Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I enjoyed reading the manuscript; I consider that the study has the quality to be published in the Education Sciences journal after minor improvements.

After reading the article, I can refer to the following:

The paper presents an extensive literature review, current and adequate to the study problem; the methodology provides sufficient detail; the results/discussion section is objective and relevant; The conclusion of the study can be improved by pointing out practical implications of the study for parents and supervisors of children;

Minor grammatical or spelling mistakes should be corrected. Please see the notes made in the manuscript.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you for helpful review. It is much appreciated.

For your information: We used American Journal Experts for spelling and grammatical check before sending the manuscript

• We corrected grammatical and spelling mistakes according to Reviewer 1's suggestions. All changes are tracked.
• Point out practical implications of the study for parents and supervisors of children; We added this text under 4. Conclusions: These findings indicate that ECEC staff and parents should give children, even as young as 17-25 months, the opportunity to explore challenges and risks in varied natural environments. This includes bringing the children to diverse play environments, preferably to nature areas, where they can explore affordances freely. This also means that ECEC staff and parents should support children’s independent exploration, rather than directing or restricting children’s play. Adults should try not to do the risk assessment and risk management for the children, but let the children learn to assess and manage risk through own exploration and experiences.

Reviewer 2 Report

I wanted to thank you for allowing me to review the work that you present. The effort of a work of these characteristics must be recognized. First of all, I would like to share the need to carry out works like the one you present. They are necessary for the advancement of science in the field they study. The purpose of the manuscript is clear and consistent. The study has been an interesting read, it is necessary to know the reality of the sector on which the work emphasizes. It is a new study. Now, the sample is one of the limitations of the work, however it is understood that it is difficult to obtain a sample and it can mean a first scientific approximation. It is necessary for the authors to expose the authorizations that they have requested from the parents or legal guardians. It is also necessary to know the descriptive summary table of the characteristics of the study subjects, as well as the analysis carried out by the researchers.

Author Response

Thank you for helpful review. It is much appreciated.

• We clarified descriptions concerning informed consent, by adding this text under 2.6 Ethics:

“Written information explaining the study and its aims was delivered to the parents and the ECEC staff members, and written informed consent was gathered from all participants involved.”

• We would prefer not to include a descriptive summary table of the characteristics of the study subjects. We have already described the number, gender and age of the children, and we have now added this text under 2.1 Participants:

“All the children had learned to walk, and mastered a normal variety of movement skills according to their age”.

• It’s unclear for us what the reviewer means by the sentence: “…as well as the analysis carried out by the researchers.” We have described the stages of the analysis process in section 2.4 Analysis, and showed the last stage of analysis through the conceptual map in figure 2. We would appreciate some more detail on what the reviewer misses.