A Framework for Incorporating the “Learning How to Learn” Approach in Teaching STEM Education
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Accept in its present form.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Please note that we have addressed your valuable comments, please see the information in the attached cover letter.
Regards,
Authors
Reviewer 2 Report
Thank you very much for the possibility to review this manuscript which addresses the important topic of STEM education; more precisely, this systematic review aims to analyze which instructional approaches are effectively used in STEM education. Yet, I have some major concerns which may prevent publication and which are outlined below
STEM education is a rather messy construct and should be clarified in more detail in the introduction. Further, the introduction should also include what the authors understand by „learning techniques (methods of Learning How to Learn)“ or „learning techniques (techniques of learning how to learn)“, which first appear in the research questions. The or these terms (I am not sure if there is a difference) should be theoretically grounded in the introduction.
Method: In order to understand the results, it would be helpful to learn more about the criteria for selecting the articles. Is there a substantial reason for choosing this short period of time (2019-2022) and only open-access articles and did you have methodological standards in terms of the empirical studies?
Selected Studies and Discussion: It has to be clarified how the systematic review leads to the results you take up in the discussion. Therefore, it is necessary to integrate more information about the studies regarding the research questions in table 1, for example, which age range were the students in the selected studies (e.g., in the abstract elementary STEM education is mentioned) and which subjects were taken up in the interventions. I also find it hard to follow the discussion because it only partly links to the studies in your review. For example, some of the studies mentioned in the discussion are mentioned in table 1 and others are not. The potential of a systematic review is not yet sufficiently used. Furthermore, I think that your implications (section 4) are quite general and not specific to STEM education. Very similar aspects could be concluded for (ambitious) science education as well. As with the discussion, the implications should be analyzed closer to the studies.
Furthermore, there are many typos (e.g., inconsistent hyphenation such as crosscutting and cross-cutting, or page 2, line 47 „2)Addit“, or page 2, line 51 incomplete sentence).
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Please note that we have addressed your valuable comments, please see the information in the attached cover letter.
Regards,
Authors
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Is the framework for teachers professional development? design of teacher education curriculum? How can this be used? It is not clear.
Line 47, insert a period after 2022).
Line 97, the in-text citation needs to be corrected as assertions of Syrafil et al. (2021),
In section 2.1 and 2.2, it would better improve the paper if the inclusion and exclusion criteria are set. What keywords were used for the literature search? How many results? From these, how were the articles selected? Although these were disclosed in the diagram, it is suggested that a sentence or two may be added. Please discuss the figure.
Why did you not consider research articles that cover the components of STEM separately?
In figure 1, why only open access articles? this provides a limitation of the current work.
In Table 1, instead of method, it will be better if you will present the general research design used. Kelley & Knowles is published in 2016. This is out of the scope of the study.
It is difficult to follow how Figure 3 introduces a flow of different framework components as this was not discussed in thorough. The overall framework seems to be covered in chunks in section 4. It is better to clearly explain how different components interact and that why a certain sequence is put forward. There must be chronology and logic in this discussion. Since the framework ends with the professional development (PD), the whole framework may be revised with PD as the center with those components as part and foundation of PD.
Line 152, you did not evaluate the framework.
Line 212, what do you mean by carrying out in special education?
Line 213-222, these are not clearly discussed in the findings.
Line 222-223, student with impairment? this is not the scope of the study.
STEME must be spelled out in the first use.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Please note that we have addressed your valuable comments, please see the information in the attached cover letter.
Regards,
Authors
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
