Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Editor

Thank you for allowing me to read this informative paper titled “Shading systems in schools: improving thermal comfort to boost school performance.” My comments and suggestions are as follows.

The subject of the study is the evaluation of sunlight and shading systems in schools and their effects on energy use and visual comfort. The research aims to develop a user-friendly methodology for optimizing sunlight and shading strategies in existing buildings. It also focuses on this methodology's potential to improve educational environments' environmental quality. The study aims to find solutions to societal challenges by bringing together knowledge from different disciplines using a transdisciplinary research approach.

The research question is, "What effect does the effectiveness of sunlight and shading systems in schools have on students' comfort and academic performance?" However, it is unclear how the question of how it affects students' comfort and academic performance is answered. The study consists of a simulation model and an improvement proposal often seen in the literature. What is the contribution it makes to the literature?

The most important finding of the research is the effects of sunlight and shading systems on student comfort and academic performance in school environments. In particular, it is emphasized that inadequate shading systems negatively affect student well-being and this can reduce academic achievement. How measured?

A better title could reflect the main theme and purpose of the research more clearly.

The abstract should be better structured.

The emphasis on SDG in the introduction should be reduced, as it does not directly provide data for the field study.

The material and methods section describes relevant past studies, so the title of that section should be “Literature Review and Background Studies”.

I suggest a flow chart for a better understanding of the methodology.

The discussion section was found to be very weak.

 

The results section should focus only on the questions of this research and should not include references, for example, [7] [8].

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

I read your work with interest. Your topical issue fits well within the scope of the Buildings journal. However, the paper requires a thorough revision to meet the expectations for publication in the selected journal.

My comments are below.

- References to literature sources are lacking in the work. Some definitions, statements, enumerations, etc., are not supported by anything.

- Title number 2 should be changed considering the content of the chapter.

- It should be explained why you chose the school you chose as a case study. Why is it representative, and how can the results at that school be transferred to other schools?

- Give some general information about the examined school. Is it primary or secondary, size, number of students? Where exactly is it located, in which part of Spain, what is the climate like there, what is the sun exposure, etc.

- Why doesn't that school have the same way of shading on the entire building?

- How exactly were the images in Figures 2, 3, 4 and 5 created? Explain the method of determining the amount and angle of light and shadow in the images, etc.

- What exactly is ShC? How is it calculated? What does it mean?

- How exactly did you arrive at proposals to improve the thermal performance for zones 1 and 2? Which of these proposals would be the most effective and economical? What is the best solution to the problem according to the school users?

- The sentence in lines 280 and 281 is unusual. Explain this.

- The text in lines 321-323 is unnecessary since it is repeated below.

- What are the limitations of your study, and how would you overcome them in future studies?

- The conclusion needs to be revised. You should state your conclusions, not quote someone else's. The conclusion should summarize the research results, explain how the results filled a research gap, and discuss the main implications, limitations, and future research directions.

- I don't see how exactly TR was applied in this paper. How are the different stakeholders involved in the research? Where is this explained? Also, how did you involve the users of the building itself? The research process itself, or rather the steps in the research, are unclear because they are not explained in detail.

- In the introduction, you stated that your research, in addition to classroom lighting, deals with shaded areas of school playgrounds (line 71). Where in the research implementation, results and discussion are school playgrounds specifically mentioned? I see that you elaborated on the shading of school playgrounds out of nowhere in the conclusion. The conclusion in this form is not acceptable.

- Literature is not well cited. Missing publication years! The number of cited papers is too small.

 

- A framework/model for improving thermal comfort in schools could be proposed to make the paper more relevant.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I have reviewed the article. I think the corrections made are sufficient to publish.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, 

Thank you very-very much for supporting us in the improvement of the manuscript. 

Kind regards,

The authors

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

Thank you for your effort and detailed responses to my comments. The paper is now in much better condition. Please also address the following:

- In line 75, school playgrounds are mentioned. Please delete it since you are not dealing with playgrounds.

- Please check the correctness of your citation through the paper. In Chapter 2, not a single source and the authors mentioned correspond to the list of references at the end of the paper!

- In Figure 1, it would be a good idea to indicate in which phase of the research which stakeholders participate and in what way.

 

- In the validation, you mention 10 teachers and students. How many of each? I think that number is too small. Explain why you think the results obtained in this way are representative.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf