Exploring Croatian In-Service Primary Teachers’ Professional Attitudes Toward Science Using the Dimensions of Attitude Toward Science (DAS)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Analysis and Merits of the Contribution

The contribution clarifies an educational context that is not widely known: for example, I did not know that science is not a compulsory subject in primary schools in Croatia and that discussions about reforms and experimental programs on this topic were underway. Moreover, it grounds the research gap in the fact that Croatia did not participate in the TALIS survey for primary school teachers. This means that the novelty and interest of the contribution are high, since it explores Croatian primary school teachers’ attitudes towards science teaching within the context of an ongoing educational reform in Croatia — a topic previously unexamined within the TALIS framework. The results contribute to advancing current knowledge.

Personally, I agree with the underlying assumption — supported by the authors based on disciplinary literature — that “[teachers’] positive attitudes [towards science] are a key prerequisite for high-quality teaching, and consequently, for the sustainability of educational reforms in which teachers play a significant role.”

I think the three research questions are well-designed to deepen this assumption:

• The first is empirical and exploratory and aims to survey professional attitudes toward science teaching among Croatian primary school teachers.
• The second proposes investigating the relationship between positive attitudes and contemporary epistemology of science.
• The third explores the relationship between positive attitudes toward science teaching and the frequency of implementing science-related activities in the primary classroom.

The significance, quality, scientific validity, and English language quality are also very high.

The literature review is remarkably clear. Notably, it achieves a smooth transition from teachers to students, highlighting the effect of the former on the latter.

The methodology is well aligned with the research questions, which are thus addressed appropriately.

The data are sufficiently robust to draw conclusions. The sample size (n=950) is representative of the population of Croatian primary school teachers and exceeds the threshold for high confidence and acceptable margin of error.

The analysis/discussion is coherent and thorough.

The conclusions situate the results within their context effectively.

 

Some Points Regarding the Questionnaire

(I am aware these may not be applicable if the questionnaire is already validated and used in multiple countries.)

• As you highlight, question 1 of table 1 behaves somewhat inconsistently with the other items in the first group. As a non-expert of the framework, it seems to me this is due to the question stepping outside the strictly professional and school-related context of the interviewees.
• Regarding the discomfort shown by female teachers toward gender-stereotypical beliefs — understandable given the strong female majority in the sample — would it be possible to rephrase those questions in a less polemical tone? Even just switching male and female subjects might be worth testing.
• It could be useful to present a synoptic summary of Table 1 using weighted averages, medians, and standard deviations for each item.

 

Suggestions for Future Work

On p.12, you write: “This result is expected, considering that as many as 70% of respondents belong to the Baby Boomer and Generation X cohorts.”

I understand the intention behind the sentence, but it feels somewhat assertive. A bibliographic reference might not be necessary, but a brief reflection on why you hold this view would be valuable. For example: in Croatia, during the time frame you reference, was common scientific literacy shaped in a particular way? Were teachers trained according to specific models? This seems a rich and significant issue, worth retaining in the text with a few additional details.

In fact, the inconsistency you note in Table 2 between the high percentages in items 3–5 and 5–10 is intriguing. The paragraph View on Science strikes me as particularly insightful, sophisticated, and rich in suggestions for further research — for instance, the observation that “more positive attitudes toward teaching science tend to express slightly more contemporary and broadly defined views of science.”

In this regard, did you notice a generational difference (a point you briefly touched upon) or variations according to other demographic variables within the DAS model (year of birth, gender, study program completed, length of teaching experience, current place of employment, whether they teach science as part of the Experimental Program, and current grade level taught)?
As you hint in your conclusions, alongside reasoning about the three levels and related tables, it could be valuable to look for correlations between these demographic variables and: positive attitudes toward teaching science, more contemporary views on science, and higher likelihood of implementing science-related activities in the classroom.

 

Finally, your emphasis on cultural and contextual differences/factors is highly relevant. I believe that, in designing your next mixed-method research, it will be essential to start precisely from these elements, through qualitative analysis, in order to overcome the limitations posed by using a cross-nationally validated instrument — valuable for international comparisons but often too rigid and insufficiently adaptable to specific local contexts — such as the DAS, it would be advisable to integrate it with more flexible, context-sensitive tools. This would allow for a deeper understanding of cultural and contextual variables that might not emerge through standardized quantitative measures alone. The aspects that diverge from studies conducted in other contexts are, for both research and educational training purposes, often the most productive ones.

