‘Sweet Acid’ An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of Students’ Navigating Regenerative Higher Education

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments:

I think the paper is well-written and well-structured, and I enjoyed reading it.

The paper presents the phenomenological analysis of learners’ experiences of the regenerative form of higher education. The research has significant contributions, and they are also presented in the form of research gaps and well-framed research questions. 

The research has the potential to be published with some minor adjustments. I have listed my comments on each section as follows:

 

1.     Introduction

·       It will be great to elaborate on the term “wicked” – why are sustainability challenges wicked?

·       What is regenerative form of higher education? Regenerative higher education and regenerative form of HE are the same terms? Defining RHE early in the introduction section can help the readers to understand the concept better? 

·       I think RHE has been defined in the first paragraph of the introduction section, but it will be great to explicitly define the term to make it clearer?

·       Introduction, 2^nd paragraph – sentences are a bit too long. E.g., the first sentence of the paragraph is comprised of 7 lines. Shortening the sentences will bring more clarity.

·       Introduction – 3^rd paragraph: Some examples of RHE have started to emerge; I can see one example- if there are more, it would be great to reference them here?

·       The literature gap and research question are very well formulated and clearly highlighted.

·       “There are already signs of more regenerative forms of education, including case-based, lab-based, and challenge-based experimentions emerging in practice”. Any references for case-based or lab-based interventions?

 

2.     Research Context, Methodology & methods:

·       Section Research Context, Methodology & methods can be “Research Context & Methodology” methods is redundant in this heading

 

2.1. Research context - Mission Impact

·       Is there any reason for selecting Binckhorst and the Greenport West-Holland area? And is there any reason for selecting one area for the first iteration and two areas for the second? If there is any reason, it will be great to add one or two sentences reading that.

·       There is a sentence: “Throughout both iterations, the course included working on personal transformations for about 20% of the time and the transition challenge in practice for the remaining 80%” – I am curious how was time calculated and divided?

·       It is very evident that the design and structure of the mission impact course is grounded in literature, but it would be great to see how exactly the course was organized, the structure, the number of sessions, sessions’ details/ description, hours of engagement in each session, and other details. Perhaps adding a table on the course/program description can help. This will allow practitioners to take this approach forward and scale/implement it in their educational spaces. I can understand that structure of the two iterations can be different, but this table can be used as an opportunity to highlight the similarities and differences between the two iterations. I have seen that the link to the Medium is provided at the end of this section for more details on the description of the course, but I still think adding a table can make it clear.

·       The course was taught by the main author and two additional teachers. Were two other members of the teaching team aware of the RHE, and how will the course be structured? Adding one sentence on how two other teaching team members were engaged will help in bringing clarity.

·       Which language was used to teach the course? Any implications related to that?

·       Why was the guided reflection session used instead of the open reflection session? Any specific reason?

·       How were students involved in co-designing the workshop? Why were they involved? 

 

2.2.Participants

·       Adding a table to provide details on participants’ backgrounds can help

·       Was there any reason for engaging diverse participants from different backgrounds?

·       What kind of sampling was done?

 

2.3. Data-Generation: Living Spiral Frameworks (LSFs)

·       Were there any ethical procedures or standards followed while collecting data vis LSF? I can see that participants had the opportunity to opt out of having their LSF included in the research. But were there any other disclosures made or ethical consent taken?

 

2.4. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA)

·       The first paragraph mentions: “IPA is an approach to qualitative inquiry that is particularly well suited to the study of lived experience amongst relatively homogenous groups.” Is the group of participants studied under the current research considered homogeneous?

·       Different fonts are used in this section, specifically in the second paragraph; perhaps going through the formatting can help

·       The details on IPA and why IPA was used for conducting this research are very clearly written

 

2.5. Analysis

·       It is very clear how data was analyzed after 6 meta-themes, and 2 sub-themes resulted using IPA.  I was curious about the steps followed for data analysis in this research to reach these sub/meta themes? what were the steps for analyzing data via IPA? 

·       How were the quotes chosen to support the results?

 

3.     Results

 

·       The result section is very detailed and reflective. I enjoyed reading this section, and the authors did a great job in presenting the analysis of their data. 

·       The quotes are formatted in different formats; it will be good to make the formatting consistent throughout the results section. 

 

 

4.     Limitations and Discussions

·       This section is also well-presented and well-written, covering all the key aspects.

·       Resistances and Drivers for Navigating RHE. It can be changed to “Drivers and Resistances for Navigating RHE” as the content is presented in this sequence

·       Check the Numbering and sequence of the sections and sub sections e.g. I assume, section “4.2.1. Resistances” should be should be “4.2.2. Resistances”

·       Resistances have been identified in the results, and it will be great to see the discussion/elaboration on the implications related to them in the resistances sub-section.

 

Other comments:

·       The language used in the manuscript is clear, but there are some minor errors (typos)– Perhaps, going through the manuscript once again for proofreading can fix them.

·       Proofread the manuscript for consistency of format, the numbering of sections/subsections, and alignment of fonts.

