The Field Skills’ Development through Teaching Environmental Interactions in High School: Draa-Tafilalet Region, Morocco

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is a well prepared manuscript. The study is sound and the conclusions are thoughtful and reasonable. 

Author Response

Dear reviewer

On behalf of the authors of the article project entitled “The field skills development through teaching environmental interactions in High school: Draa -Tafilalet Region, Morocco” I would express sincere thanks to you, for the time you reserved to read the article and for your strong encouragement and constructive help.

Best regards

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to read this article entitled: The field skills development through teaching environmental interactions in High school: Draa -Tafilalet Region, Morocco.

Some remarks:

-          Does not strictly follow the structure of a research article.

-          The objective of this study is not clear. It says “The study apprehends the educational impacts of fieldwork in earth sciences teaching at high school”, how is the impact measured? How to compare skills acquired by a group of 26 high school students before and after the fieldwork? It is not clearly worded in the text.

-          It should be checked if the Keywords are in the thesaurus

-          It should specify more clearly the objective pursued. It is rather the description of an experience than a research article.

-          How is the improvement of students' skills evaluated? If the planned activities use qualitative variables to facilitate the apprehension of the acquisition of skills, has any qualitative analysis been carried out?

-          Line error 158 “skills acquisition. through 18 activities” remove the point.

-          In Table 1, how were the Focus topics chosen?

-          How do you show that students have interest and a growing curiosity? Lines 209-211: Students have a growing interest and curiosity in the fieldwork as shown by their serious engagement in field activities while respecting norms. An intense ideas exchange occurred while answering the multiple questions underlined from observed facts.

-          How do you demonstrate the statement on lines 278-279? “Students enjoy active learning from the field realities and individual observation, testing, and measuring using applied tools.”

-          On line 332: resumed by Harvey (remove whitespace)

-          When it says in line 347: “This study, devoted to the analysis of the fieldwork pedagogy and its impacts on developing students' skills leads to very significant results”. What methodology and instruments have you used to reach that statement?

-          From where and based on what methodology do you extract the following statement?: The results of this study show that 52 to 75% of the targeted skills in knowledge, individual skills, communication, or social integration, for example, were presumably achieved.

-          The references do not follow the rules of the journal. Correct incorrect, incomplete doi…

Author Response

Dear reviewer

All the authors thank you for the time you took to evaluate our research work and for your relevant comments, which were very helpful in improving the quality of our draft article. They are very constructive and have helped us considerably to restructure the article and to add additional information.

Please find attached the revised paper. You will find below the answers to your comments and suggestions, point by point.

Best regards

1. Does not strictly follow the structure of a research article.

We adapted the article’s structure by assembling the conceptual aspects, context, and methodology in part 2, the results in part 3, and their discussion in part 4.

2. The objective of this study is not clear. It says “The study apprehends the educational impacts of fieldwork in earth sciences teaching at high school”, how is the impact measured? How to compare skills acquired by 26 high school students before and after the fieldwork? It is not clearly worded in the text.

We added a paragraph (on page 4) explaining the work done in the diagnostic stage (pre-test) and the final evaluative stage work that aims to identify acquired skills. The skills ignored by students before the fieldwork were achieved after, as indicated by the materials and documents they produce: individual reports, graphs, and videos on observed aspects. These give evidence of their improvements in knowledge acquisition and in technological and communication skills development.

3. It should be checked if the Keywords are in the thesaurus:

We checked and all the keywords are in the thesaurus

4. It should specify more clearly the objective pursued. It is rather the description of an experience than a research article.

The objectives were clarified. The experience led in this study integrates more extensive research focusing on what would be the best approaches and didactic tools in teaching the Life and Earth Sciences. The new trend illustrates that several researchers privilege the use of simulation and virtual approaches and fieldwork tends to be marginalized. This study gives evidence of the benefits of the use of fieldwork in skills development.

5. How is the improvement of students' skills evaluated? If the planned activities use qualitative variables to facilitate the apprehension of the acquisition of skills, has any qualitative analysis been carried out?

Two evaluations were planned and effectively realized during the study (the pre-test and the post-test). The pre-test is a diagnostic questionary filled by students in the classroom before going to the fieldwork. It aims to test students’ knowledge level concerning the course's basic elements (sedimentary processes in the context). It is a reference to compare within the next stage. The post-test is a second questionnaire filled after the fieldwork in order to evaluate the improvements and developed skills. The results were promising considering the content of the reports and illustrative documents they present including graphs, photographs, and videos confirming the big effort done to assimilate things and illustrate the while explaining and arguing their ideas.