One of the best papers I’ve read in recent years.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1. Introduction

line 36: Style of citation needs to be changed

lines 37-39: I recommend to choosing only the most important citations here. Showing all you have read is not helpful for the reader. In the next sentence you use Haney et al. (1996a) to support the claim, which was made before – also by Haney et al. (1996a). That seems inappropriate to me.

lines 42-43:  … intention for what?

line 46: Why „despite of“? It rather seems to be implemented because of the decline of interest.

lines 58-69: I like to read the intention of your study at this point in the paper, already. However, only the first research question becomes clear to me before the theory prepared so far. In the second research question, it remains unclear to me what “contemporary and broadly defined views of science” are – and why such views should be crucial for your study. For the third research question, I still know too little about the current situation in Croatia. Has there not been a separate science subject in elementary school so far? Who will you ask? Only the teachers who teach at the selected schools where the reform has been implemented since 2023?
I recommend describing the points I have mentioned in more detail and considering presenting the specific research questions only after the current state of research (chapter 2). This would make it easier to derive the research questions from the theory.

 

2. Literature Review

Lines 135-152:  It is unclear to me what this section is helpful for in the paper. To what extent is transmission vs. constructivism addressed in the fourth subscale of DAS?

Line 159: Double bracket is not necessary

Lines 167-168:  What is „conventional science education“? Is the answer to this question maybe given in lines 175-179?

I wonder whether I am interpreting the literature review correctly by reading out the hypothesis “Those who have less pronounced attitudes towards science teach ‘conventionally’ and therefore somehow not so well”?

It seems to me that the literature review part needs to be more closely intertwined with the research questions derived from it. In my view, the paper would benefit from a stronger theoretical justification of why the study deals with the aforementioned constructs (attitudes, views, behaviour) - whereby ‚views‘ play no role at all in chapter two.

Since the study is largely based on the framework of Van Aalderen-Smeets & Walma Van Der Molen (2013), it seems important to at least roughly describe this theoretical basis. The material chapter presents the subscales according to this framework in a differentiated way, but again only refers to the underlying theory. Unfortunately, I am not familiar with the instrument - in my view, however, it remains unclear, for example, why the instrument refers to attitudes in the title but the subscale addresses (cognitive) beliefs. For me, these are two different constructs. In addition, the subscale „affective states“ represents for me emotions instead of attitudes. So either there is a validity problem here, or the theoretical background is not sufficiently presented. I suspect it is more the latter.

 

3. Materials and Methods

Lines 189-191:  Ethics statements better do not belong in this chapter, but should be mentioned at the end of the paper (?) Please check the requirements of the journal.

 

4. Results

Lines 445-451:  It is not clear to me why the reference to the strongly represented generations (e.g. baby boomers) explains the mix of views. Perhaps it is also a weakness of the scale used? The reader would need to know more about the Van Aalderen-Smeets framework to be able to judge this. Have you ever calculated an exploratory factor analysis on the 10 items?

Lines 456-457:  Does this statement refer to your present study or to findings from McDonald et al. (2021)?

Lines 462-463:  Does the correlation analysis on the “views”-side include both subscales? If so, your interpretation (lines 465-466) seems questionable to me, since items 1-5 were also rated quite highly. (also lines 537-538).

Line 464: I’d rather call it a „very weak“ correlation, if at all.

Lines 468-469: Again, what does the Van Aalderen-Smeets framework say?

Lines 502-504:  Instead of emphasizing statistical significance, I would focus on the strength of the correlation found. A moderate correlation is already quite good for our discipline. With a sample of almost 1000, almost every correlation is significant, but not meaningful at the same time.

 

5. Conclusions

Lines 563-564: Do these 8 percent also differ in the data you have collected? I would assume that these teachers in particular have very positive attitudes towards science.

Some of the results are discussed in the previous chapter during the presentation of the results. I consider this justifiable insofar as it does not (always) address the guiding research questions of the paper. However, I think it would be desirable if the conclusion dealt more closely with the previously formulated research questions or if a stronger connection was made clear.

In my view, a more critical examination of the underlying theory is also necessary. To put it badly, the impression arises that the current reform has been identified as an opportunity to question the teachers concerned. Instead of developing theory-based research questions, an instrument was found (DAS) and used. At the same time, theoretical explanations, for example on constructivism and transmission (lines 135-152), are not taken up again and discussed.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have dealt extensively with my comments and have revised their manuscript well. I recommend publishing the manuscript.