Promoting STEAM Education in Primary School through Cooperative Teaching: A Design-Based Research Study
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Data anaysis principles need to be more elaborated: why a qualitative study, which instruments, categories were chosen, used codes....
For a qualitative study, I miss more data coming from the used questionnaires. For instance, more details on which areas are covered by these tools, as is made for the semistructured interviews.
Also, the study can be enhanced by using more quotes from participants, specially of teachers, which are barely mentioned.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The article "Promoting STEAM Education in Primary School through Cooperative Teaching: A Design-Based Research Study” analyze how and why tools and materials influence both learning and participation. The current challenges for interdisciplinary teaching and learning in STEAM education: is difficult to implement and sustain in primary schools and lacks meaningful interdisciplinary integration. In order to overcome reviewed challenges, the present study propose that STEAM education should be based on cooperative teaching that is planning together but teaching same study group individually. The authors are using some synonyms for this: co-teaching, (team- teaching) but they do not clearly define what they actually mean or what is the differences between co-teaching (in research question) and cooperative teaching. It would be advisable to select certain concept and define and refer that concept thorough the article. The authors may look at for example Härkki et al, 2021 in Teaching and Teacher Education- journal. The research questions are clear and very well motivated.
The theoretical framework consist of PBL, collaborative learning, cooperative teaching, and scaffolding. For PBL reference to Krajcik, J. S., research would benefit the article. I do not agree that cooperative teaching is not conducted in face-to- face STEAM context (see Härkki or other makerspace research). The main theoretical aspects are summarized very nicely on the Table 1.
The method section is streamlined and it is comprehensive a Design-Based Research Study. The complete course consists of only three lessons and one iterations on each lesson, which I consider quite small design experiment. Anyhow, the Figure 1 very well present the design setting. The study consist of two cycles and different data sets: observation data and video recordings; classroom feedback of learners and teachers; and semi-structured interviews. Altogether the article describes the data collection procedures very promptly. The video data provided observational data what was happening, but study did not describe in details how the video data was analyzed.
The results of the design experiments are clearly reported – stating the initial lesson situation and its iteration. The results show, how each changes (more structured assignments / group record sheet, for example) improved the students’’ collaboration and participation. Each lesson was improved to increase active participation and keep timeframe of each lessons. The results are interesting and detailed enough and finding section is clear. This is a timely article, which should be published.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Miniscule changes in punctuation
Author Response
We went through the manuscript and fixed several punctuation errors.
