Assessment as a Site of Inclusion: A Qualitative Inquiry into Academic Faculty Perspectives

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors, 

Thank you for this thoughtful and needed paper. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, and to enhance the paper further I suggest a few minor consideration:

The paper needs to spell out how the authors define critical skills, or are they critical thinking skills - the two seems to be used interchangeably. If the authors are interrogating how academics conceptualise these skills, they need to be clear with the reader how they understand these first.

There needs to be an acknowledgement of the Artificial Intelligence related risks and opportunities. This is a big elephant in the room, and non-traditional assessments can really address the risks, but we need a discussion as to what extent this can be done. 

The sample is relatively small - so I would suggest that further student data is incorporated - to explore how the students perceive and make of these assessments.

It is surprising that the participant quotations are not labelled with participants - in fact there is no demographic information - apart from tenure - it would be useful to have a table with gender, age, discipline, as well as the type of institution (post-1992, Red Brick, etc.)? Demographics can be approximate, rather than exact if the authors are concerned about easy identification.

The text needs proofreading, for example the first sentence (line 266) doesn't make sense. Also see lines 406, 409 where words are connected.

Author Response

Reviewer 1

Dear Authors, 

Thank you for this thoughtful and needed paper. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, and to enhance the paper further I suggest a few minor considerations:

We sincerely thank you for your thoughtful and encouraging feedback on our manuscript. We are very pleased that you enjoyed reading the paper. As suggested, we have carefully implemented your considerations throughout the revised version. We believe these changes have further strengthened the clarity and contribution of the study.

The paper needs to spell out how the authors define critical skills or are they critical thinking skills - the two seem to be used interchangeably. If the authors are interrogating how academics conceptualize these skills, they need to be clear with the reader how they understand these first.

We thank the reviewer for this valuable observation. In the revised manuscript, we have clarified our use of terminology. Specifically, in the Introduction (p. 2), we now define critical skills as a broad set of competencies associated with 21st-century learning, including problem-solving, collaboration, creativity, and communication, while noting that critical thinking is one element within this broader category. We also acknowledge in the Findings (p. 7) that participants themselves sometimes used the terms interchangeably, reflecting conceptual ambiguity in practice. Finally, in the Discussion (p. 12), we highlight how this lack of clarity contributes to fragmented staff understandings and reinforces the need for clearer institutional guidance. These revisions strengthen conceptual precision and directly address the reviewer’s concern.
There needs to be an acknowledgement of the Artificial Intelligence related risks and opportunities. This is a big elephant in the room, and non-traditional assessments can really address the risks, but we need a discussion as to what extent this can be done. 

We appreciate this insightful comment. In the revised manuscript, we have added a dedicated discussion of artificial intelligence (AI) and its implications for inclusive and alternative assessment (p. 13). We now acknowledge both the risks (e.g., challenges to academic integrity, authorship, and authenticity) and opportunities (e.g., personalised feedback, support for diverse learners, process-oriented assessment) that AI presents. While our participants did not explicitly raise AI, we recognise it as a crucial contextual factor shaping current and future assessment practices, and we call for further research in this area.

The sample is relatively small - so I would suggest that further student data is incorporated - to explore how the students perceive and make of these assessments.

We thank the reviewer for this important suggestion. At present, we are unable to collect additional student data. However, we have revised the Conclusion (p. 14) to explicitly acknowledge this limitation and to highlight the need for future research that incorporates student perspectives. In particular, we now note that complementing academic staff perspectives with students’ own experiences would provide a fuller understanding of how inclusive and alternative assessment practices are enacted and perceived in higher education.
It is surprising that the participant quotations are not labelled with participants - in fact there is no demographic information - apart from tenure - it would be useful to have a table with gender, age, discipline, as well as the type of institution (post-1992, Red Brick, etc.)? Demographics can be approximate, rather than exact if the authors are concerned about easy identification.

We thank the reviewer for this helpful suggestion. In the revised manuscript, we have included a demographic overview table on p. 6 that provides approximate information on participants’ gender, age range, teaching experience, broad disciplinary field, and institution type. These details are reported in ranges and broad categories to protect anonymity given the small sample size. We have also ensured that participant quotations are consistently labelled (P1, P2, etc.) to enhance clarity.

The text needs proofreading, for example the first sentence (line 266) doesn't make sense. Also see lines 406, 409 where words are connected.

