Teacher Evaluation in Primary and Secondary Schools: A Systematic Review of SSCI Journal Publications from 2012 to 2022
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Author
Congratulations, you have successfully submitted an article to this journal. Overall the article is good and complete, but there are some notes that need to be revised. Please see these notes in the articles we review.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Point 1: Congratulations, you have successfully submitted an article to this journal. Overall the article is good and complete, but there are some notes that need to be revised. Please see these notes in the articles we review. It needs to be explained, maybe the author has a reason why it is limited from 2012-2022.
Response 1: Thank you very much for your comment. This study aims to capture the latest development and reveal the current situation of teacher evaluation. To achieve this purpose, we set the search period as a decade to ensure the data set was adequate to observe the common characteristics of the articles, as suggested by the previous review (Xie et al., 2019; Zhang et al., 2020). Therefore, we focused on the paper published between 2012 and 2022. We also added this explanation to the main text to justify, please refer to the text highlighted in red in section 2.1.
Point 2: These four research questions should be linked to the keywords in the abstract: What, How, and Who. This is important to maintain systematics and synchronization of writing.
Response 2: Thank you very much for your suggestions. We revised those research questions to link them with the keywords in the abstract, and please refer to the red text in the introduction section.
(1) From 2012 to 2022, what subjects were included in teacher assessment?
(2) From 2012 to 2022, what were the available frameworks for teacher assessment?
(3) From 2012 to 2022, how was the teacher assessment conducted?
(4) From 2012 to 2022, who were the participants involved in teacher assessment?
Point 3: There are already many indexing bodies for journals or articles, why are they only limited to the SSCI? Should be explained so that the writing is more complete.
Response 3: Thank you very much for your comment. We provided more explanation highlighted in red in section 2.1: SSCI covered a wide range of journals across 55 social science disciplines. It collected more than 3500 world’s leading scientific and technical journals, which represented high quality. Many previous reviews (e.g., Xie et al., 2019; Zhang et al., 2020; Zou et al., 2022) often selected SSCI-indexed journal articles because these articles provided more detailed information and in-depth analysis. To ensure the high-quality articles we collected, our study limited the search result to SSCI-indexed journal articles. We also added this concern in our limitation part and suggested future research could include more indexing bodies when searching articles to provide a more comprehensive analysis.
Point 4: Please explain where to get a procedure like this, whether using the PRISMA model or other models...plus sources or explanations
Response 4: Thank you very much for your comment. Based on the PRISMA model, we revised the data collection procedure and Figure 1. Please kindly refer to Figure 2 in the manuscript.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have analysed impressive number of articles (223 articles according to the inclusion 94 and exclusion criteria) by choosing a thematic review of SSCI journal publications from 2012 to 2022. The authors payed attention to the following aspects as revealed in publication, namely, effective use of teaching resources and technology, high-quality feedback and communication, emotional support, classroom organization, and professional responsibilities. Data collection and processing and selection for the analyses is well done and very clear for the readers. Theoretical background needs to be better substantiated by the latest research. In overall the authors have done a good analyses of current research but this requires drawing main tendencies, implications what can be derived from the study. I suggest considering this article for publication.
Author Response
Point 1: The authors have analysed impressive number of articles (223 articles according to the inclusion 94 and exclusion criteria) by choosing a thematic review of SSCI journal publications from 2012 to 2022. The authors payed attention to the following aspects as revealed in publication, namely, effective use of teaching resources and technology, high-quality feedback and communication, emotional support, classroom organization, and professional responsibilities. Data collection and processing and selection for the analyses is well done and very clear for the readers. Theoretical background needs to be better substantiated by the latest research. In overall the authors have done a good analyses of current research but this requires drawing main tendencies, implications what can be derived from the study. I suggest considering this article for publication.
Response 1: Thank you very much for your appreciation. We referred to the following research to support the theoretical background. Please refer to the red text in section 1.1 theoretical framework.
- Hudson, M., E.; Voytecki, K., S.; Owens, T., L.; Zhang, G. Preservice Teacher Experiences Implementing Classroom Management Practices through Mixed-Reality Simulations. Rural Special Education Quarterly 2019, 38, 79–94.
- Darling-Hammond, L.; Hyler, M., E. Preparing Educators for the Time of COVID … and Beyond. European Journal of Teacher Education 2020, 43, 457–465.
- Rapanta, C.; Botturi, L.; Goodyear, P.; Guàrdia, L.; Koole, M. Online University Teaching During and After the Covid-19 Crisis: Refocusing Teacher Presence and Learning Activity. Postdigit Sci Educ 2020, 2, 923–945, doi:10.1007/s42438-020-00155-y.
We also added more implications in the conclusion section: Overall, our research provided insights into the framework and methods of teacher evaluation, which guided future research to develop teacher evaluation. Our research also revealed that digital technologies brought the great potential for enhancing instruction and learning. Artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and wearable technologies could be used to enhance blended learning, flipped learning, multimedia mobile learning, and tablet-based education, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
1. The research is pertinent and relevant. The title responds to the content of the text, the theoretical review is relevant and updated. The methodology allows replicating the study because it is perfectly detailed. The results are well represented but a discussion section could be improved with research collected previously in the theoretical framework or other research that strengthens the theses that the authors highlight from the bibliographic review.
2. English improvement is needed for example, “Distribution of evaluaion framework”
3. I think the terms like “As discussed in Section 3.1, or as noted in section..” should be avoided. Please revise thoroughly.
