Effects of Emergency Distance Education on Teacher Training Process in Turkey: Instructors’ Opinions

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Very good article!

Some recommendations:

1. To reformulate the research title for more visible impact: about the results or country applicable results

2. The research population is about 15 teachers, so this would be a study case

3. One important results limit is about the research population, too few people.

4. To improve the references:

Vidergor, H. E. (2023). The effect of teachers' self-innovativeness on accountability, distance learning self-efficacy, and teaching practices. Computers & Education, 199, 104777.

Tripon, C., Gonța, I., & Bulgac, A. (2023). Nurturing Minds and Sustainability: An Exploration of Educational Interactions and Their Impact on Student Well-Being and Assessment in a Sustainable University. Sustainability, 15(12), 9349.

Author Response

Thanks to Reviewer 1 for his/her valuable contribution. Reviewer 1 suggested that to reconsider the title of the manuscript and to improve the references that we have done it. Also, reviewer 1 had a comment about the number of participants. In the “participants” section we explained this situation.

Reviewer 2 Report

The article is relevant to the journal's mission. The work is relevant because it is a study that contributes to increase the field of knowledge about teachers' opinions regarding teacher training practices through distance education during the time of pandemic in Turkey.

The title " Effects of Emergency Distance Education on Teacher Training Process: Teacher Trainers' Opinions" is in line with the content of the article, as well as the abstract, where the objectives, results and findings are clearly stated. This evaluator considers that the abstract should explicitly include the research design used.

The theoretical basis is based on the objective of the study. In addition, the references used in the study are up to date. The general objective of the study is well defined in relation to the subject matter used, as well as the research questions. The document is well structured, facilitating the understanding of the study.

With respect to the methodological section, the authors should explicitly specify the research design used in the study. In this sense, it would be necessary to make a figure showing the methodological process carried out during the research. On the other hand, the article comments that the interview was sent to two experts. What criteria were used for the selection of these experts on the subject? The research phases are presented in a clear and structured manner.

The results are presented in a clear manner, allowing easy comprehension by the reader. At the same time, the results are relevant to the topic presented.

Author Response

We thank to Reviewer 2 for his/her suggestions. Reviewer 2 recommended us to make a figure that explains the methodological process. Since there is no complicated process of methodology in the manuscript, we did not make a figure because we thought it was unnecessary. Further reviewer 2 asked us how we chose two field experts. Our choice is based on their experience which we put in the manuscript.

Reviewer 3 Report

Distance education has been used in teacher education far before the 1960s. In Indonesia, it has been used since the mid-50s for teachers training through correspondence courses. 

 

Author Response

Thanks to reviewer 3 for reminding us that distance education was used before 1960.  Necessary changes have been done. 

Reviewer 4 Report

The subject of the article is interesting as it studies the impact of distance education on teacher training from the point of view of teacher trainers themselves. The context and subject of the study is up-to-date and important. However, there are several points that should be modified to ensure the scientific value of the article. The articles refers to a great amount of researches in literature review (sections Introduction, 1.1. Turkey's Transition During the Pandemic Period to Distance Education and 4. Discussion, Conclusion and Recommendations) which for some reason are not all the same sources. There are 94 references, presented in order of appearance in the article. References from 70 to 94 are only mentioned in the section 4. Discussion, Conclusion and Recommendations. I recommend the author(s) to rewrite their article in that way that those studies mentioned  only in the last section of the article are already treated in the literature part. Especially as these articles give evidence what we already know of the themes that are treated and which then allows the comparison with the results of the present study. The author(s) could also go through all the references and see if they are suitable at the exact point where they are used; for instance, in the section 1.1. Turkey's Transition During the Pandemic Period to Distance Education on page the author(s) talk about teacher education and use(s) reference from early education (line 121, [31]). It might be a question of wording the idea differently. There are two many research questions (7), the author(s) might want to focus on one or two questions. These questions seem to be those questions from the semi-structured written interview and should be transferred to the section 2.

Furthermore, there is no subsection 1.2. in the article. The title of this section does not correspond to the content. The author(s) might want to modify it or rearrange the section by starting with the overall view on pandemic all over the world in education - as mentioned in this section - and then discuss the situation in Turkey. Having two subsections, perhaps. The use of terms varies through the article, it would be better to use same concepts systematically; for instance, there are different terms for referring to students (pre-service teachers, prospective teachers, teacher candidates) and teacher trainers (teacher educators, instructors, lecturers, faculty members). This use of terms should be unified to allow the reader to follow easily the argumentation of the article.

The Material and Methods section provides some information on the participants, materials and procedures, but the given information lacks scientific depth even if there is a whole section (2.5.) on validity and reliability. The presentation of the results should contain more detailed information of the categorisations of the comments too to able to replicate the research if needed. The questions could be presented in an annex for instance, there are only seven treated questions. It is a case study with 15 respondents/teacher trainers and it would be easy to indicate how many of the answers contained such or such theme. It is not quite clear how the 15 teacher trainers have been chosen, do the 10 universities where they come from represent all the teacher training universities in Turkey or only a part of them etc. The given analyses and examples are interesting, but they are quite sporadic, and the authors do not explain how these examples have been chosen. There is not much interpretation but long citations. The author(s) should provide a clearer interpretation of the results (see below).

 The section 3 where the results of the analysis are presented should be rearranged so that the it would be clearer how many of the teacher trainers have mentioned the presented themes or are they only from one or two respondents. The tables do not always clearly illustrate the facts that the author(s) describe(s), this information must be justified by arguments based more on the analysis of the answers (see below). The examples/citations could be indented, it is difficult to read them in the linear text. The teachers have been given codes mentioning their gender (Table 1), so you can freely use he or she to talk about them (e.g. page 12, lines 461 and 468, Y explained --> S/he --> She).

The section 4. Discussion, Conclusion and Recommendations should be rewritten once the literature review is modified. There is a subsection 4.1. but no 4.2. I recommend that the article does not end with this list but there should be paragraph after concluding the main point of the article (see below).

To sum up, I think that this article could contribute well to the field of education sciences and especially to teacher training in Turkish educational context. However, the manuscript cannot be accepted for the publication in its current form and should be rewritten. My recommendation is to make major revisions before publishing the manuscript.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 4 Report

I appreciate the modifications that you have done to the manuscript. The study is well presented and justified. It was a pleasure to read it. There might still be some small orthographic mistakes, e.g. line 736 pedagocig factor. When presenting the themes with frequencies, you might want to present the themes in order of magnitude.