We thank the reviewer for drawing our attention to these issues. We have now carefully proofread the entire manuscript and corrected the unclear phrasing (e.g., line 266) as well as typographical errors where words were incorrectly connected (e.g., lines 406 and 409).

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is a timely topic and worthy of attention. I offer the following recommendations to improve the arguments set out in this manuscript.

The literature review is lengthy and repetitive, drawing upon outdated references to neoliberal logics. I recommend updating the references, as well as contextualizing the literature that is being drawn upon to support your arguments. Notably, avoid over-using parenthetical citations and include details about the studies you are using to support your claims. For example, when referring to a source, include details such as where the study was conducted, the target population, and research findings. Currently, it appears that broad generalizations are being made about the literature without contextualizing it to the UK.

The methodology is missing the participants’ disciplines and the levels at which they teach (i.e., vocational, undergraduate, masters, doctoral). Additionally, it would be beneficial to include contextual information about the institution as context, especially in qualitative case study research, is essential for interpreting the participants’ experiences and perceptions. For example, does the institution have policies and guidelines regarding assessment, or do academic staff have autonomy and academic freedom over instructional choices? Does the institution have a teaching and learning centre to support academic staff with the adoption of alternative assessments or incentivize the scholarship of teaching and learning? What is the student demographic of the institution?

Overall, this small sample offers some valuable insights; however, significant work is needed to contextualize the literature review and research findings.

Author Response

Reviewer 2

This is a timely topic and worthy of attention. I offer the following recommendations to improve the arguments set out in this manuscript.

We sincerely thank the reviewer for recognising the timeliness and relevance of this topic. We have carefully considered and implemented the recommendations provided, and we believe the revisions have strengthened the clarity and argumentative coherence of the manuscript.

The literature review is lengthy and repetitive, drawing upon outdated references to neoliberal logics. I recommend updating the references, as well as contextualizing the literature that is being drawn upon to support your arguments. Notably, avoid over-using parenthetical citations and include details about the studies you are using to support your claims. For example, when referring to a source, include details such as where the study was conducted, the target population, and research findings. Currently, it appears that broad generalizations are being made about the literature without contextualizing it to the UK.

We thank the reviewer for this valuable feedback. In the revised manuscript, we have streamlined the Literature Review on pp. 2 and 4 to reduce repetition and strengthen clarity. Specifically, we condensed overlapping discussions of neoliberal reforms (Ball, 2012; Marginson, 2016; McArthur, 2016) into a single integrated sentence and linked this more explicitly to the UK context by foregrounding the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF). We also updated references and clarified the contextual details of cited studies where relevant. These revisions improve the focus, currency, and relevance of the literature review.

The methodology is missing the participants’ disciplines and the levels at which they teach (i.e., vocational, undergraduate, masters, doctoral). Additionally, it would be beneficial to include contextual information about the institution as context, especially in qualitative case study research, which is essential for interpreting the participants’ experiences and perceptions. For example, does the institution have policies and guidelines regarding assessment, or do academic staff have autonomy and academic freedom over instructional choices? Does the institution have a teaching and learning centre to support academic staff with the adoption of alternative assessments or incentivize the scholarship of teaching and learning? What is the student demographic of the institution?

We thank the reviewer for this valuable recommendation. In the revised manuscript, we have expanded the Methodology (p. 6) to include additional contextual details. Specifically, we now report participants’ broad disciplinary areas and the levels of teaching (undergraduate and postgraduate) in which they were engaged, summarised in the demographic overview table. We have also added information on the institutional context, including quality assurance frameworks, academic staff autonomy over assessment design, the role of a central Teaching and Learning Centre, and the diverse composition of the student body. These additions provide a clearer picture of the setting in which the study took place and strengthen the interpretive context for the findings.

Overall, this small sample offers some valuable insights; however, significant work is needed to contextualize the literature review and research findings.

We thank the reviewer for this valuable observation. We have now strengthened the Conclusion (p. 14) by explicitly acknowledging the limitations of the small sample and highlighting the need for further research to contextualise these findings more broadly, particularly by incorporating student perspectives. We believe this addition addresses the reviewer’s concern while maintaining the integrity of our current dataset.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In American English, the word “staff” is generally used in contrast to faculty. Referring to faculty as “staff” made the article slightly harder to follow for me. I’m not sure which convention is more common globally, but this wording might be something to consider to make the paper more discoverable and accessible to readers worldwide. The word “instructors” might be more universal. If I were doing a google or library search for articles about teaching assessment by faculty instructors, I would never use the word “staff” and might even exclude articles that used that word in their title, assuming articles that referred to “staff” were related to support staff. Because of this language difference, I don’t know who the participants were. Are they all tenure track faculty members? Are they non-tenure track faculty? Are they graduate student instructors? What does “academic staff” include and exclude?

There is some confusion in the paper about the definition of “critical skills.” From the abstract, I understand the authors’ definition of “critical skills” to mean skills critical to modern careers or academic pursuits which they see as including problem-solving, collaboration, and creativity. Later you add “digital fluency.” However, it appears to me that the researchers did not explain their definition of “critical skills” to the participants. Some of the participants seem to have interpreted the phrase “critical skills” to mean critical thinking skills, which probably still includes problem-solving, but doesn’t necessarily include collaboration or creativity.  The evaluation and application of information both sound like critical thinking skills, rather than critical skills as the authors defined them.

I do not understand the statement “Only one of the participants could specify the names of the critical skills.” I am not aware of any definitive universal set of “critical skills” that participants might be naming. Presumably, each participant defined a set of critical skills for themselves and their discipline, which might not match the arbitrary set of critical skills the authors seem to be judging participants on.

How did the author determine that “one of the participants did not consider that critical skills involve communicating”? Did the participant not mention communicating, and the author made an assumption, or did the participant actually state that communicating was not a critical skill?

It will be important to discuss the role of discipline. Especially since you are using Bourdieu as a framework, you need to think about how the norms and epistemologies of various academic communities affect the perspectives of faculty and students in those communities. Critical skills can mean very different things in a humanities department versus a department of health sciences. You seem to have at least one math professor in your participant sample. That discipline likely shapes his or her view of critical skills.  Pedagogical Content Knowledge is a crucial concept for your paper. The assessment method that is most appropriate in one discipline is not the same as the assessment method most appropriate for another. Collaboration may or may not be part of the common expectations of a given field.

You should provide some of the characteristics of the university that serves as the case for this study. Is this a university that is geared toward preparing students for professional careers? Is it a university where many students go on to earn additional academic degrees? Critical skills could look very different based on what the goals of the university are.

The ideas of critical skills and alternative assessment are not integrated in this paper. Are you assuming all alternative assessment methods are better for evaluating all critical skills than all traditional assessment methods? What types of assessment are most appropriate for various critical skills?

What role does academic freedom have in your recommendations for institutions? Shouldn’t faculty be able to select pedagogical methods and assessment methods that work best for their strengths and expertise? Your first and second discussion points about centralized institutional control and oppressive institutional bureaucracy appear to be in direct conflict with each other. How do these interact?

Comments on the Quality of English Language

This sentence does not make sense to me “The findings suggest that the academic staffs a general perception of critical skills, they lack comprehensive knowledge of what critical skills are and how to apply these assessment approaches to their assessment practices.” Should it be “The findings suggest that although the academic staff have a general perception of critical skills…”?

“Staff” is a group noun. It cannot take a plural, unless perhaps you are referring to staffs of various departments or colleges, but that does not seem to be the case here. You will need to use the singular, as in “Most academic staff had…”  or a different noun, as in “Most academic staff members had…”

Author Response

Reviewer 3

In American English, the word “staff” is generally used in contrast to faculty. Referring to faculty as “staff” made the article slightly harder to follow for me. I’m not sure which convention is more common globally, but this wording might be something to consider making the paper more discoverable and accessible to readers worldwide. The word “instructors” might be more universal. If I were doing a google or library search for articles about teaching assessment by faculty instructors, I would never use the word “staff” and might even exclude articles that used that word in their title, assuming articles that referred to “staff” were related to support staff. Because of this language difference, I don’t know who the participants were. Are they all tenure track faculty members? Are they non-tenure track faculty? Are they graduate student instructors? What does “academic staff” include and exclude?

We thank the reviewer for highlighting this important terminological issue. In the revised manuscript, we have clarified that all participants were academic faculty members with teaching responsibilities, rather than support staff or graduate instructors. To avoid ambiguity for international readers, we now use the term “academic faculty” (or “faculty instructors”) instead of “academic staff” throughout the manuscript. We have also clarified in the Methodology (p. 6) that participants included faculty teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, with varied years of experience, but did not include support staff or graduate teaching assistants. These changes ensure consistency and improve accessibility for a global readership.

There is some confusion in the paper about the definition of “critical skills.” From the abstract, I understand the authors’ definition of “critical skills” to mean skills critical to modern careers or academic pursuits which they see as including problem-solving, collaboration, and creativity. Later you add “digital fluency.” However, it appears to me that the researchers did not explain their definition of “critical skills” to the participants. Some of the participants seem to have interpreted the phrase “critical skills” to mean critical thinking skills, which probably still includes problem-solving, but doesn’t necessarily include collaboration or creativity.  The evaluation and application of information both sound like critical thinking skills, rather than critical skills as the authors defined them.

We thank the reviewer for raising this important point. In the revised manuscript, we have clarified our definition of critical skills in the Introduction (pp. 2–3), where we specify that we use the term to refer to competencies associated with 21st-century learning, including problem-solving, collaboration, creativity, and communication/digital fluency. We also acknowledge in the Methodology (p. 6) that participants were not provided with a fixed definition of “critical skills,” which led to variation in interpretation. In the Findings (p. 7), we now highlight explicitly that some participants equated critical skills with critical thinking skills, focusing on evaluation and application of information, while others linked the term to broader 21st-century competencies. Finally, in the Discussion (p. 12), we reflect on this conceptual ambiguity as a key finding, underscoring the need for clearer institutional definitions and professional development to ensure consistency in practice.

I do not understand the statement “Only one of the participants could specify the names of the critical skills.” I am not aware of any definitive universal set of “critical skills” that participants might be naming. Presumably, each participant defined a set of critical skills for themselves and their discipline, which might not match the arbitrary set of critical skills the authors seem to be judging participants on.

We thank the reviewer for this valuable clarification. In the revised manuscript, we have rephrased the Findings (p. 7) to avoid suggesting that there is a definitive or universal set of “critical skills.” We now state that while most participants described critical skills in broad terms, only one participant explicitly listed examples such as problem-solving, teamwork, and time management. We also added a sentence in the Discussion (p. 13) to clarify that this variation reflects the absence of a universally agreed definition in the literature and highlights how disciplinary and institutional contexts shape interpretations. These revisions ensure that we are not judging participants against an external standard but rather emphasising the diversity of understandings observed.

How did the author determine that “one of the participants did not consider that critical skills involve communicating”? Did the participant not mention communicating, and the author made an assumption, or did the participant actually state that communicating was not a critical skill?

We thank the reviewer for this clarification. In the revised manuscript, we have rephrased the relevant sentence in the Findings (p. 7) to avoid implying that the participant explicitly rejected communication as a critical skill. Instead, we now state that the participant defined critical skills primarily in terms of individual reasoning and evaluation, without reference to communication, which suggests a narrower interpretation. This revision ensures that we report the participant’s description accurately without overstating the inference.

It will be important to discuss the role of discipline. Especially since you are using Bourdieu as a framework, you need to think about how the norms and epistemologies of various academic communities affect the perspectives of faculty and students in those communities. Critical skills can mean very different things in a humanities department versus a department of health sciences. You seem to have at least one math professor in your participant sample. That discipline likely shapes his or her view of critical skills.  Pedagogical Content Knowledge is a crucial concept for your paper. The assessment method that is most appropriate in one discipline is not the same as the assessment method most appropriate for another. Collaboration may or may not be part of the common expectations of a given field.

We thank the reviewer for this insightful suggestion. In the revised manuscript, we have expanded the Findings (p. 9) and Discussion (p. 13) to explicitly address how disciplinary contexts shape academic faculty perceptions of critical skills and assessment practices. We note that participants from STEM disciplines tended to emphasise problem-solving and reasoning, while those from humanities and education highlighted collaboration, communication, and creativity. We connect this variation to Bourdieu’s framework, demonstrating how disciplinary epistemologies and forms of cultural capital influence assessment, and to the concept of Pedagogical Content Knowledge, which highlights that assessment methods must be aligned with disciplinary traditions. In addition, the Conclusion (p. 14) now acknowledges that future research should systematically investigate these disciplinary differences. These revisions strengthen the conceptual framing of the study and ensure that the disciplinary dimension is fully addressed.

You should provide some of the characteristics of the university that serves as the case for this study. Is this a university that is geared toward preparing students for professional careers? Is it a university where many students go on to earn additional academic degrees? Critical skills could look very different based on what the goals of the university are.

We thank the reviewer for this helpful suggestion. In the revised manuscript, we have added contextual information about the case-study university in the Methodology (p. 7). We now note that the institution is a research-intensive UK university offering a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, with students progressing both into professional careers and further academic study. We also highlight the university’s internationally diverse student body. These characteristics provide important context for interpreting how faculty conceptualise critical skills and assessment practices.

The ideas of critical skills and alternative assessment are not integrated in this paper. Are you assuming all alternative assessment methods are better for evaluating all critical skills than all traditional assessment methods? What types of assessment are most appropriate for various critical skills?

We thank the reviewer for this insightful observation. In the revised manuscript, we have expanded the Discussion (pp. 13–14) to explicitly integrate the concepts of critical skills and assessment approaches. We clarify that the study does not assume all alternative assessments are inherently superior. Rather, we now highlight that different critical skills align with different forms of assessment: for instance, collaborative projects and presentations are particularly suited to fostering teamwork, communication, and creativity, whereas independent problem-solving and critical thinking may also be effectively assessed through individual tasks when designed with inclusivity in mind. This addition strengthens the argument by underscoring that assessment formats should be aligned with the specific critical skills intended for development, as well as with disciplinary context.

What role does academic freedom have in your recommendations for institutions? Shouldn’t faculty be able to select pedagogical methods and assessment methods that work best for their strengths and expertise? Your first and second discussion points about centralized institutional control and oppressive institutional bureaucracy appear to be in direct conflict with each other. How do these interact?

We thank the reviewer for raising this important point. In the revised manuscript, we have expanded the Discussion (p. 14) to clarify how academic freedom interacts with institutional structures. We emphasise that while faculty should retain autonomy to select pedagogical and assessment approaches that reflect their disciplinary expertise, autonomy alone may not ensure inclusive practice. We therefore frame our recommendations around creating enabling institutional cultures—through professional development, recognition of diverse pedagogies, and flexible policy frameworks—rather than prescriptive control. This revision demonstrates that academic freedom and institutional responsibility are not in conflict but complementary in fostering inclusive assessment.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

This sentence does not make sense to me “The findings suggest that the academic staffs a general perception of critical skills, they lack comprehensive knowledge of what critical skills are and how to apply these assessment approaches to their assessment practices.” Should it be “The findings suggest that although the academic staff have a general perception of critical skills…”?

“Staff” is a group noun. It cannot take a plural, unless perhaps you are referring to staffs of various departments or colleges, but that does not seem to be the case here. You will need to use the singular, as in “Most academic staff had…”  or a different noun, as in “Most academic staff members had…”

We thank the reviewer for this observation. In the revised manuscript, we have corrected the sentence in the Findings (p. 7) for clarity and grammar. It now reads: “The findings suggest that academic staff hold only a general understanding of critical skills and often lack comprehensive knowledge of what these competencies entail or how to embed them systematically in assessment practices.” We have also ensured consistent use of “academic staff” as a collective noun throughout the manuscript.

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article addresses a timely and important topic regarding academic staff perceptions of inclusive and alternative assessment practices in UK higher education. While the study offers valuable qualitative insights and engages with relevant literature, it requires several key improvements before it is suitable for publication. Firstly, the research aims, and framework need to be more clearly articulated. The article would benefit from explicitly stating its research objectives and questions, providing clear definitions for critical terms such as “inclusive assessment,” and grounding the study within a well-defined theoretical or conceptual framework. Additionally, the language and academic style require refinement. The manuscript contains overly complex sentences, some informal expressions, and occasional redundancy that detract from clarity. Simplifying sentence structures, maintaining a consistent formal tone, and ensuring uniform use of terminology will improve readability and scholarly tone.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Language and style should be refined for clarity and formality, avoiding complex sentences and informal expressions. 

Author Response

Reviewer 4

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article addresses a timely and important topic regarding academic staff perceptions of inclusive and alternative assessment practices in UK higher education. While the study offers valuable qualitative insights and engages with relevant literature, it requires several key improvements before it is suitable for publication. Firstly, the research aims, and framework need to be more clearly articulated. The article would benefit from explicitly stating its research objectives and questions, providing clear definitions for critical terms such as “inclusive assessment,” and grounding the study within a well-defined theoretical or conceptual framework. Additionally, the language and academic style require refinement. The manuscript contains overly complex sentences, some informal expressions, and occasional redundancy that detract from clarity. Simplifying sentence structures, maintaining a consistent formal tone, and ensuring uniform use of terminology will improve readability and scholarly tone.

We sincerely thank the reviewer for these constructive suggestions. In the revised manuscript, we have made several improvements. First, we have clarified the research aims and explicitly stated the guiding research question in the Introduction (pp. 2–3). Second, we have defined key terms, including “inclusive assessment” and “critical skills,” to ensure conceptual clarity (pp. 2–3). Third, we have grounded the study more explicitly within a conceptual framework, drawing on Bourdieu’s (1986) concept of cultural capital and Bernstein’s (2000) theory of pedagogic discourse to frame the analysis (pp. 4–5). Finally, we carefully revised the manuscript for language and style, simplifying complex sentences, removing informal expressions, and ensuring consistent use of terminology across the paper. We believe these revisions strengthen the clarity, rigour, and scholarly tone of the manuscript.

Comments on the Quality of English Language: Language and style should be refined for clarity and formality, avoiding complex sentences and informal expressions. 

We thank the reviewer for this helpful observation. We have carefully revised the manuscript throughout to refine the language and style, ensuring greater clarity, formality, and conciseness. Complex sentences have been simplified where appropriate, and informal expressions have been removed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reviewer 5 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This qualitative study adeptly explores the complexities of integrating 21st-century skills into assessments in UK higher education institutions, emphasising the discrepancy between staff awareness of inclusive pedagogical approaches and their practical implementation. It effectively identifies significant institutional and cultural barriers to innovation. However, the study's reliance on a small sample of just six academic staff members means its findings may not be representative of the broader sector. The methodological rigor of the study would benefit from explaining in detail the criteria for the sample selection. The ethical aspects of the study are clearly argued, while it is required to further explore the implications of the findings for the inclusive processes in Higher Education. 

Although it advocates systemic change, the empirical depth required to substantiate such wide-ranging policy recommendations is lacking. Nevertheless, the study offers valuable insights into the challenges of fostering critical skills.

Author Response

Reviewer 5

This qualitative study adeptly explores the complexities of integrating 21st-century skills into assessments in UK higher education institutions, emphasising the discrepancy between staff awareness of inclusive pedagogical approaches and their practical implementation. It effectively identifies significant institutional and cultural barriers to innovation. However, the study's reliance on a small sample of just six academic staff members means its findings may not be representative of the broader sector. The methodological rigor of the study would benefit from explaining in detail the criteria for the sample selection. The ethical aspects of the study are clearly argued, while it is required to further explore the implications of the findings for the inclusive processes in Higher Education. 

We thank the reviewer for this constructive feedback. In the revised manuscript, we have addressed these points as follows: (a) the small sample size and representativeness are now explicitly acknowledged as a limitation in the Conclusion (p. 14); (b) we have clarified the criteria for participant selection in the Methodology (p. 6), supported by the new demographic overview table; and (c) we have expanded the Discussion and Conclusion (pp. 12–14) to further explore the implications of the findings for inclusive processes in higher education. We believe these revisions strengthen both the methodological transparency and the practical relevance of the study.

Although it advocates systemic change, the empirical depth required to substantiate such wide-ranging policy recommendations is lacking. Nevertheless, the study offers valuable insights into the challenges of fostering critical skills.

We thank the reviewer for this thoughtful observation. In the revised manuscript, we have moderated the tone of our policy recommendations by explicitly acknowledging the exploratory nature of this study. In the Discussion (p. 12) we now note that the findings should be interpreted as indicative rather than conclusive, and in the Conclusion (p. 14) we emphasise that the recommendations are presented as preliminary insights. We further highlight the need for larger and more diverse studies to substantiate and expand these implications. These revisions ensure that the scope of our claims is aligned with the empirical depth of the study, while still foregrounding its contribution to debates on inclusive assessment and critical skills.

 

 

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I appreciate the authors’ attentiveness to the reviewers’ comments. Overall, the revisions elevate this manuscript significantly. Thank you.

Author Response

Thank you very much.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This manuscript is much improved. All of my feedback was addressed.

The new Discussion paragraph on Bourdieu and Pedagogical content knowledge could use some citations.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your helpful comment regarding the need for citations in the section discussing Bourdieu and Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK). We have now revised the Discussion to include relevant references. Specifically, we draw on Bourdieu’s concepts of cultural capital and habitus (Bourdieu, 1986; Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990) to highlight how disciplinary traditions shape what counts as “critical skills” across fields, and we link this to the PCK literature (Shulman, 1986; Gess-Newsome, 2015), which emphasises the disciplinary nature of pedagogy and assessment. These additions strengthen the theoretical grounding of this part of the Discussion and directly address your suggestion.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx