Advantages and Challenges of Cooperative Learning in Two Different Cultures

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The document describes a study on the benefits and challenges of incorporating CL into the teaching of instructors in Iran and Australia. It is a qualitative study based on interview and observation.

The results showed a lack of familiarity with CL and how it can be implemented in university curricula, problems associated with assessment and time constraints, however CL created an interactive, friendly and safe environment for deep learning in both countries.

The study found that challenges existed in Iran, such as the tendency to use traditional approaches to teaching, insufficient understanding of how to establish teamwork, and a lack of up-to-date teaching resources. In Australia, changing courses, working with external students, addressing individual differences and building positive relationships were some of the challenges of implementing CL.

General judgment comments

 The study is interesting and tackles an increasingly necessary topic. The comparative approach is complex and requires a deep understanding of comparative cultures.

The qualitative approach is a pertinent strategy for this type of inquiry. The use of two techniques such as interview and observation are two suitable options that allow data validation. In this sense, I think that methodologically it is well formulated. However, I miss the voice of the students, because ultimately they are the recipients of these work methodologies. I think the research would have been more robust by incorporating interviews with students from both countries. In any case, this is no longer possible.

One issue that can be addressed, and that would improve the qualitative understanding of the informants' opinions, is to introduce age and sex. In my opinion, the gender perspective should  be part of all research, as it can shed light on different sensitivities when addressing social and educational problems.

Minor issues:

The article can be reviewed before sending it, and enter the sex and age of the participants for each quote. Instead of putting Px only, add sex and age.

Author Response

Thank you so much for taking the time to review our article. We carefully and thoroughly considered your comments because they improved our article. As you said: “the comparative approach is complex and requires a deep understanding of comparative cultures”, we have revealed some of its dimensions as much as we could. We did the revisions and we specified the gender in the quotes, but it was difficult for us to ask the age of the interviewees. The manuscript reviewed by the authors. It was also re-checked and re-edited by a native English-speaking colleague. Revisions are highlighted in yellow.

Reviewer 2 Report

This article is a distinctive feature of the present study – a combined university instructors' perceptions of CL with data from classroom observations in two distinctly different countries to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of the pedagogical practices that were employed within a given cultural context.

A case-study design with an interpretative-qualitative approach was used. Nine in structors in the Faculty of Psychology and Education at the University of Tehran (UT) in Iran and ten instructors in the School of Education at the University of Queensland (UQ) in Australia were invited to participate in interview.

The interview method is purposefully described. All ethical and research quality requirements are met.

Essentially identify and justify access to research data analysis.

Data analysis methods are not mentioned in the summary. Both in the summary and in the discussions and conclusions, it is suggested to show the results not only by separating cultures, but also by looking for unity between them.

In the introductory part, it is not clear what theoretical position is followed in the analysis of different cultures (cultural theory?). Maybe it would be worth developing the theoretical part?

Author Response

Thank you for your valuable feedback. Based on your comments, we made the following corrections:

1. We added the data analysis method to the abstract and text.
2. Cultural theory is a great idea. Although we did not discuss cultural theory in the introduction, we did briefly refer to culture, and in the discussion and conclusion we referred to the unity between cultures.
3. The manuscript reviewed by the authors. It was also re-checked and re-edited by a native English-speaking colleague. Revisions are highlighted in yellow.