Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The present study shows the value of SFL as a tool to analyse learners' expression of disciplinary content (more specifically science) and the use of language and multimodality as meaning-making resources. However, it is not clear what the specific contribution of the study is in relation to existing research or the implications for pedagogy.

At the beginning, it seems that the purpose of the study is to problematise the use of worksheets in science (also stated in the title), using an SFL lense. But no reference to this is made in the final discussion. The research question suggests a mere description of the students' answers: “What characterizes the pupils’ answers in the worksheets in terms of content, structure of the texts and how they position themselves?” But how is this question relevant for related research and pedagogy?

The justification for the use of SFL would also require more elaboration. On page 2, in the introduction, it is said that, in contrast to other cognitive studies, the present study is more socially-oriented. What is meant by this? 

Regarding the structure and organization of the paper, I miss a separate section on the theoretical framework and literary review. Details on the specific study should not be presented in the theoretical/literature review section (Hands on Science Work). The information on the task and the actual session analysed should be provided in the method section. In this section, it is not clear if the students worked individually or in groups. If this was the first lesson on “light”, does it mean the work on the worksheet was based on the children’s everyday experiences? Again, results should not be presented in the theory and analytical perspective section.

Regarding the examples for Reasoning (PRO) on page 6, why should “R1 – Light shines onto objects, R2 – Opaque objects block the light from moving in a continuum, and R3 – Shadow is absence of light, be examples of "reasoning", and not "premise"?

In the results section, why select 6 texts? How were they chosen? It is not clear why sometimes the analysis refers to the 25 texts and sometimes to a selection of 6. 

 The questions introducing the tasks: “Why is a shadow formed?” “Why is not a shadow formed?” “Explain how shadows are formed” trigger explanations. I wonder why the authors also refer to a focus on descriptions.

The information in the discussion of findings and in the implications sections should highlight the relevance of the findings. For example, how does this remark on page 16 relate to the analysis of the students' texts?: “One possibility then is to discuss how writing acts such as explanations and descriptions can be formulated in line with the conventions of the discipline and in doing so also relate to multimodal aspects”. 

 

 

Author Response

Reviewer 1

The present study shows the value of SFL as a tool to analyse learners' expression of disciplinary content (more specifically science) and the use of language and multimodality as meaning-making resources. However, it is not clear what the specific contribution of the study is in relation to existing research or the implications for pedagogy.

• In the revised version of our manuscript, we have clarified the contribution of our manuscript mainly in the discussion and implications section, which has been thoroughly revised.
• Our detailed analyses – drawing on systemic functional linguistics – combined with the PRO-structure enable us to show how the pupils manage to create multimodal texts (written language and image) to explain shadow formation and in doing so, position themselves in relation to the content through their different choices (in this case as knowledgeable).
• Through our results we can show that it is of importance to interpret the pupils’ responses in the worksheet in relation to the context in which they worked with the hands-on activity and the worksheet. This may have impact both for science teachers when assessing pupils and for the science education research community which to a great extent has drawn on pupils’ oral explanations or drawings, without considering the context or how different ways of communicating has different affordances.
• We put forward two main implications of our study: First, the importance for teachers to be aware of how tasks are formulated. Second, that pupils may benefit from teaching practices in which text conventions in science as a school subject are made explicit.

 

At the beginning, it seems that the purpose of the study is to problematise the use of worksheets in science (also stated in the title), using an SFL lense. But no reference to this is made in the final discussion. The research question suggests a mere description of the students' answers: “What characterizes the pupils’ answers in the worksheets in terms of content, structure of the texts and how they position themselves?” But how is this question relevant for related research and pedagogy?

• In our revised Summary and discussion section, we have now elaborated and developed the discussion related to our analysis according to SFL (also see first bullet in the response above).
• Regarding the RQ: We have now reformulated the aim of the study: “The aim of this study is to explore how a worksheet is used as a resource for pupils' to make meaning and position themselves as knowledgeable in science after hands-on activities targeting shadow formation”. The answer to the RQ, which in its three parts presupposes thorough analyses in regard to the three metafunctions in SFL, is used as a basis to discuss the aim. As we now highlight in discussions and implications, a central part for students’ development of content knowledge is to position themselves in relation to the subject.

The justification for the use of SFL would also require more elaboration. On page 2, in the introduction, it is said that, in contrast to other cognitive studies, the present study is more socially-oriented. What is meant by this? 

• We are grateful for your reading and that you have pointed out shortcomings in our introduction. We have now revised the introduction section to place our study more clearly in a more appropriate context. Along this line, we have, for example, excluded wording like “the present study is more socially-oriented”. Instead, we point out, that in opposition to previous studies in the field of shadow formation, we are interested in how pupils express themselves in a worksheet that is part of a regular science activity designed by the teacher.

 

Regarding the structure and organization of the paper, I miss a separate section on the theoretical framework and literary review. Details on the specific study should not be presented in the theoretical/literature review section (Hands on Science Work). The information on the task and the actual session analysed should be provided in the method section. In this section, it is not clear if the students worked individually or in groups. If this was the first lesson on “light”, does it mean the work on the worksheet was based on the children’s everyday experiences? Again, results should not be presented in the theory and analytical perspective section.

• We are very grateful that the reviewer pointed this out to us. We have now omitted details about our study in sections where they do not belong. In the methods section, we have now made sure that all relevant information about the context and the participants is given.

Regarding the examples for Reasoning (PRO) on page 6, why should “R1 – Light shines onto objects, R2 – Opaque objects block the light from moving in a continuum, and R3 – Shadow is absence of light, be examples of "reasoning", and not "premise"?

• Thanks for your comment on PRO. We have discussed this question within the research group. If we take each of the statements on their own, then yes, they can be seen as a premise. However, in the context of the “first cause” in the explanation (i.e. the premise), which is “light travels in a straight line”, these statements (R1, R2 and R3) are consequence or follow-up from that “first cause”. Thus, they are seen as reasoning sequences, instead of the “first cause” premise.

In the results section, why select 6 texts? How were they chosen? It is not clear why sometimes the analysis refers to the 25 texts and sometimes to a selection of 6. 

• Unfortunately, we were not clear in our first version in relation to how we presented our data and results. In this new revised version of our manuscript, we have clarified that all 25 texts are analysed and out of these 25 texts we have picked out six worksheets as illustrations to our findings.

 The questions introducing the tasks: “Why is a shadow formed?” “Why is not a shadow formed?” “Explain how shadows are formed” trigger explanations. I wonder why the authors also refer to a focus on descriptions.

• We absolutely agree but could not find a section where we refer to a focus on descriptions. We have made some revisions anyway, and we mention i) that descriptions are common acts of writing in science, ii) that a description can function, e.g. as a point of departure for an explanation (which is in fact what we have found in a number of worksheets)

The information in the discussion of findings and in the implications sections should highlight the relevance of the findings. For example, how does this remark on page 16 relate to the analysis of the students' texts?: “One possibility then is to discuss how writing acts such as explanations and descriptions can be formulated in line with the conventions of the discipline and in doing so also relate to multimodal aspects”. 

• As already mentioned, we have now thoroughly revised and elaborated on the discussion and implication section with this comment in mind. We have now clarified the part that concerns the functions of texts.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors and editor,

The manuscript presents a linguistic and multimodal analysis of students' worksheets dealing with shadow formation. The analysis has been made in terms of the three metafunctions: ideational, interpersonal and textual. Implications for teaching are presented. Mostly, the text is well written.

An issue with this manuscript is, however, whether it presents new knowledge or not.  For example, almost every point in the implication section is backed up by previous literature. What is new could be pointed out more strongly. Furthermore, it is claimed that "classroom discussions focusing on various aspects of text conventions may increase pupils’ possibilities to formulate, for instance, adequate explanations in multimodal texts" but no such classroom discussions have been investigated so the claim is not backed up by any empirical investigation. 

Regarding the introduction section, too little attention seems to be payed to multimodality. Also, no previous research student understanding of shadow formation is presented.

Regarding the theory and analytical perspective, it is not clear if readers who are not familiar with SFL will understand it. However, a reasonable attempt is being made to explain it. For the article to follow standard structure, the theory and analytical perspective ought to be presented before the methods section.

It is not clear if and how the video data that was collected was used. It should be made clear earlier in the manuscript, preferably in the methods section, that all 25 student texts were analysed, but that the six ones presented in the manuscript are used as examples.

Much of the literature referred to in the manuscript is rather old. In some places references also appear to be missing, see comments in the manuscript; also, for example, regarding Bruner (1990).

There seem to be issues with anonymisation of the participants in pupil's texts 3 and 6.

Again, please see comments in the attached manuscript file.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Reviewer 2

The manuscript presents a linguistic and multimodal analysis of students' worksheets dealing with shadow formation. The analysis has been made in terms of the three metafunctions: ideational, interpersonal and textual. Implications for teaching are presented. Mostly, the text is well written.

• We are grateful for your thorough reading of our manuscript, and we really appreciate your detailed and insightful comments throughout the manuscript. These comments have been valuable for us during our work on revising the manuscript and we have taken all of them into consideration in our revision.

An issue with this manuscript is, however, whether it presents new knowledge or not.  For example, almost every point in the implication section is backed up by previous literature. What is new could be pointed out more strongly. 

• Reviewer 1 had similar concerns. Therefore, we here repeat our response:
• Our detailed analyses – drawing on systemic functional linguistics – combined with the PRO-structure enable us to show how the pupils manage to create multimodal texts (written language and image) to explain shadow formation and in doing so, position themselves in relation to the content through their different choices (in this case as knowledgeable).
• Through our results we can show that it is of importance to interpret the pupils’ responses in the worksheet in relation to the context in which they worked with the hands-on activity and the worksheet. This may have impact both for science teachers when assessing pupils and for the science education research community which to a great extent has drawn on pupils’ oral explanations or drawings, without considering the context or how different ways of communicating has different affordances.
• We put forward two main implications of our study: First, the importance for teachers to be aware of how tasks are formulated. Second, that pupils may benefit from teaching practices in which text conventions in science as a school subject are made explicit.

Furthermore, it is claimed that "classroom discussions focusing on various aspects of text conventions may increase pupils’ possibilities to formulate, for instance, adequate explanations in multimodal texts" but no such classroom discussions have been investigated so the claim is not backed up by any empirical investigation.

• As we point out in our analysis concerning the register variables (the context), the pupils in this activity were supposed to handle the tasks without guidance from the teacher. We now point at a number of challenges in regard to the formulations of tasks, which imply that explicit discussions about how to formulate explanations or to use image to explain a phenomenon may be beneficial.

 

Regarding the introduction section, too little attention seems to be payed to multimodality. Also, no previous research student understanding of shadow formation is presented.

• The comment about the lack of attention to multimodality is relevant. We have now included such comments throughout the manuscript.
• As mentioned, we do not have an extensive section on pupils/students understanding of shadow formation. We have considered and discussed your concern regarding previous research targeting pupils’ understanding of shadow formation within our research group. Our ambition is foremost to investigate the worksheet as a resource for pupils meaning making. Hence, we are not mainly interested in how the pupils in our study understand or do not understand shadow formation as such. Instead, the activities that the teacher had designed when we visited the class, happened to be connected to shadow formation. By revising the first part of our manuscript we hope that we have now made this clear. If the title of the manuscript is misleading, we can consider to change the title into “Primary pupils’ hands-on work in science - problematizing the worksheet as a resource for meaning making”.

 

Regarding the theory and analytical perspective, it is not clear if readers who are not familiar with SFL will understand it. However, a reasonable attempt is being made to explain it. For the article to follow standard structure, the theory and analytical perspective ought to be presented before the methods section.

• We have made some minor details regarding the SFL-framework and we do hope that it is clear enough for readers outside of that field. Regarding structure, again, Reviewer 1 pointed out that details about our study (methods etc.) were presented in other sections than the appropriate one. We have now taken care of that.

It is not clear if and how the video data that was collected was used. It should be made clear earlier in the manuscript, preferably in the methods section, that all 25 student texts were analysed, but that the six ones presented in the manuscript are used as examples.

• We have now clarified the section on Data and participants.
• In this new revised version, we have clarified that all 25 texts are analysed and out of these 25 texts we have picked out six worksheets as illustrations to our findings.

Much of the literature referred to in the manuscript is rather old. In some places references also appear to be missing, see comments in the manuscript; also, for example, regarding Bruner (1990).

• Unfortunately, we included the wrong reference when referring to Bruner. This has been taken care of by inserting the correct reference: Gardner, H. (2001). Jerome S. Bruner 1915– . In J. Palmer (Ed.), Fifty modern thinkers on education from Piaget to the present (pp. 90–96). London: Routledge. Once again, thanks for helping us pointing out uncertainties in our manuscript.

There seem to be issues with anonymisation of the participants in pupil's texts 3 and 6.

• Thanks for pointing out our mistake of including names in the texts.

Again, please see comments in the attached manuscript file.

• Thanks for the detailed reading and for the comments in the pdf-file. As mentioned, we have considered all comments when revising the manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

It would be good to mention the subject of the study (physics) in the abstract and in the Method description

Could you please add the mother tongue of the students? The sheets seem to be in a different language (not English)

Please add the age of the participants in the abstract

It would be helpful to create a table for what you describe in lines 339-343. Generally, in some cases figures or tables would be helpful to understand the results

Ideational metafunction: content analysis of written explanations: in this part you analyze the lexical terms used, nevertheless, the original response language is not English. Please mention the criteria

 

Author Response

Reviewer 3

 

It would be good to mention the subject of the study (physics) in the abstract and in the Method description

• We do not want to highlight physics in the abstract since that context is of minor importance. As commented to in regard to Reviewer 2, we might also consider to change “shadow formation” in the title into “science”.

Could you please add the mother tongue of the students? The sheets seem to be in a different language (not English)

• Thank you for pointing this out. It is clarified under Data and participants.

 

Please add the age of the participants in the abstract

• Thanks for pointing out and helping us to clarify our abstract. We have now included age and the number of participants in the abstract.

It would be helpful to create a table for what you describe in lines 339-343. Generally, in some cases figures or tables would be helpful to understand the results

• We have considered and discussed this alternative (and we tested to turn the section in line 339-343 into a table). However, we have decided to present our results in running text except for the overview of the pupils’ responses in relation to central aspects of premise, reasoning and outcome (PRO) for shadow formation.

Ideational metafunction: content analysis of written explanations: in this part you analyze the lexical terms used, nevertheless, the original response language is not English. Please mention the criteria

• We are not sure if we have understood the comment about “criteria”. However, apart from giving information about the language (Swedish) in the data and participant section, we have elaborated the comment about the translation of the examples (to reflect the linguistic choices in the formulations of the tasks in the worksheet and in the pupils’ written expressions, sometimes resulting in non-idiomatic English).

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The proposal is valuable as an example of how SFL analysis reveals students' science knowledge construction, but it doesn't prove the role of worksheets in meaning making, as its effect is not compared with that derived from the application of other resources. The authors claim that "the results imply that pupils may gain from teaching practices that integrate a parallel focus on content and language…”. I cannot agree more with the need for this type of teaching practices, but the study does not prove this as the results are not compared with students' performance after a non-content/language integrated approach. In spite of the efforts made by the authors, in this second version, there are still many instances of the specific study in the introduction and theoretical framework sections.  The organisation is confusing, the theoretical framework appears too late (after the methodology) and the procedure for the analysis should not be merged with the theory, in my view. Finally, regarding the implications for teaching, the authors argue that the study indicates the value of teachers’ and pupils’ text competence in order to communicate the science content. But how is this value measured if it is not compared with data from students and teachers who do not have such competence?

Regarding the second implication, "pupils may benefit from teaching practices in which text conventions in science as a school subject are made explicit for the pupils", the study could benefit from the analysis of the classroom interaction and teachers' instances of explicit teaching to be able to demonstrate this as an implication derived from the study.

Author Response

Dear editor and reviewer,

Along with this letter we are resubmitting our manuscript Primary pupils’ hands-on work on shadow formation - problematizing the worksheet as a resource for meaning making.

First, thank you for reading and comment on our work a second turn. Below we discuss your comments, and we explain how we have thought about these comments in relation to our manuscript.  

 

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The proposal is valuable as an example of how SFL analysis reveals students' science knowledge construction, but it doesn't prove the role of worksheets in meaning making, as its effect is not compared with that derived from the application of other resources. The authors claim that "the results imply that pupils may gain from teaching practices that integrate a parallel focus on content and language…”. I cannot agree more with the need for this type of teaching practices, but the study does not prove this as the results are not compared with students' performance after a non-content/language integrated approach.

• We are not sure, but maybe the combination of the title of the manuscript and the way that we express ourselves in regard to implications may be misleading. Our study is explorative with no intension to make comparisons between, for instance, a content-language approach and a non-content/language-approach. We now suggest a slightly changed title and also, we have made changes in both the abstract and in Summary and discussion of findings section.

 

In spite of the efforts made by the authors, in this second version, there are still many instances of the specific study in the introduction and theoretical framework sections. 

• Thanks for pointing this out. We have now deleted or moved some more instances where we comment on our study. In some cases, we find it relevant to mention our study, for example to clarify that in opposition to previous studies focusing on shadow formation, our study is explorative, with data collected from regular classroom activities, though we have cut in these comments as well.

The organisation is confusing, the theoretical framework appears too late (after the methodology) and the procedure for the analysis should not be merged with the theory, in my view.

• The reason for merging theory and analytical perspectives (and to place that section after Data and participants) was that these are so closely interrelated. However, since that structure obviously appeared confusing, we have now moved the section presenting the analytical perspectives and placed it after Data and participants. We hope that this structure will work better.

Finally, regarding the implications for teaching, the authors argue that the study indicates the value of teachers’ and pupils’ text competence in order to communicate the science content. But how is this value measured if it is not compared with data from students and teachers who do not have such competence?

• As mentioned above, our intention is not to compare different settings. By providing a rich analysis of our data, our goal is to ensure a high level of trustworthiness of our research in relation to a description of the context and interpretation of our results in relation to the methods used. Therefore, we would argue that is possible to make suggestions related to implications based on our exploratory study.

 

Regarding the second implication, "pupils may benefit from teaching practices in which text conventions in science as a school subject are made explicit for the pupils", the study could benefit from the analysis of the classroom interaction and teachers' instances of explicit teaching to be able to demonstrate this as an implication derived from the study.

• Thanks for pointing this out. We have now clarified our line of reasoning in relation to the second implication by a clear reference to the analysis of the register variables related to the context description.