Design and Initial Validation of a Questionnaire on Prospective Teachers’ Perceptions of the Landscape

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I am not sure how to judge this work. I find the development of a validated questionnaire useful in principle, but shouldn't it then be made much clearer where and in what context it could be used by others (the readers of the article) or how it can be applied in general? I would not normally publish an article that is just a pretest of a research project. I mean, it would indeed be very interesting to see how students were interviewed using the questionnaire developed here, but just reading that there is a questionnaire here is not enough progress for me. At least the application and applicability should be discussed in far greater detail.

 

Author Response

Thank you very much for your comments and review.
This paper aims to design and validate a questionnaire to analyse teachers' perception of landscape.
I think it is very interesting in terms of teaching practice and its application in the classroom, but it is not the aim of this work.

Reviewer 2 Report

This is a very interesting paper in which authors present a questionary that they have designed, studied and validated. As far as this reviewer is concerned techniques are correct and the data show that it is correct.

 

I suggest to improve the following:

• Please improve the quality of images.
• How many number of experts have you asked?
• Students of the questionary, are from Social Sciences or what field of Primary?
• More explanation is needed for equations (1)-(3).

Author Response

Thank you very much for your comments and review. Your comments help to improve the document.

We have analysed all your indications and have made the following changes:

1-The number of experts has been incorporated into line 142.

2- The students who have participated in the study are from Social Sciences (teachers in training).

3- We have incorporated minor clarifications of the equations (lines 547-558).

Reviewer 3 Report

This article offers the analysis of some empirical evidence for the validation of the CPP, an ad hoc designed questionnaire on landscape perception for trainee teachers. To this end, evidence is provided on its content validity (expert panel), construct validity (EFA) and reliability (Cronbach’s alpha).

Although this is a study on the design and initial validation of an instrument and, therefore, does not include a confirmatory factor analysis, it is necessary to make the following improvements to the manuscript:

1. The type of sampling selected is not appropriate, since it does not consider the total population from which the sample is drawn (n= 432).

2. It is necessary to justify, in greater detail, the need to conduct a study on perceptions about the landscape. The review of the scientific literature is very limited and almost functions as a preamble to an analysis that requires further argumentation. Please, from a review that justifies this need, try to answer the question of why it is necessary to pose this research problem in the context of teacher education. The problem is not new and, therefore, requires more consistent theoretical contributions to support this research proposal.

3. Please, correct in the abstract the type of factor analysis performed.

4. Please, distinguish in two separate sub-sections the procedure followed and the data analysis performed.

5. It cannot be stated in the last line of the study that "This analysis has been confirmed by a CFA that shows there are six factors that group all the variables" (lines 504-505). What is the reason why its results are not included, but only those obtained in the exploratory analysis are presented? Why were the results of this analysis not described, instead of those obtained in the initial validation? If this weakness is not resolved, please include the word "initial" in your manuscript to make it clear to the reader what he/she will find.

6. Finally, a thorough review of the English language in which this study is presented is recommended.

Author Response

Thank you very much for all the comments made. I consider that they all contribute to the improvement of the document.

Following your instructions, we have made the following changes:

1- We have specified the total population and the number of sample subjects (line 229).

2- We have further justified the theoretical part of the document. We have incorporated new references and nuances on landscape perception and its teaching (lines 55-81). 

3- We have corrected the abstract.

4- We have created two sub-sections in section 2.3 "Procedure".

5- In the last line of the document we referred to a CFA, it was a mistake. In this line we want to explain that it is necessary to do a CFA in the future.

6- We have reviewed the English and made some changes.

 

Finally, I would like to thank you for your review and constructive feedback. All feedback helps to improve the document.

 

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Considering the revision, the paper is fine as it is. Good luck for the future.

Author Response

Thank you very much.

Reviewer 3 Report

Suggestions and recommendations have been properly addressed. However, in accordance with the design, analysis and results shown in this study, it is necessary to include, as indicated in the first review, the word initial in the title of the manuscript: 

"Design and initial validation of a questionnaire on prospective teachers' perceptions of the landscape".

Author Response

Thank you very much.

I have included the word initial in the title of the document.