consider regarding the
methodology? What further controls should be considered?

It can be assumed that the methodology used in this article in connection with this type of research is appropriate.

5.      Are the conclusions consistent with the evidence and arguments
presented and do they address the main question posed?

Yes, the conclusions are consistent with the adopted research goal.

6.      Are the references appropriate?

The number of the cited bibliographic publications is appropriate and consistent with the current research issues.

7.      Please include any assitional comments on the tables and figures.

No critical remarks.

8.      Other remarks

Sometimes very long sentences [lines 156-169] are offensive when reading the text!!!

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

LETTER OF INTRODUCTION OF CHANGES

Dear editors' and referees’, thank you very much for your feedback, your timely appreciations have allowed us to improve our work. The following are the changes we have made. In black color the observations made and in red color our change report.

Attached is a letter with control and change report.

Cordially, Angel Deroncele Acosta

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for allowing me to review the revised article. The authors have worked extensively to edit the article. All the comments made in the first review report have been addressed in the new revised version of the article. The current form of the article is in good shape, and it can be accepted for publication after a few minor changes. 

1. The new title is better than the earlier one. Authors may consider to further revising it, such as; Trends on educational research for sustainable development: Evidence from Postgraduate Programs in Education at Lima University in Peru.

OR (if not this, then similar that specify the country)

Trends on educational research for sustainable development in Postgraduate Education Programs at University in Peru. 

2. The future 1 is not necessary. It is good to explain it in words. The figure on consent is not necessary. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, thank you very much for your feedback, your timely appreciations have allowed us to improve our work. The following are the changes we have made. In black color the observations made and in red color our change report.

Attached is LETTER OF INTRODUCTION OF CHANGES

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf