“It May Be a Luxury, but Not a Problem”: A Mixed Methods Study of Teachers’ Attitudes towards the Educational Needs of Gifted Students in Norway
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I was excited to read this manuscript as I have never read an article about gifted education in Norway. The authors critically evaluate the current status of gifted education in Norway and report both quantitative and qualitative evaluations of gifted education from teachers' perspectives. I will support the publication of this paper in the final form; however, the current form of the manuscript needs a major revision, particularly in the presentation of methodology and results.
Comments
Line 129. The word distinct" should be "differentiate."
Section "identifying giftedness in the Classroom:" The section "identifying giftedness in the classroom" is not closely related to identification. It is more about the characteristics of gifted students and the consequences of these characteristics. This section should deal with teachers' perceptions in terms of characteristics of gifted students that differentiate them from typically developing students and their knowledge and skills about identification.
Section 4. "legislation concerning gifted education in Norway," presents that there is almost no gifted education practice in Norway. Are there talent development programs in Norway? I believe that they are the same. Both aim at developing special talents. Please clarify it in this section.
Page 5. Too much was dedicated to the Council of Europe. Although Norway is a European country, its education system for gifted students is much different from the rest of the EU, so this section should focus on Norway, not on the suggestions made by the Council of Europe.
Line 301. Australia has various gifted education programs. Comparisons here may not be correct. Countries not supporting gifted education can be researched, such as Japan, Finland, etc.
Line 338. There is no need to write the full title of a study. Just cite the authors.
Data analyses (quantitative and qualitative), results, and discussions should be written separately. Results and discussion can be combined if it is necessary.
Data analyses should include methods of analysis for both quantitative and qualitative data. The reliability of analyses and coding should be explained. How was qualitative data collected?
The manuscript needs major revision and extension in methodology.
The results present several implications and inferences that are not verified by data. For instance, lines 440-463 and 476-499 present such inferences. These are just examples.
Comparing all the findings to the Bakhtinian perspective does not really make sense.
Conclusions should address each significant finding in the study. Particularly, as this is a study on teachers' attitudes, perceptions, and practices, change of attitudes should be addressed.
I hope these comments would be useful to improve the manuscript.
English language and punctuation should be checked even though there are not serous language issues, mostly punctuation.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for taking the time to review our manuscript on gifted education in Norway. We appreciate your valuable feedback and insightful comments.
Your feedback will greatly contribute to the improvement of our manuscript, and we sincerely appreciate your thoughtful review. Thank you once again for your time and valuable input.
Best regards,
The authors
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
This study may become relevant for the future of gifted education in Norway despite the small sample. Not necessarily in academia, but in policy.
In my eyes a review of the article is extremely difficult. For example, it is based on a rather traditional understanding of giftedness and of identification and more modern approaches such as those of D. Dai, O. Lo or A. Ziegler are not considered. Then again, one has to consider whether in such a study of concepts of giftedness by mainly laymen in the field such a more traditional approach is not preferable after all. From the point of view of applied research, this may be true. Nevertheless: The authors should give some brief explanations for the skewed (though consistent) literature review.
In order to come to a substantiated assessment of the article, the method of the study and partly also the analysis has to be presented more accurately. As we all know, for example, the wording of the questions is often crucial. However, I don't even know after reading whether follow-up questions were asked, for example. So that would simply have to be described in more detail before I can come to a final assessment. But I would strongly encourage the authors to resubmit this more detailed version. Maybe this article will not be a scientific break-through, but it might become important in Norway.
Minor improvements necessary.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for taking the time to review our manuscript on gifted education in Norway. We appreciate your valuable feedback and insightful comments.
Your feedback will greatly contribute to the improvement of our manuscript, and we sincerely appreciate your thoughtful review. Thank you once again for your time and valuable input.
Best regards,
The authors
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The study found that culture significantly influences teachers' attitudes towards gifted education, and argues that teachers' attitudes should be more informed by evidence-based practice and less by culture, as it can impact gifted students' access to equal and adapted education. The article also highlights the lack of specific provisions for gifted education in Norway and the importance of competent teachers in identifying and supporting gifted students academically and socially.
Based on this summary, here are some suggestions for major revisions:
Clarify the Role of Culture: The paper states that culture significantly influences teachers' attitudes towards gifted education. It would be helpful to provide more detailed examples or case studies to illustrate this point. How does culture manifest in the classroom and influence teachers' attitudes and practices?
Evidence-Based Practice: The paper advocates for attitudes to be more informed by evidence-based practice. It would be beneficial to include more specific examples of these practices and how they can be implemented in the classroom.
Gifted Education in Norway: The paper highlights the lack of specific provisions for gifted education in Norway. It would be useful to compare this with the situation in other countries. What provisions do they have, and what impact do they have on gifted students' education?
Role of Teachers: The paper emphasizes the importance of competent teachers in identifying and supporting gifted students. It would be helpful to provide more information on what this competence looks like and how it can be developed.
Language and Structure: Ensure that the paper is well-structured and free of typographical errors. Each paragraph should have a clear focus, and the flow of ideas should be logical and coherent.
Response Rate and Generalizability: The study achieved a response rate of approximately 14 percent, which is relatively low and limits the generalizability of the findings. It would be beneficial to discuss strategies for improving the response rate in future studies. Additionally, it would be helpful to provide more context about the sample size and the demographics of the respondents.
Qualitative vs. Quantitative Data: The study used both qualitative and quantitative data, with a greater emphasis on the analysis of qualitative data due to the low response rate. It would be useful to provide more details about the data collection methods for both types of data. How were the surveys or interviews conducted? What specific questions were asked?
Data Analysis: The paper mentions that the qualitative data were analyzed from a dialogical perspective, drawing on the work of Bakhtin and Holquist. It would be beneficial to provide more explanation about this analytical approach. How does it work, and why was it chosen for this study? How did it influence the interpretation of the data?
It recently came to my attention the issue of congeneric models. In detail, given that your study is based on survey research, it is of paramount importance, from a methodological perspective, to ensure the validity and reliability of your analysis by using congeneric approaches in estimating factor loadings and overall reliability. Employing congeneric approaches, as opposed to parallel approaches, allows for a more accurate representation of the relationships between items and latent constructs, as it accounts for unique loadings and error variances for each item (McNeish and Wolf, 2020).
As you can see from the article by McNeish and Wolf (2020), the issue of the latent construct representativity appears also you create the latent construct.
If you are not using CB-SEM software, the common practice suggests creating latent constructs with averages or sums. As you can see from McNeish and Wolf (2020), this could create a misalignment in the representativity of the construct.
However, outside CB-SEM software, creating latent constructs via congeneric approaches is not simple.
If you need to calculate latent constructs, there is a free and open-source tool to help calculate latent constructs with congeneric approaches.
To effectively assess the validity of latent variables, it is highly recommended to utilize free tools such as the CLC estimator, which has been specifically designed for this purpose (Marzi et al., 2023).
The CLC Estimator is designed to address the problem of estimating unidimensional latent constructs using congeneric approaches, providing more rigorous results than suboptimal parallel-based scoring methods.
Documentation and tutorial on how to use the estimator is available here: https://www.clcestimator.com/
The app can be employed to create a comprehensive validity table for the measures, detailing Cronbach's Alpha, Average Variance Extracted (AVE), and loadings for each construct. This information will be valuable for assessing the internal consistency and convergent validity of your measurement model.
Explicitly referring to congeneric approaches in your study not only addresses potential concerns related to the reliability of sum scores (McNeish & Wolf, 2020), but also aligns with the original validation processes of the scales you are using. This helps ensure that your findings are consistent with the theoretical and methodological assumptions of prior research.
Ethical Considerations: The paper mentions that ethical considerations were taken and that the study was approved by the Norwegian Centre for Research Data. It would be helpful to provide more information about these ethical considerations. How was participant confidentiality ensured? How were participants informed about the purpose of the study and their rights as participants?
Limitations: The paper acknowledges the limitations of the study, such as the low response rate. It would be beneficial to discuss other potential limitations. For example, could the attitudes of teachers in the small municipality where the study was conducted be different from those in other areas of Norway?
Future Research: Given the limitations and findings of the study, what are the implications for future research? What other methods or approaches could be used to further investigate teachers' attitudes towards gifted education in Norway?
References: Ensure that all claims and arguments are well-supported by references. Also, make sure that the reference list is formatted correctly according to the relevant academic style guide.
References
Marzi, G., Balzano, M., Edigi, L., & Magrini, A. (2023). CLC Estimator: A tool for latent construct estimation via congeneric approaches in survey research. Multivariate Behavioral Research, https://doi.org/10.1080/00273171.2023.2193718
McNeish, D. M., & Wolf, M. G. (2020). Thinking twice about sum scores. Behavior Research Methods, 52(6), 2287-2305. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-020-01398-0
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for taking the time to review our manuscript on gifted education in Norway. We appreciate your valuable feedback and insightful comments.
Your feedback will greatly contribute to the improvement of our manuscript, and we sincerely appreciate your thoughtful review. Thank you once again for your time and valuable input.
Best regards,
The authors
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The revision is satisfying. Thank you.
Reviewer 2 Report
Thank you for the changes.
Reviewer 3 Report
All revisions completed
