Challenges and Professional Support for Principals at Rural Schools for Sustainable Development
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report (New Reviewer)
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Greetings. Thank you for the opportunity to review this paper. As will be seen from the specific comments below, there are several fundamental issues that should be resolved in order to get to publication standard.
1) Context. What value there is in the paper is contextual. For ‘outsiders’, it is hard to know the context. I suggest that time is spent sketching the Taiwanese education system, pulling out for readers the specific issues and areas that will come to light later in the paper.
2) Literature. This is related to context. International literature is introduced to the paper with little or no justification. Switching to the US from time to time is not helpful from a contextual point of view. Suggestions for dealing with this are given below.
3) Structure. Especially for the findings section, inconsistencies in structure and approach to data exist without justification/explanation. A consistent approach would make the work more convincing.
4) Figures etc. These are included with insufficient comment in the text. As an example, Gender is mentioned, but is not used as an analytical tool in the text. A good general rule is to only use visuals to represent things that have already/will be said in the written material.
Specific comments
1. p. 1 l .28-32
The use of international studies here seems a little random. Is there a protocol behind the selection the authors have made?
2. 33-42. Similar comments – why the % for the US study? Would it be possible to use the varied studies to come up with a statement about the range and type of issues internationally without going into uneven levels of detail?
Also, the approach taken suggests the issue is regardless of context. Gut feeling suggest context plays an important part in the type of issues felt in rural areas (indeed, also in what counts as a rural area).
3. P2 45-62
This section might be better organised as a straight comparison between rural/urban principalship.
4. 67
What is the link between qualifications and practice? Perhaps there is space to question the value of general training that does not take (rural) context into consideration?
5. The support system for school principals
Given the Taiwanese focus for the piece, the writers may want to consider what lessons the US material in this section has for Taiwan. This is another example of ‘wandering’ contextualisation – that is, material presented but not linked to the writers’ context.
6. It is not clear how the following section is rural:
148 ‘Another study found that bullying was common in
low-achieving schools and concluded that bullying affects student performance, and suggests adopting a holistic approach to bullying involving all stakeholders, that is, through the participation of teachers, parents, learners, and other relevant institutions’
7. Similarly, with the aboriginal schools’ example, the writers need to show they understand that being rural is not the only (or perhaps main) characteristic of the schools. Working with Indigenous populations in a settler education system is a crucial, distinctive factor that cannot be ignored.
8. 199 What is the evidence for this statement: Furthermore, research reveals that bullying is common in low-achieving schools.
9. As a general statement, the writers might want to solve the issue of flitting between contexts by setting up a thematic rather than a researcher-organised structure for the lit review. In this way, the issues and their similarities will come to the fore rather than the studies selected for reporting and their differences.
10. This start is unclear:
1.5. Focus Groups Participants 229
Serve as the Director of Education ????
10. 244/5 What is the contextual relevance of this statement:
Additionally, homogeneous sampling within focus groups can foster a comfortable
environment, encouraging participants to share openly and facilitating more focused discussions ï¼»53-54ï¼½
11. The sample of remote/rural/urban has not been justified.
12. 279 This capitals allows – typo.
13. classes naturally decrease – does this mean class numbers or class sizes? If class size, that is policy not natural. 288
14. 307 on. Rural schools face a range of difficulties,
ranked from most to least prominent as follows: a low number of students (54 references),
public relationship challenges (32), funding constraints (22), insufficient resources (22),
faculty mobility and stability issues (14), teacher instability (14), administrative workload
(2), cultural disadvantages (2), difficulties in in-service education (2), economic hardships
(2), equipment shortages (2), student attrition and academic performance issues (2), low
birth rates impacting school populations (1), challenges in matching lessons to student
needs (1), and understaffing (1).
This is a second set of data – frequency. No indication has been given about how this data was managed – what counts as a mention? Maybe one person said all of the mentions – is there a control for that?
15. Having dealt with 2.1 through generalised statements, 2.2. Challenges Faced by Principals at Rural Schools is dealt with by specific examples and reference to context. While there is nothing wrong with either approach, consistency has its own value. And if a change of approach is needed, and explanation would be constructive.
16. 407 Nationality Experimental School. Context is needed.
17. 440 Ashton, B., & Duncan identify the unique needs of principals at rural schools in the
U.S. Financial resources (19.4%) are a significant challenge for American principals.
It is hard to see how this is relevant to a deeply contextual section of the paper.
