Exploring Attitudes toward Sustainability Education in a Group of Italian Preservice Teachers: The Role of Environmental Identity and Sense of Community Responsibility

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Focusing on the attitudes toward sustainability education of preservice teachers and exploring the role of environmental identity and sense of community, this paper addresses a relevant and insightful topic.

A particular strength of the article is the introduction, including the theoretical background (chapter 1.1). This section is well-written and comprehensive, providing a solid foundation for the research.

The research design, incorporating both quantitative questionnaire study and qualitative focus groups, sounds promising and represents a thoughtful approach to address the research aim.

One major concerns, led to my decision to reject the article: The presentation and implementation of the qualitative analysis fall short of convincing. In chapter 3.2, the results were presented too briefly, focussing solely on lemma associations. Consequently, it remains unclear how the information from the discussion (line 394 - 405) and conclusion (394-402) was derived and integrated into the findings. A more detailed and transparent presentation of the qualitative analysis methodology and results is needed to enhance the credibility and rigor of the study. In addition, the value of a mixed-method approach – combining information to get a broader picture was not clearly reflected in the presentation of results.

The following minor adjustment requirements have been identified:

-          The notes on manuscript design were not deleted (line 223-225; 464-465)

-          Line 263 – add reference to the T-Lab software – reflect critically what it means for mixed-method approach to use a quantitative perspective analysing qualitative data. It remains unclear how qualitative interpretation was done – which method was used? Maybe a content analysis would have been an option here as well.

-          234 “fi” can be removed

-          Improve sentence structure 176-177

-          Section 4.1 – add the information that only cross-sectional data is at hand for the quantitative analysis. It would be interesting to assess how the attitudes develop over time, especially with your proposed circular relationship

I wish you the utmost success and resilience as you undertake the thorough revision of the manuscript.

Author Response

Please, find attached point-by-point responses to the review

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The article deals with the current and very interesting topic of sustainability education, focusing on the attitudes towards the topic of 126 trainee teachers environmental linking them to other variables such as identity and sense of community responsibility.

The introduction provides sufficient background on the topic and previews major points. Both research design and analysis are adequate.

The methodology section provides sufficient information on how the study was conducted, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Regarding the latter, the explanations about the T-Lab software are welcome.

It is recommended to add future lines of research after the limitations. For example, there is no doubt about the importance of studying attitudes towards sustainability education in trainee teachers, but what are the attitudes of practising teachers, how do they understand sustainability education and how are they integrating it into their classroom practice? Continuing the study with in-service teachers may be of great interest.

It is suggested to rename the final section of "Conclusions" as "Recommendations".

No comments.

Author Response

Please, find attached point-by-point responses to the review

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

line 398 - "Some statements from participants" - how were those statements chosen? Are those condensed quotes in terms of a sample quote?

line 489 "showing an effective power and impact" this wording is too strong. Please tone down this statement.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

we would like to thank you for your comments. We now amended the manuscript according to them. In particular, 

line 398 - "Some statements from participants" - how were those statements chosen? Are those condensed quotes in terms of a sample quote?

A: we specified that the statements were chosen as sample quote, that we considered explanatory of the lemma. The statement is now changed as follow:

"Some statements from participants, chosen as examples that were considered related to the lemma to respect are:"

line 489 "showing an effective power and impact" this wording is too strong. Please tone down this statement.

A: we agree with the reviewer, and we now fixed the word this way:

"As for results from qualitative data, they are in line with past research describing the relevance of teachers as role models for their students (Lazarowitz and Naim, 2013; Liang et al., 2022), showing their potential influence in shaping children’s pro-environmental behaviors"

Once again, we want to thank the reviewer for their great effort in revising our manuscript.