6. Line error 158 “skills acquisition. through 18 activities” remove the point.

We removed this point.

7. In Table 1, how were the Focus topics chosen?

The targeted subjects shown in table 1 are selected to meet the objectives of the syllabus officially set out for the course "External Geodynamics” mainly in its part “granulometry, morphoscopy and sediment dynamics". We wanted to analyze the different aspects that influence these dynamics and see to what extent students understand them before and after doing fieldwork. Four major topics were apprehended: the contextual effects; the phenomena observed concerning erosion and sedimentation; the detailed observation of carbonates because it is the dominant bedrock in the area; finally, the human impacts on fluvial dynamics because the village Ait Idir is not far and human. Table 1 presents details of the guiding elements for each topic, the main questions debated with students, and the main activities planned to answer the question.

8. How do you show that students have interest and a growing curiosity? Lines 209-211: Students have a growing interest and curiosity in the fieldwork as shown by their serious engagement in field activities while respecting norms. An intense ideas exchange occurred while answering the multiple questions underlined from observed facts.

Indicators of the students’ growing interest and curiosity are the initiated scientific debate and the high number of questions asked by students at different observation/discussion levels:

- when they observe the general landscape and discuss the landforms, topography, bedrocks, etc.;

- when they discuss the fluvial dynamics, factors, and processes;

-when they try to explain observed materials using physical and human-induced processes; 

- when they observe the carbonate rocks, carbonate dissolution, and residues.

Students formulate questions and express their points of view to explain some aspects. This intense ideas exchange, not really observed in the classroom is interpreted as an impact of the fieldwork and its participative co-constructive pedagogy.

9. How do you demonstrate the statement on lines 278-279? “Students enjoy active learning from the field realities and individual observation, testing, and measuring using applied tools.”

The formed sub-groups were productive as individuals communicate and worked together. Most of the students express their hope to adopt such an approach in the future.

10. On line 332: resumed by Harvey (remove whitespace)

We removed the indicated whitespace

11. When it says in line 347: “This study, devoted to the analysis of the fieldwork pedagogy and its impacts on developing students' skills leads to very significant results”. What methodology and instruments have you used to reach that statement?

We compared the students’ scientific level during the diagnostic pre-test and compared it to the acquired knowledge and developed skills after the fieldwork (post-test). The outputs and generated documents show the student's improvements as they produce reports, graphs, illustrations, and videos illustrating acquired skills from the fieldwork.

12. From where and based on what methodology do you extract the following statement?: The results of this study show that 52 to 75% of the targeted skills in knowledge, individual skills, communication, or social integration, for example, were presumably achieved.

      The objectives of the course “external geodynamics” are officially defined by the Moroccan Ministry of National Education and are mainly knowledge skills, technological skills, communication, and social skills. They were considered in preparing the questionnaires before and after the fieldwork. We compare the results of the pre-test with those obtained from the post-test. The objectives were differently attained depending on individuals’ competencies. For each targeted skill more than 14 students (from a total of 26) responded positively. The questions related to testing the knowledge skills after the fieldwork were positively answered by 19 students (from a total of 26).

13. The references do not follow the rules of the journal. Correct incorrect, incomplete doi…

The references were adapted to the journal’s norms.

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

The topic of skills development is highly interesting, and it seems like you have carried out a good work with the field study activity. However, the current manuscript lacks in clarity and research soundness, which makes it hard to understand the methodological approach as well as the main results and findings. If the study has a sound research basis, it is my belief that more clarity could be achieved by structuring the content better, and by adding descriptions that is currently lacking. Please use the comments below for improving the manuscript.

Introduction: The introduction is fairly well developed as it positions the research with respect to previous research and current needs. There are some unclarity in the use of definitions/terms, and in what the main purpose of the article is. Is the article in firsthand a description of how to conduct field studies with a minor evaluation of the specific activity as a part of the result, or is the main purpose to assess how skills development could be achieved by the means of field studies?

·       You state that the achievements in skills development is emerging [p 1 rows 25-26]. Why is this, and what was the focus in education before? And which are the new approaches in teaching that have succeeded [p 1 rows 30-31]? Please elaborate.

·       You use some interrelated but different terms for describing the subject area: “Earth and environmental sciences” [p 1 row 34], “Earth and life sciences” [p 2 row 50], and “Earth sciences” [p 2 on several occasions]. Please add some definition/description to the term “Earth and life sciences” or which of the variants you prefer to use, as the scope of subjects could differ depending on country.

·       You refer to a study of student achievements on p 2 rows 48-52. However, it is unclear if this is really referring to soft skills, or to subject skills, and it is also unclear what the percentage is referring to. Is it of the total course/program objectives, or something else? Please reformulate.

·       The goal or purpose of the article is hard to grasp. The goal to “…apprehend evidence of the practical skills developed…” is too vague, which affects the reader’s understanding of methodology as well as expected results. Please formulate a more concise goal or purpose that is easy to assess the achievement of, and that supports the discussion of the results and drawing of general conclusions.

Theoretical background: I find the theoretical background relevant and sufficient. Although, it is somewhat hard to get a good overview of the different previous studies and findings. The article would benefit from a summary of skills – a summary that would serve as a theoretical framework for the data gathering and analysis.

Methodology: I appreciate the detailed description of the field activity and the use of illustrative photos. This is a good help for others who like to conduct similar activities. There are some parts of the methods description that is hard to understand, and some parts of the methods descriptions are missing.

·       The field study is, as mentioned, quite well described. However, in Table 1, you account for “Four topics” and “Guiding elements and questions”. Could you please specify whether these are drawn from the course syllabus, or developed by the teacher team, and briefly explain these in the continuous text.

·       The main topic of the article is development of skills. It is, however, unclear what kind of skills you have studied and how. Regarding what skills that are included, this relates to the comment regarding summarizing the theoretical background. I miss a theoretical framework describing different types of skills – a framework that structures the data gathering and analysis.

·       You have not described how you evaluated the “skills development”, which is a major issue of the article. Was it through observation, or interviews, or surveys, or a combination thereof? Please include details regarding the evaluation process. Did you evaluate the student attitudes before, during, and after the field study? If you did not apply any pre-evaluation or control groups, how are you assuring validity and reliability in your findings, for instance, how can you know that the increase in skills development is due to the field trip, and not because of any other variable?

·       Details regarding how you assessed the skills development is missing as well. What variables were studies/questions were asked? On p 4 rows 158-160 468 variables are mentioned. What kind of variables are they, and how did you use them in your study?

Results: It is very hard to get a good overview of what the main results are. The subheadings do not match with the Table 1 or the Table 2, and it is hard to understand the variables that were studied, and what main findings are reached. For example, under the subheading “4.1 Fieldwork, a space of dialog, and skills development” there are statements like “75% of asked questions were correctly answered by students…//” [p 8 rows 216-217]. Is this an indicator of development of knowledge skills? It is hard to assess this figure, as we do not know what percentage to expect. Do the students, not being on field trips, have a lower or higher rate of correct answers?

·       Having a better structure of the results chapter would highly increase the readability. For doing so, please consider what main variables and phenomena that are studied, and how the results could be presented in the best manner. A good structure should be visible in the subheadings of the chapter.,

·       With a better description of the methodology, especially regarding data gathering, and adding interview/survey templates and questions, the results would be easier to understand and assess. Right now, there are statements like “Students enjoy active learning…//…75% of the said very satisfied to practice technical tools in the field during the trip. Most of them used digital technology…//” [p 9 rows 279-281]. It seems like you have measured the student perception in some way, as well as you have recorded what tools and how many that used them in the field trip, but without knowing details of the data gathering, it is hard to understand how you reached this result.

·       Review the descriptions for clarity. For instance, it is stated that “Students have a growing interest and curiosity in the fieldwork as shown by their serious engagement in the field activities while respecting norms.” [p 7 rows 209-210]. This could be interpreted as the students first showed low interest in the beginning of the field trip, but became more active and confident during the trip. Or, it could be interpreted as the students in general had a low interest, but that the interest increased during and after the trip. It is, also, unclear what norms that were respected. Norms of conduct? Norms you set for the group work and communication?

Discussion: This part is, in contrast to the results, better structured, and the results are clearly discussed and connected with other studies/theories. The subheadings are quite well correlated with the “Targeted skills” as found in Table 2.

·       The order of skills in Table 2 and the subheadings in the discussion are not fully matching. Restructuring of the discussion is therefore recommended.

·       I miss “Social – integration and sustainability skills” in Table 2.

Conclusion: This part is very brief and gives no good “lessons learned” from the stud. The research and practical implications are missing.

Other comments:

·       Please check the grammar and structure of the article for increased readability.

Author Response

Dear reviewer

All the authors thank you for the time you took to evaluate our research work and for your relevant comments, which were very helpful in improving the quality of our draft article. They are very constructive and have helped us considerably to restructure the article and to add additional information.

Please find attached the revised paper. You will find below the answers to your comments and suggestions, point by point.

Best regards

1. Introduction: The introduction is fairly well developed as it positions the research with respect to previous research and current needs. There is some unclarity in the use of definitions/terms, and in what the main purpose of the article is. Is the article firsthand a description of how to conduct field studies with a minor evaluation of the specific activity as a part of the result, or is the main purpose to assess how skills development could be achieved by the means of field studies?

A description of the fieldwork was given to introduce its organization, stages, and tools, but the main purpose of the article is to assess the outputs students achieved after doing the fieldwork. The change in students’ knowledge and other targeted skills was measured using two tests (pre-test and post-test) comparing their situation before and after the fieldwork. 

2. You state that achievements in skills development is emerging [p 1 rows 25-26]. Why is this, and what was the focus in education before? And which are the new approaches in teaching that have succeeded [p 1 rows 30-31]? Please elaborate.

Major mutations occur from traditional education, generally teacher-centered, often passive and theoretical to modern education learner-centered, interactive, and oriented to skills development.

3. You use some interrelated but different terms for describing the subject area: “Earth and environmental sciences” [p 1 row 34], “Earth and life sciences” [p 2 row 50], and “Earth sciences” [p 2 on several occasions]. Please add some definition/description to the term “Earth and life sciences” or which of the variants you prefer to use, as the scope of subjects could differ depending on the country.

In fact, “the environmental sciences” have a general sense that may include other topics not considered in this article. As the study focus on the Moroccan context, we adopt the name officially attributed to the course “life and earth sciences”.

4. You refer to a study of student achievements on p 2 rows 48-52. However, it is unclear if this is really referring to soft skills, or to subject skills, and it is also unclear what the percentage is referring to. Is it of the total course/program objectives, or something else? Please reformulate.

The report in reference [14] is critical concerning the Moroccan education system and recommends urgent reforms for its modernization. The analytical results of the survey among students in the last years of primary and college secondary levels confirm that soft skills acquisition is still weak. 47% of students assimilated less than 38% of the life and earth sciences program prescribed in the third year of college secondary school. That means most students do not assimilate the course and logically fail in achieving its goals, including knowledge and skills. This was an appeal to reform the system and put alternative approaches into action.

5. The goal or purpose of the article is hard to grasp. The goal to “…apprehend evidence of the practical skills developed…” is too vague, which affects the reader’s understanding of methodology as well as expected results. Please formulate a more concise goal or purpose that is easy to assess the achievement of, and that supports the discussion of the results and drawing of general conclusions.

We reformulated and completed this paragraph.

6. Theoretical background: I find the theoretical background relevant and sufficient. Although, it is somewhat hard to get a good overview of the different previous studies and findings. The article would benefit from a summary of skills – a summary that would serve as a theoretical framework for the data gathering and analysis.

Background improved.

7. Methodology: I appreciate the detailed description of the field activity and the use of illustrative photos. This is a good help for others who like to conduct similar activities. There are some parts of the methods description that is hard to understand, and some parts of the methods descriptions are missing.

We improved the methodology presentation part by explaining its framework and technical procedures.

8. The field study is, as mentioned, quite well described. However, in Table 1, you account for “Four topics” and “Guiding elements and questions”. Could you please specify whether these are drawn from the course syllabus, or developed by the teacher team, and briefly explain these in the continuous text.

The four topics are inspired by the official course syllabus, but guiding elements and questions are formulated by the teacher to ensure the goals and achievements in each topic.

9. The main topic of the article is development of skills. It is, however, unclear what kind of skills you have studied and how. Regarding what skills that are included, this relates to the comment regarding summarizing the theoretical background. I miss a theoretical framework describing different types of skills – a framework that structures the data gathering and analysis.

Explained by complementary texts.

10. You have not described how you evaluated the “skills development”, which is a major issue of the article. Was it through observation, or interviews, or surveys, or a combination thereof? Please include details regarding the evaluation process. Did you evaluate the student attitudes before, during, and after the field study? If you did not apply any pre-evaluation or control groups, how are you assuring validity and reliability in your findings, for instance, how can you know that the increase in skills development is due to the field trip, and not because of any other variable?

It is true that acquiring competencies is a complex task because it is multifactorial, but in this case, the contribution of the fieldwork is important because we appreciate its direct impact when we compare student’s levels before and after the work.

11. Details regarding how you assessed the skills development is missing as well. What variables were studies/questions were asked? On p 4 rows 158-160 468 variables are mentioned. What kind of variables are they, and how did you use them in your study?

Each of the planned activities (table 1) focuses on specific variables and allows us to evaluate the change before and after the fieldwork. For examples we cite:

The critical capacity of students’ observation of their context was demonstrated when they concretely localize the site using observed elements of the surrounding Atlas chain (mountain).  In the pre-test (before the trip), answers to the location question were ambiguous. The post-test we did after, showed improvement in students’ assimilation of the context elements.

The geologic, structural, and sedimentologic variables were roughly described by students in the pre-test, before going to the field. Most answers were approximative. But, the answers given in the post-test (after the fieldwork) were improved, based on observed and precisely described landforms and contextual elements. These were illustrated by photos and videos in the post-test.

The positive change in individual capacities to communicate is confirmed by the observed intense students’ dialogs in the field, their final reports, and their answers to the evaluative questionnaire (post-test) after. The 18 activities practiced by 26 students allow 468 observations and offer a useful data basis to analyze and discuss the achievements.

12. Results: It is very hard to get a good overview of what the main results are. The subheadings do not match with the Table 1 or the Table 2, and it is hard to understand the variables that were studied, and what main findings are reached. For example, under the subheading “4.1 Fieldwork, a space of dialog, and skills development” there are statements like “75% of asked questions were correctly answered by students…//” [p 8 rows 216-217]. Is this an indicator of development of knowledge skills? It is hard to assess this figure, as we do not know what percentage to expect. Do the students, not being on field trips, have a lower or higher rate of correct answers?

The text related to results is restructured following the successive order in table 2. The whole list of questions asked in each test is forming 100%. The percentage of 75% indicates the proportion of questions rightly answered. 

13. Having a better structure of the results chapter would highly increase the readability. For doing so, please consider what main variables and phenomena that are studied, and how the results could be presented in the best manner. A good structure should be visible in the subheadings of the chapter.

The article’s structure is modified as its three major parts are clear:

• Theoretical background, context, and methodology

• Results
• Discussion

14. With a better description of the methodology, especially regarding data gathering, and adding interview/survey templates and questions, the results would be easier to understand and assess. Right now, there are statements like “Students enjoy active learning…//…75% of the said very satisfied to practice technical tools in the field during the trip. Most of them used digital technology…//” [p 9 rows 279-281]. It seems like you have measured the student perception in some way, as well as you have recorded what tools and how many that used them in the field trip, but without knowing details of the data gathering, it is hard to understand how you reached this result.

We assessed these issues using students’ interviews and a questionnaire at the post-test. Additional information is added to the methodology.

15. Review the descriptions for clarity. For instance, it is stated that “Students have a growing interest and curiosity in the fieldwork as shown by their serious engagement in the field activities while respecting norms.” [p 7 rows 209-210]. This could be interpreted as the students first showed low interest in the beginning of the field trip, but became more active and confident during the trip. Or, it could be interpreted as the students in general had a low interest, but that the interest increased during and after the trip. It is, also, unclear what norms that were respected. Norms of conduct? Norms you set for the group work and communication?

Supplementary information is given in the text.

16. Discussion: This part is, in contrast to the results, better structured, and the results are clearly discussed and connected with other studies/theories. The subheadings are quite well correlated with the “Targeted skills” as found in Table 2. The order of skills in Table 2 and the subheadings in the discussion are not fully matching. Restructuring of the discussion is therefore recommended.

We re-ordered the ideas in the discussion to gain conformity with table 2. Text adapted, thank you.

17. I miss “Social – integration and sustainability skills” in Table 2.

Social integration is considered among personal skills that allow inclusion and individual integration in groups. It is added in an adequate place on the table. In discussion, this paragraph matches with personal skills and is therefore displaced to part 4.3.

18. Conclusion: This part is very brief and gives no good “lessons learned” from the stud. The research and practical implications are missing.

Thanks, the conclusion is enriched as asked.

19. Other comments: Please check the grammar and structure of the article for increased readability.

We checked the grammar and improved the article's readability, thanks.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you very much for making the suggested changes. They have been carried out and I am satisfied with the new version.

Best regards

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your review. We are glad about such positive feedback.

Best regards

Prof. Anouar Alami

Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University of Fez

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

Thank you for the revised version of the manuscript, which has improved in terms of clarity and structure. Especially the objectives and the methodology is now highly improved. However, there are still some points that should be addressed:

1. You added a summary of the skills that forms the main frame of analysis, but please add suitable reference/references as well, see reviewer comment 6.