17. Figure 1
Are we dealing with challenges or dilemmas? How is gender relevant to the data? Is that going to be discussed at all?
18. 590. Parental involvement in Aboriginal communities: This is part of the context not explained or discussed at all. It should be, for non-Taiwanese audiences.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageSome minor issues of accuracy require attention.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis is a very clear, well written paper about an important issue. I want to thank the authors for the high quality of their research work and writing, and the opportunity to learn more about this issue.
The English language is excellent and clear throughout the paper, and the structure of the paper supports the flow of the argument well. The theoretical framework and methodology chosen are appropriate to the study, and the results and discussion are clear, with appropriate modesty about the generalisability of the results.
There are two minor issues I think would improve the paper if addressed, and it is possible these are for the publishers to address rather than the authors:
1. The word 'a' prior to 'Sustainable Development' in the title should be removed. The focus of the paper is sustainable development generally, as enacted in rural schools, rather than a single incidence of sustainable development, so the definite article is inappropriate. The revised title would be "Challenges and Professional Support for Principals at Rural Schools for Sustainable Development".
2. There are appear to be two spaces between the end of the word prior to an in-text reference (e.g. "sustainability [57]"), which spaces out the text and makes it harder to read. A single space would be better. If this is a matter of 'house style' at the journal I'm happy if the paper remains as is, but would urge a reassessment of that policy.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)
Comments and Suggestions for Authors- In Abstract you need to present: the aim and methods of the research. What are your main proposals?
- Do you use USA example? You need to explain it, why do you use it? (L100) How Taiwan and USA educational systems co-oworking, what are similarities and differences?
- Where did you do research? In which country? What was the scope of the study?(L181)
- I think it is necessary to provide quotation marks "....." for direct words from the interview. (L327 and others citations);
-This Figure 3 should not be in the "findings". He should have been in the "discussions).
- Conclusions and suggestions should only be your insights, which are based on the results of the research. Better not to write "Implications" but "Suggestions" (L674);
- In the file are some more technical proposals.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report (New Reviewer)
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThanks for the opportunity to re-review this work. Some of the concerns in my first review have been dealt with by the authors in the latter they offered. However, it is important to understand that the explanations given should be included in the work itself since they answer questions likely to be asked by more people than this reviewer.
The most significant issue remains the way context/international literature is handled. As with the comments about the letter, it is important for authors to make clear why they are presenting their material. When shifting backwards and forwards from local to global contexts, an argument needs to be made to justify this by explaining what the value is. The authors have not consistently attended to this matter - which could easily be resolved. Specific comments are given below:
l. 14 'and improving the of quality education.' typo?
The issue of shifting contexts without explanation/justification is still in part present.
l. 63 sets up the Taiwan context. The writers should set up the previous material as global to establish a comparison.
Teacher education in Taiwan is structured to prepare educators for various roles,….
l.95 to 135. There should be an indication of how the writers see this US material as useful in the Taiwan context. Are they, for example, asking how such ideas/measures would be useful/applicable/helpful as guidance in Taiwan?
CCSSO should be explained before abbreviation.
l. 143 -196. It would be good to be consistent about naming the contexts from which the research studies stemmed. And then drawing conclusions about commonalities across jurisdictions.
l. 231 Serve as the Director of Education,??? This doesn’t make sense.
l.308 Figure 2. Is this the correct label?
l. 261-265. In this section there should be an explanation of the ‘number of references’ data analysis system used.
l. 441/2 Why is US material suddenly introduced? Its relevance is very hard to see. You need to argue for this.
l. 475 ‘Main difficulties at rural schools’ is actually Figure 1.
l.506 1. Professional Develo… This list deserves a brief intro. At the moment it just starts without sufficient context. Perhaps tidy up the way all teh results are given to avoid list fatigue?
Comments on the Quality of English Language
There is a need fro some redrafting - verb/number agreement etc.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 3
Reviewer 1 Report (New Reviewer)
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe authors may want to resolve some repetition around lines 491. The authors may want to pay the same attention to moving in/out of context to the section 1.1 as they have done elsewhere. This could be achieved by a sentence or two relating the US material to the Taiwanese context as a conclusion to section 1.1.
Otherwise, this is a much improved ms.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageA copy ed is needed.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors- In Abstract. Please formulate the goal of the research;
- I think it had to be a ranking of those difficulties; they are not the same weight (fig. 2, L239);
- I do not think you need to make separate chapters in Conclusions (L464)
- Most often, the conclusions are numbered and formulated clearly from the results of the work. (L464-L504);
-It must be presenting results under this Fig. 3 . Not good to finish the chapter with Fig. (L524) Why "community and school staff" does start from the small letter?
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe theoretical framework built around the difficulties and challenges faced by rural school principals and the professional support and assistance they need is very well focused, well argued and well referenced.
The sections in which it is structured:
• Introduction
• The support system for school directors
• Past research on rural school principals
They serve the reader to contextualize and get fully into the objective of this investigation.
At a formal level, I understand that the journal's publication criteria establish that the citations are numbered in order of appearance and that they appear in the references in numerical order.
Perhaps, it would be advisable for the Research Method section to be presented with sections in which the type of methodology used, the data collection instrument (the interview questions asked to the focus groups) and the sample were discussed. ; in the form of differentiated subsections, since as it is it loses a bit of meaning.
On the other hand, the results have been correctly structured and presented, differentiating the difficulties and challenges, and establishing within each of these, the different types that have been found when analyzing the answers to the questions. of the interviews.
The professional support needs required by the directors of rural schools are also detailed, very well structured, and how they serve to present very accurate and convenient conclusions.
In the text of the abstract, as well as in the conclusions, it is well done to note that the suggestions and proposals that are made at the end of the summary are addressed to the directors of rural schools in Taiwan. Well, involving other countries is somewhat risky, when the realities of rural schools are very different, even within the same country.
Citations and references, it must be adapted to the format required by the journal.
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThank you very much for the opportunity to review this work.
Please find my feedback below:
a) This submission doesn't meet the journal's requirements. Although the template is used, the fonts, citing and referencing format is not followed. Same applies to figures.
b) The topic is interesting and related to the special issue: Education for Sustainable Development: Toward Quality and Inclusive Education for All
c) At the beginning of the article I missed an introduction. The title is missing but also the content of the first section seems like a result of a literature review. In this introduction I would had expected a smoother transition to the topic, emphasizing on teacher education, how people become principals, who are the principals in rural schools, etc. At the end of the introduction I would had expected the research questions explicitly mentioned and not simply "the research focuses..." because the explicit formulation of the research questions would have helped me understand if the methodological approach is suitable for the nature of the research questions.
d) The role of the section "support systems for school principals is not clear to me. Also, it includes just a couple of resources. I would place a brief synthesis of this section in the introduction, to help readers understand the need to conduct a study of these characteristics.
e) The section on "principals at rural schools" is too generic and with the absence of explicit research questions in the introduction I am confused about it purpose.
f) The methodological approach doesn't include information about the research design and paradigm, justification of the sampling method and information about validity of the data collection instrument, which should have been added in the appendices section.
g) The presentation of results is purely descriptive in approach with no connection to the literature, which makes me feel that the literature review is not linked to the data collected.
h) I also didn't understand the process of data analysis nor found a link between the results and the conclusions section.
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe manuscript is dealing with a "hot topic" of education research. It is a well-referenced paper, that focuses on the difficulties and challenges principals at rural schools face and the professional support and assistance they need and makes. Moreover, it makes suggestions for principals at rural schools in Taiwan, with implications for the other 10 countries.
Here are some comments and suggestions:
1) In line 31, the NGO acronym is not previously defined – please correct it.
2) Mixed fonts/font sizes are used -please correct them accordingly. For e.g. see lines 64-70 vs 72-80, lines 242-244 vs 245-247
3) Some minor modifications have to be done to the manuscript’s format.
4) Data analysis methodology is not clear enough. The authors must explain in more detail how they have processed and summarized the data.
5) The manuscript’s conclusions supported by the results are not referenced in the secondary literature. Add references in secondary literature to support your conclusions.
Reviewer 5 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
The main merit of the paper is the selection of the topic.
It pertains to current issues in educational practice and theory. The theoretical part of the article has been very well developed. It provides a solid theoretical framework for analyzing the empirical material from the research.
I suggest considering several issues related to the methodological section of the text. It is not enough to indicate the research method used in qualitative research. It is necessary to provide a precise justification for selecting the subject, objectives, and research model. It would also be helpful to describe the paradigmatic embedding of this project within the landscape of various existing approaches in qualitative research.
Discussing the possibility of generalizing the findings from a small sample would also be meaningful. The reader may also expect implications for future research in the addressed topic, such as potential areas to explore and valuable research strategies.
I recommend publishing this paper after making the suggested editorial corrections.
