Partnerships as Professional Learning: Early Childhood Teaching Assistants’ Role Development and Navigation of Challenges Within a Culturally Responsive Robotics Program

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Review Report

This manuscript examines the role development of teaching assistants and their navigation of challenges within a culturally responsive robotics program. Through case studies of three educators, the findings illustrate the roles assumed by the educators and how these roles evolved over time. The author effectively highlights systematic and structural challenges faced by educators through a context-rich qualitative analysis. The manuscript is well-written, relevant to the field, and offers valuable insights for the future design of participatory professional learning (PPL) programs, particularly in advancing the development of teaching assistants in early childhood education. Below are my detailed comments and suggestions for improvement.

Introduction

1. At the end of the introduction, the concept of research-practice partnerships (RPP) is introduced (Lines 64–66). Since RPP is a key concept in this study, I recommend dedicating a separate section or paragraph to define and elaborate on it.
2. The sentence, “A powerful way to learn more about the lived experience of teaching assistants and work alongside them in supportive ways that honor their voices and unique contributions to education is through inclusive research-practice partnerships.” requires further justification. Providing supporting literature would strengthen this claim, and this discussion could be integrated into the suggested section on RPP’s significance for teaching assistant development.
3. Lines 70–82 discuss RPP in relation to the study’s purpose. Consider moving this discussion to a dedicated section that explicitly addresses RPP’s relevance.
4. Lines 85–94 describe the study’s purpose, but additional literature is needed to clarify the significance of these research aims. For example, Lines 92–94 mention that teaching assistants are “underrepresented in both early childhood and RPP literature.” Why is this gap important to address? Expanding on the broader and field-specific significance of this study would strengthen its framing.
5. The structure. Sections 1.1–1.4 combines key concepts, literature, and theoretical frameworks in a way that may be difficult for readers to follow. I suggest restructuring these sections to create a clearer logical flow. Clearly delineating how each concept relates to the study and synthesizing relevant literature more explicitly would improve coherence.
6. Consider moving Lines 126–128 to the previous section on Educator Voice in Partnerships to maintain thematic consistency.

Data Analysis

1. The description of the coding process (Lines 324–361) is overly detailed. Streamlining this section by focusing on key analytical steps and briefly summarizing the final coding scheme would improve readability. The full details could be moved to an appendix for readers who want more depth.

Discussion

1. The discussion section feels somewhat rushed and would benefit from deeper engagement with the study’s theoretical framework and literature. Specifically:
• How did the theoretical framework inform the interpretation of results, and vice versa?
• How do these findings align with, or diverge from, existing literature? Addressing these aspects more explicitly would strengthen the discussion.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1, 

Thank you so much for taking the time to read through our manuscript and provide your feedback, I appreciate your insight. Below I have addressed your comments and on the attached manuscript all changes have been highlighted in yellow. 

Again, thank you for your feedback and consideration.

Comment 1: At the end of the introduction, the concept of research-practice partnerships (RPP) is introduced (Lines 64–66). Since RPP is a key concept in this study, I recommend dedicating a separate section or paragraph to define and elaborate on it.

Comment 3: Lines 70–82 discuss RPP in relation to the study’s purpose. Consider moving this discussion to a dedicated section that explicitly addresses RPP’s relevance.

Response to comment 1- I appreciate you pointing this out. I actually think that research-practice partnerships have been elaborated on quite a bit throughout section one of the study, specifically lines 71-84 and section 1.6. 

Response to comment 3-  The authors made the decision as a collaborative group to not directly include a section about research-practice partnerships - as this study is a sister study to Author 2 et al. (2024) that has quite a bit of information about the nature of RPPs, RPPs in relation to the PARTNERSHIP, and the roles of RPPs and educators. Again, thank you for your thoughts on this. 

Comment 2: The sentence, “A powerful way to learn more about the lived experience of teaching assistants and work alongside them in supportive ways that honor their voices and unique contributions to education is through inclusive research-practice partnerships.” requires further justification. Providing supporting literature would strengthen this claim, and this discussion could be integrated into the suggested section on RPP’s significance for teaching assistant development.

Response to comment 2: Thank you for this comment, more literature has been added to this section. This can be found on lines 67-68. 

Comment 4: Lines 85–94 describe the study’s purpose, but additional literature is needed to clarify the significance of these research aims. For example, lines 92–94 mention that teaching assistants are “underrepresented in both early childhood and RPP literature.” Why is this gap important to address? Expanding on the broader and field-specific significance of this study would strengthen its framing.

Response to comment 4: Thank you for this comment, more literature to expand the significance of research aims have been included, see lines 97-103. 

Comment 5: The structure. Sections 1.1–1.4 combines key concepts, literature, and theoretical frameworks in a way that may be difficult for readers to follow. I suggest restructuring these sections to create a clearer logical flow. Clearly delineating how each concept relates to the study and synthesizing relevant literature more explicitly would improve coherence.

Response to comment 5: Thank you again for this comment, I appreciate your suggestion of restructuring. This section has been expanded into smaller sections that follow the literature that hopefully improved coherence, please see sections 1.1. - 1.6.  

Comment 6: Consider moving Lines 126–128 to the previous section on Educator Voice in Partnerships to maintain thematic consistency.

Response to comment 6: Thank you for this thought, I have moved lines 126-128 into the Educator Voice in Partnership section.

Comment 7: The description of the coding process (Lines 324–361) is overly detailed. Streamlining this section by focusing on key analytical steps and briefly summarizing the final coding scheme would improve readability. The full details could be moved to an appendix for readers who want more depth.

Response to comment 7: Thank you for this thought, I understand where you are coming from with this thought. The amount of detail put into this section is for transferability and credability of the work (Cain et al., 2022). Since critical qualitative work is not generalizable the details were inputted to ensure transferability and reflect the reflexive and reflective work of reflexive thematic analysis. Which unfortunately does tend to be longer in explanations and detail. Braun & Clarkes (2022) iteration of RTA was utilized for this study, which adds and expects depth and detail. 

Comment 8: The discussion section feels somewhat rushed and would benefit from deeper engagement with the study’s theoretical framework and literature. Specifically: How did the theoretical framework inform the interpretation of results, and vice versa?

Comment 9: How do these findings align with, or diverge from, existing literature? Addressing these aspects more explicitly would strengthen the discussion. And sought to answer, specifically: How did the theoretical framework inform the interpretation of results, and vice versa? And How do these findings align with, or diverge from, existing literature?

Response to comment 8 and 9: Thank you for your thoughts on the discussion section, I agree that the discussion section felt quite rushed. We have added additional details based off of your recommendations more detail has been added to ensure that there is a deeper engagement with the study’s theoretical framework and literature, please see lines 730-736 and 747-757.  

Thank you again! 

Reviewer 2 Report

This paragraph is missing citations: “assistants taking on more physical and mental work of daily classroom tasks. For example, 46 teaching assistants are spending increasing amounts of time providing direct instruction 47 and supporting children with challenging behaviors. They also complete other invisible 48 duties such as cleaning the classroom between activities and assisting with care tasks for 49 less compensation and less access to resources than their counterparts.”
It would be convenient to add something about STEM education in the introduction.
Table 1 has low resolution.
Figure 1 is very good, but the text size should be increased.
Very interesting topic, although the article has aspects to improve.
The results are abstract, it would be convenient to explain them in a more visual and complete way since the research process is not fully understood.
Conclusions are missing to complete the discussion.
These references are not in the text:
Armstrong, M., Dopp, C., & Welsh, J. (2020). Design-based research. The Students’ Guide to Learning Design and Research, 1-6.
De Los Santos, R., Borchardt PsyD, J. N., Yousey, B., Dickson, S., Aloise, S., Butler, M., & Banker Ed D, D. (2023). A narrative review of preschool teacher burnout. Modern Psychological Studies, 29(2), 1.
And several more, review.
Increase the bibliography.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 2, 

Thank you so much for taking the time to read through our manuscript and provide your feedback, I appreciate your insight. Below I have addressed your comments and on the attached manuscript all changes have been highlighted in yellow. 

Again, thank you for your feedback and consideration.

Comment 1: This paragraph is missing citations: “assistants taking on more physical and mental work of daily classroom tasks. For example, 46 teaching assistants are spending increasing amounts of time providing direct instruction 47 and supporting children with challenging behaviors. They also complete other invisible 48 duties such as cleaning the classroom between activities and assisting with care tasks for 49 less compensation and less access to resources than their counterparts.”

Response to comment 1: Thank you for your comment, citations have been added to this section, lines 45-51. 

Comment 2: It would be convenient to add something about STEM education in the introduction.

Response to comment 2: Thank you for this comment, please see lines 83-86. 

Comment 3: Table 1 has low resolution. 

Response to comment 3: The resolution for Table 1 has been increased, thank you for pointing this out. 

Comment 4: Figure 1 is very good, but the text size should be increased.

Response to comment 4: The font size has been increased as much as possible, thank you again for pointing this out. 

Comment 5: Very interesting topic, although the article has aspects to improve. The results are abstract, it would be convenient to explain them in a more visual and complete way since the research process is not fully understood.

Response to comment 5: Thank you again for your feedback on this manuscript and the results section. The results have been updated to make the findings less abstract, please see lines 730-736 and 747-757.  

Comment 6: Conclusions are missing to complete the discussion.

Response to comment 6: Thank you for this comment, a conclusion section has been added. 

Comment 7: Additional literature. 

Response to comment 7: Thank you for sharing these citations, these were included in the manuscript and the references have been expanded. 

Armstrong, M., Dopp, C., & Welsh, J. (2020). Design-based research. The Students’ Guide to Learning Design and Research, 1-6.

De Los Santos, R., Borchardt PsyD, J. N., Yousey, B., Dickson, S., Aloise, S., Butler, M., & Banker Ed D, D. (2023). A narrative review of preschool teacher burnout. Modern Psychological Studies, 29(2), 1.

Thank you again for taking the time to read through our manuscript!