2. Details regarding the pre and post evaluations are still missing. Please add the questionnaire templates/questions as an appendix, or at least add a list of questions used and a description of  the type of questions (open-ended, mutichoice, likert scale, etc), see reviewer comment 11.

3. Regarding the National Learning Assessment Program referred to on page 2, the descriptions are better, but I think that it was even better explained in the reviewer comment 4. 

4. In reviewer comment 12, it was, amongst others, asked what "75%" really represents. I do understand that the 75% is out of 100%, but the main point with the comment was what 75% really represents in terms of student skills development. A number must be correlated with something, otherwise it does not give any meaning. Did you, for instance, measure the skills competence before and after the field trip, then this would be valuable reference points. Or, if you did not conduct any such measurements, then you could always compare with the national results gained from the National Learning Assessment Program.

5. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Thank you very much for your instructive comments on our revised version of the manuscript entitled “The field skills’ development through teaching environmental interactions in High school: Draa -Tafilalet Region, Morocco”. We improved it following your recommendations.

Please find attached the revised paper. You will find below the answers to your comments and suggestions, point by point.

Best regards

Prof. Anouar Alami

Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University of Fez

1. You added a summary of the skills that forms the main frame of analysis, but please add suitable reference/references as well, see reviewer comment 6.

We added pertinent references of each of the studied skills as follows: The main skills targeted are the students’ scientific knowledge improvement referred to in [3] and [4], their social competencies tested by observing the individual integration in the working groups and development of social relations and ethics during the fieldwork [16], the technical skills illustrated by students’ use of observation techniques and analytic tools [9], communication skills defined in official reports [14], [15], [16] are shown in this study by each student’s capacity to dialog and express by oral and written texts his opinions targeted skills was measured using two tests (pre-test and post-test) comparing their situation before and after the fieldwork.

2. Details regarding the pre and post evaluations are still missing. Please add the questionnaire templates/questions as an appendix, or at least add a list of questions used and a description of the type of questions (open-ended, multichoice, likert scale, etc), see reviewer comment 11.

Please find the whole questionnaire in the appendix inserted in the text (just before references).

3. Regarding the National Learning Assessment Program referred to on page 2, the descriptions are better, but I think that it was even better explained in the reviewer comment 4.

In the text, we insert more descriptive details in the text to clarify the sentences’ sense as follows:

“The analytical results of the survey among students in the last years of primary and college secondary levels confirm that soft skills acquisition is still weak. 47% of students assimilated less than 38% of the life and earth sciences program prescribed by the Ministry of National Education for the third year of college secondary school. Only 24% of interviewed students had acquired more than 55% of the program. The goals in terms of knowledge skills achievement are not attained. The soft skills achievement under the present-day education system is generally weak as confirmed by previous studies [15, 16]”.

We also add the link of the cited reference so it may be freely downloaded (please see reference 14. The link is https://www.csefrs.ma/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Rapport-PNEA-2019-V-Fr.pdf.

4. In reviewer comment 12, it was, amongst others, asked what "75%" really represents. I do understand that the 75% is out of 100%, but the main point with the comment was what 75% really represents in terms of student skills development. A number must be correlated with something, otherwise it does not give any meaning. Did you, for instance, measure the skills competence before and after the field trip, then this would be valuable reference points. Or, if you did not conduct any such measurements, then you could always compare with the national results gained from the National Learning Assessment Program.

We improved the text by indicating the comparison we did between results obtained from the pre-test (questions before the fieldwork) and the post – test (questions after the fieldwork). Each question was formulated to test the acquired student’s competencies. These competencies were interpreted as developed skills. Questions focus on what each student knows on the topic? what he understands? how he communicates on the topic?  The obtained answers allow a comparison that indicate the improvements during the learning process.

For example, among the questions addressed before and after the fieldwork:

-What are the major orographic and morpho-structural units framing the situation of your high school?

In the post- test the same question was reformulated to situate the sampled site and incite students to link the sampled deposits during the trip, to their context. The question as it was reformulated became:

-What are the major orographic and morpho-structural units framing the situation of the sampled area in your field trip?

After the fieldwork, 75% of asked questions were correctly answered by students concerning the site location and its physical framework. They used observed components of local and regional environments and analyze the maps and satellite images, to locate the fieldwork site using the coordinates and the geographic characteristics.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf