What Pattern of Progression in Geoscience Fieldwork can be Recognised by Geoscience Educators?†
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
A really interesting, potentially influential, and well-written article! I strongly recommend its acceptance after minor changes as follows:
1) please, style the text and references strictly according to the journal's rules;
2) this paper focuses on UK - what about the other countries?
3) please, add citations to some literature sources published after 2015.
Author Response
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
A really interesting, potentially influential, and well-written article! I strongly recommend its acceptance after minor changes as follows:
· Many thanks indeed for such a positive response – which is unusual in my experience. However, it is a great encouragement. Thank you.
1) please, style the text and references strictly according to the journal's rules;
· I have added my name and contact details, reduced the wordage of the abstract, reordered the references and numbered them in the text. I haven’t changed the titles of the individual sections, since they reflect the content beneath them. But I guess this could be done, if necessary.
2) this paper focuses on UK - what about the other countries?
· Much of the ‘progression’ literature stems from the USA – but this involves large projects, well beyond the scope of research in geoscience fieldwork so far. There seems to be nothing published about progression in geoscience fieldwork elsewhere, indeed publication on research into geoscience fieldwork in general is fairly limited. Thus there seems little scope in developing this research into a discussion of fieldwork in other countries.
3) please, add citations to some literature sources published after 2015.
· I have included these new sections:
o More recently Jin et al. (2015) have worked on a learning progression in scientific reasoning, Osborne et al. (2016) have been developing a learning progression into argumentation in science. Hadenfeldt et al. (2016) have studied students’ progression in understanding the concept of matter and Hovardas (2016) has developed a hypothetical learning progression for reasoning in ecology. Meanwhile Alonzo (2018) has argued for the use of formative assessment of learning progressions.
o Covitt et al. (2018) studied formative assessment based on learning progression in teaching about water, while McDonald et al. (2019) sought to map a learning progression in student understanding of plate tectonics.
o Breslyn et al. (2016) have investigated a learning progression in sea level rise by working with school students and trainee (pre-service) teachers.
· I have changed the text references to numbers, as required.
Reviewer 2 Report
I really enjoyed reading this piece. Good insights and good focus on the question. I think it is worth publishing and will be of great use.
Before that it needs a good edit and tidying up.
There is an over-reliance on bullet points in "The evolved stragegy" (starting at line 301/02) which breaks up the narrative and it makes it feel a bit rushed and more like a manual, rather than a journal piece.
A block of text appears under each table relating to the content of the table. This should be removed; I know it's only there as a placeholder, but please remove it.
Line 210: "A system of progression... ". This sentence reads like it's cut and paste from somewhere else. The "at the time" is not in any context and jars.
Line 264: "52% of those involved... ". At the start of the sentence it should be spelled out: "Fifty-two percent of those involved... " And, it would be useful at this point to give the total number of participants: 10 were involved in the pilot and 42 in the revised study.
Line 283. Full stop missing after"...coursework" and before "Half... "
Line 357-374. Font size changes
Line 376 Cropped out text appears in Figure 1b.
It might be more useful to make Fig 1a and 1b one figure and landscape it.
Your discussion is interesting and fair. I think that the paper focuses more on the younger (pre-university cohort) and maybe that should be reflected in the title. However, it really is interesting and prompts a really interesting debate about how geosciences are taught, learned and how progression can be considered. A useful idea might be to consider how the things taught and learned are retained and transferred to university. Does having done a geoscience course in school advantage a student pursuing a geoscience degree course? Does it prepare the student for field science programmes? Does it impact on the cognitive and affective domains of the students. These are not for this paper, but it might help frame the discussion a bit more better.
Author Response
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
I really enjoyed reading this piece. Good insights and good focus on the question. I think it is worth publishing and will be of great use.
Before that it needs a good edit and tidying up.
· Again – many thanks for a positive response. It is encouraging and is likely to result in a more willing response to some of the points well made below! Thank you.
There is an over-reliance on bullet points in "The evolved strategy" (starting at line 301/02) which breaks up the narrative and it makes it feel a bit rushed and more like a manual, rather than a journal piece.
· Done – thanks. It certainly reads better now.
A block of text appears under each table relating to the content of the table. This should be removed; I know it's only there as a placeholder, but please remove it.
· Done
Line 210: "A system of progression... ". This sentence reads like it's cut and paste from somewhere else. The "at the time" is not in any context and jars.
· Amended.
Line 264: "52% of those involved... ". At the start of the sentence it should be spelled out: "Fifty-two percent of those involved... " And, it would be useful at this point to give the total number of participants: 10 were involved in the pilot and 42 in the revised study.
· Done
Line 283. Full stop missing after"...coursework" and before "Half... "
· Done
Line 357-374. Font size changes
· Corrected
Line 376 Cropped out text appears in Figure 1b.
· I would never have spotted this – many thanks.
It might be more useful to make Fig 1a and 1b one figure and landscape it.
· Excellent thought – I’ve done this but left the other plots in – and presented this as a choice to the Editor.
Your discussion is interesting and fair. I think that the paper focuses more on the younger (pre-university cohort) and maybe that should be reflected in the title.
· It really focuses on 14-19 year olds, but as 19 year olds overlap with college students in the USA, I have not altered it (although I could, if required). An interesting discussion might be whether a progression noted in 14-19 year olds is similar to that for older students. But that is beyond what is possible here.
However, it really is interesting and prompts a really interesting debate about how geosciences are taught, learned and how progression can be considered. A useful idea might be to consider how the things taught and learned are retained and transferred to university. Does having done a geoscience course in school advantage a student pursuing a geoscience degree course? Does it prepare the student for field science programmes? Does it impact on the cognitive and affective domains of the students. These are not for this paper, but it might help frame the discussion a bit more better.
· Indeed, these are all interesting questions, that prompt an anecdotal response from me. When, at a meeting of geoscience Higher Education tutors, I asked the question of whether the students who had studied geology at A-level in school should be given a different curriculum in their first undergraduate year from those who hadn’t – I was astounded by the response of one lecturer who said that they had done a study, and those who had done A-level had done no worse at the end of their degree than those who hadn’t! Nowhere in the English school system nowadays would a system which showed such differences in progression be tolerated!
· Many thanks for your help and support.