 

I am grateful to read this comprehensive research, with clear purpose and in-depth analysis.

Best wishes 

Author Response

We kindly thank you for the time and effort that went into your thoughtful review. The comments were extremely helpful in improving the quality of the paper. 

The following changes have been implemented for each section.

1. An example and explanation of wicked problems have been added, the example of the energy transition in Amsterdam has been used.
2. A definition for RHE has been included that we hope clarifies the paper. 
3. The first sentence of paragraph 2 has been rewritten to 3 sentences for clarity.
4. The sentence referring to examples in paragraph 3 has been rewritten to clarify the reference links to a collection of such examples. 
5. Two references for case-lab based examples have been added. 

Section 2. 

In regard to the course structure and desire to see more of it: Our response: As the paper is already quite long, we have opted to include a URL to the course manual that includes an overview week-by-week of the course. 

There is a sentence: “Throughout both iterations, the course included working on personal transformations for about 20% of the time and the transition challenge in practice for the remaining 80%” – I am curious how was time calculated and divided? Response: this has been clarified in the text, we desgined the personal elements in the form of the expedition guide for 1 day a week in a full-time course (1 out of 5 days). A link to the expedition guide has also been added. 


*  Is there any reason for selecting Binckhorst and the Greenport West-Holland area? And is there any reason for selecting one area for the first iteration and two areas for the second? If there is any reason, it will be great to add one or two sentences reading that. Response: (also added to the text) These regions and the collaborations within them arose organically through previous (teaching) engagement of the main author. However, both of these areas are undergoing government-led sustainability transitions. 

 * The course was taught by the main author and two additional teachers. Were two other members of the teaching team aware of the RHE, and how will the course be structured? Adding one sentence on how two other teaching team members were engaged will help in bringing clarity. Response: The main author was primarily responsible for the design of the course and the additional teachers for coaching the team-based work within the Binckhorst and Greenport respectively. (added to text). 

* The course was taught in English, most of the participants came from international bachelor programmes. The teaching team presents 3 continents. Also clarified that the course is full-time over a semester. 

 

 * Why was the guided reflection session used instead of the open reflection session? Any specific reason? Response: This drew directly from transformative learning literature such as Pearson et al (2018).  Added: These were initially based on the work on transformative learning by Pearson et al. (2018) to allow students to land in a new learning environment (i.e., acting as scaffolding). As in the first iteration having unguided reflection sessions, especially in the beginning of the course, seemed to be overwhelming. As the course unfolded, the nature of these sessions and the classes more generally became more of one of co-design with the students. This allowed stronger engagement with the materials (e.g., deciding what direction to go collectively as the transition challenge became more untangled) and acted as a safer place to practice hosting sessions before doing so in the regions with external stakeholders for the students.  

2.2 in regard to participation, the suggested textual changes have been done. It has been decided not to include a table as either the table would be so specific we believe we risk making the identification of our participants possible (and therefore not ethical) or because it in our judgment doesn't add much insight next to the altered text based on your other suggestions. 

2.3 Yes informed consent was gathered and text has been added to state so. These were obtained before the course started, the summer before. 

2.4 We have added an example of relatively homogeneity in the medical IPA as an example of why we believe the sampling is appropriate. IPA may be used for example to study the lived experience of a cohort of people in the same hospital undergoing treatment for the same disease. Where the patients may come from different backgrounds (e.g., socio-economically) what ties them together for relative homogeneity is a shared experience of disease X in setting Y. In this sense, the cohort of students come from diverse backgrounds but each share the experience of Mission Impact, which we argue allows IPA to be used meaningfully 

* The fonts have been double checked, thank you! 

2.5 The analysis part has been rewritten to improve clarity for steps 3> of the analysis, including how the quotes were selected. 

3. Thank you very much :). All direct quotations have been made italic to make it clear for the reader those are direct quotes. 

4. Drivers is now first in the title header, thank you :). The numbering has been altered. The resistance discussion has been elaborated with one example of what these imply for practice, as well as linking to a review by Schlaile et al to compare the results to theirs on education for sustainability. 

General: 
The manuscropt has been proofread once more and several small changes to grammar, lay-out and spelling have been made, thank you for the astute reading and the very meaningful review. 

Kindest regards, 

Reviewer 2 Report

The work is high quality.

 

Author Response

We very kindly thank the reviewer for taking the time to read and reflect upon our work. Thank you for the lovely compliment. 

Reviewer 3 Report

After carefully reviewing the submitted manuscript, I consider it to be an original study, which provides a student's view of transversal skills analyzed from another approach. Although the sample size is small, the applied methodology is pertinent, providing results with figures that illustrate them. The authors should review figure 1, as they cannot scan the Qr code they provide.

We suggest the authors review the conclusion section, and must respond more specifically to the objectives set at the beginning of the study.

The authors must review the bibliography, since several bibliographic citations do not comply with the publication standards of the review.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments. 

* figure 1 has been removed and replaced for a clickable URL. 

* The conclusion has been revised to link more strongly to the objectives set out in the beginning of the study. 

* The bibliography has been reviewed and updated.