4. I think theoretical framework in section 2.2 should be moved to the introduction
5. The dtail of the method from search to inclusion should be more detailed
6. Why do you think figure 9 is proper for the paper, I think, it is better to dropped the figure, is it related to your paper?
7. In the conclusion implication and limitations of the work should be more elaborated
Author Response
Point 1: The research is pertinent and relevant. The title responds to the content of the text, the theoretical review is relevant and updated. The methodology allows replicating the study because it is perfectly detailed. The results are well represented but a discussion section could be improved with research collected previously in the theoretical framework or other research that strengthens the theses that the authors highlight from the bibliographic review.
Response 1: Thank you very much for your appreciation. We recognized that the discussion section did not have a strong support. In the revised manuscript, we added more relevant studies to support our arguments in the discussion section. Please refer to the red text in the discussion section.
Point 2: English improvement is needed for example, “Distribution of evaluation framework”
Response 2: Thank you very much for your reminder. We revised the name of Figure 7 to “The distribution of the evaluation framework adopted in teacher evaluation.” We also checked the names of other figures and the language of the manuscript.
Point 3: I think the terms like “As discussed in Section 3.1, or as noted in section.” should be avoided. Please revise thoroughly.
Response 3: Thank you very much for your suggestion. We replaced those phrase with “According to our results/based on our findings/our results revealed.” accordingly.
Point 4: I think theoretical framework in section 2.2 should be moved to the introduction
Response 4: Thank you very much for your suggestion. We moved section 2.2 theoretical framework to the introduction section (i.e., section 1.1 theoretical framework).
Point 5: The detail of the method from search to inclusion should be more detailed
Response 5: Thank you very much for your comment. We added more details in section 2.1 data collection and processing. Please refer to text highlighted in red in section 2.1.
Point 6: Why do you think figure 9 is proper for the paper, I think, it is better to dropped the figure, is it related to your paper?
Response 6: Thank you very much for your suggestion. We realized that Figure 9 is less relevant to our paper, so we removed it.
Point 7: In the conclusion implication and limitations of the work should be more elaborated
Response 7: Thank you very much for your comment. We added more elaboration on the implications and limitation in the conclusion section: However, our research only focused on SSCI-indexed journal articles. Future research could consider including other indexes (e.g., A&HCI) and other types of papers (e.g., conference papers and book chapters) to provide a more comprehensive analysis. In addition, our study was limited to primary and secondary school’s teachers. Teacher evaluation for higher education should be further investigated. Overall, our research provided insights into the framework and methods of teacher evaluation, which guided future research to develop teacher evaluation. Our research also revealed that digital technologies brought great potential for enhancing instruction and learning. Artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and wearable technologies could be used to enhance blended learning, flipped learning, multimedia mobile learning, and tablet-based education, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Thank you for the opportunity to read your article. I have no comments to what is in the article, theory, methods etc. I am more concerned with what is not there and which I think you should mention: 1) The fact that the school and teachers today are expected to work directly with mental health issues: what might this imply as far as evaluation is concerned? You might want to expand on this in the article to show more depth, perspectives and also suggest more/other evaluation futures? 2) I think you are somewhat naive as far as the technological development are concerned and solutions you suggest. Also, the fact that you end with forwarding more technological solutions, technology seem to turn out as a remedy. The technological development and use has huge implications not only economic- and legally. In relation to health issues it is highly risky and we are just starting to realise what technology in general and the algorithmic condition (might) produce. I do not think that you need to write much about these things, but show that you are aware of such issues as these. What might a student/teacher relation look like in the future?......
Author Response
Point 1: Thank you for the opportunity to read your article. I have no comments to what is in the article, theory, methods etc. I am more concerned with what is not there and which I think you should mention: The fact that the school and teachers today are expected to work directly with mental health issues: what might this imply as far as evaluation is concerned? You might want to expand on this in the article to show more depth, perspectives and also suggest more/other evaluation futures?
Response 1: Thank you very much for your comment. We realized that we did not build a linkage between mental health and evaluation. Students were facing increasing mental health problems, especially for the pandemic period (Maclean & Law, 2022). As suggested by Reinke et al. (2011), they found that teachers did not have sufficient knowledge and skills to support students with mental health needs. They lacked professional training and adequate support from the school (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009; Maclean & Law, 2022). Results indicated that emotional support from teachers helped create a positive learning environment that fosters academic success (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). However, traditional teacher evaluations focused on academic outcomes. We suggested that future evaluations should be more focused on the aspects of emotional support to deal with the problems of mental health.
Point 2: I think you are somewhat naive as far as the technological development are concerned and solutions you suggest. Also, the fact that you end with forwarding more technological solutions, technology seem to turn out as a remedy. The technological development and use has huge implications not only economic- and legally. In relation to health issues it is highly risky and we are just starting to realise what technology in general and the algorithmic condition (might) produce. I do not think that you need to write much about these things, but show that you are aware of such issues as these. What might a student/teacher relation look like in the future?
Response 2: Thank you very much for your comment. We strongly agree with your opinion that technological solutions have their risks and problems in education. To provide a sound argument, we reduced the discussion on technological solutions and suggested that technological development could be a way to facilitate the process of teacher evaluation, but there were many obstacles to adapting these methods in a classroom context due to privacy concerns and ethical issues.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
