How Should I Teach from This Month Onward? A State-Space Model That Helps Drive Whole Classes to Achieve End-of-Year National Standardized Test Learning Targets
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
1. Readers would need more clarification on the research background. For example, the reason for choosing the evaluation period by month, the differences between short-term and long-term learning, and the characteristics of the course and sample chosen.
2. As the authors mentioned, “Teachers could welcome a better predictor of long-term learning if it is as simple and interpretable as GPAs,” they could stress the reasons for replacing GPAs.
3. It’s beneficial to present related work. Nevertheless, the authors could introduce them in organized ways with comments emphasizing the differentiated advantages of this study.
4. Readers might need more explanations of the methodologies, such as the state-space model and the Markovian hidden state.
5. It seems there exist some significant typos, such as lines 136 and 593.
6. Based on the authors’ hard work on technical analyses, they could conclude with the practical managerial implications of their research findings.
7. Suggested future studies could be stated with some organized rationales.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer
Thank you very much for the time and dedication to reviewing the manuscript, and the comments you have given us. Attached is a file with the responses to your comments and the changes made to the manuscript.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The article presents an empirical research to measure students' learning by monitoring the results obtained in activities such as those used in mathematics classrooms.
The research is relevant and novel, it is also well presented in the article, so I will focus on aspects that can be improved.
First, the introduction fulfills its role but I find it difficult to understand why it has sub-sections. I think it would be advisable to separate sub-sections 1.1 and 1.2 into new sections. In this way, the authors could include a section on the theoretical framework used, explaining what they mean by learning achievements and how they connect with the curricular contents. In this sense, the article leaves to the reader the interpretation of a good number of concepts that researchers in the area of mathematics education can adequately infer, but I do not believe that this is the case for the potential readers of the journal.
The methods chosen for the research are pertinent and well justified. The models used in the study are presented in a clear and convincing way, so that the results obtained do not generate doubts.
The discussion section could be reorganized and expanded to include some conclusions of the study. The discussion begins by resituating the situation and goes on to answer the objectives of the study. However, no conclusions are presented in which the authors make explicit what they have learned and why it is relevant and how it connects with previous literature. The lack of a theoretical frame of reference is noticeable here.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer
Thank you very much for the time and dedication to reviewing the manuscript, and the comments you have given us. Attached is a file with the responses to your comments and the changes made to the manuscript.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Thank you for your hard work in improving the manuscript.
The authors might consider separating the conclusion into theoretical and managerial implications.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer
Thanks a lot for your suggestion. We have put in the conclusions two subsections as you proposed to us.
Best rewards
