An Action Research in Critical Thinking Concept Designed Curriculum Based on Collaborative Learning for Engineering Ethics Course

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper An action research in critical thinking concept designed curriculum based on collaborative learning for engineering ethics course is interesting and actual. It describes an action research using critical thinking concept to design the curriculum and collaborative learning process to implement the class activity for the engineering ethics course. Strengths: interesting topic and comprehensive teaching and research process.

Paper starts with the theoretical and empirical literature review on critical thinking, describes materials and methods, gives relevant results and conclusions, but lacks in discussion. 

So, the weaknesses are as follows: Discussion is written as the outline of the main results, but it is not written in a proper way as a discussion where the author discusses his/her results with the previous findings and literature preview. So, in the discussion author(s) should explain the meaning of the results and the relationships that arise from them, compare the results with the results of other researchers and present their theoretical and practical effects. 

Also, the aim of the paper is not clearly specified at all (it is stated in part in the conclusions...). It should be specified at the end of Introduction, and before Materials and Methods, together with research question(s) (that also were not stated).

Since the paper describes an action research, I recommend the author(s) to shortly describe in Introduction characteristics of action research and its benefits in the teaching process.

I also recommend enriching the number of references.

Author Response

Thanks for the opinions and the responses of the author to every suggestion are in the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Regarding contextualization, it lacks a literature that contextualizes collaborative learning within the theoretical conception. In the introduction, this manuscript anticipates explaining the design of the methodology used, the methods, participants, etc., which should be included in the second part of the article. In addition, it does not theoretically contextualize the proposal of the article within what is understood by collaborative learning, this is not differentiate from cooperative, there aren´t explanation what  ABP is and it supposes for learning, summative-formative evaluation, why and the reason for basing learning in three aspects: knowledge, procedures and attitudes, etc., All this has a theoretical and literary conception that is not exemplified. Also, there is no antecedents that have experienced the ABP and what is the novelty of this article with respect to the existing works. The article does not present a literature that relates the application of these proposals to the field of engineering.In addition, it would be interesting to include it within the scientific paradigm of constructivism, to contextualize it.

Regarding hypotheses, it would be necessary to define in detail the initial hypothesis, establish specific objectives that relate the development of critical thinking and how it is applied in this proposal within collaborative learning, as well as secondary objectives that support it.

Regarding discussion and conclusions, sections of the results are reiterated, a summary of data is made, but there is no reflection of the work itself that relates the proposal made, objectives, hypotheses, with the existing literature and already existing works. theoretical level. There is also no interpretation of the scope of the application of PBL and summative-formative evaluation of the results for the development of critical thinking and in this context of learning.   And in the references there are errors to review. In addition, the article lacks bibliographic references on the theoretical conception of PBL, collaborative learning, summative, processual evaluation, etc., to encompass it within the constructivist paradigm, of didactic experiences carried out in the classroom, within the field of engineering, etc. .

Author Response

Thanks for the opinions and the responses of the author to every suggestion are in the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The improvements proposed in the first revision have been made.
But, I suggest including in the theoretical contextualization,
the relationship between the constructivist paradigm of learning,
collaborative learning and ICT to achieve the proposed learning
improvement objectives. In the conclusions, it would be necessary
to include bibliography that endorses the affirmations given
based on the ideas presented in the introduction-theoretical
framework and study results. Also, improve the existing literature
with studies similar to the one in the article- In other words, coherence from the beginning: theoretical framework,
proposed learning paradigm, objectives, test,
and results with bibliography.

Author Response

Thanks for the opinions and the responses of the author to the suggestions are answered in the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx