PONE-D-21-30610Academic achievement of students without special educational needs and disabilities in inclusive education - does the type of inclusion matter?PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Szumski,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. I have now heard from knowledgeable reviewers and upon my own reading of the paper and after careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

The referees and I see value in this paper, given the novelty that it brings to a scarce literature on the effect of inclusive education on the achievement of students without special needs or disabilities.

Given the clear expertise of the referees on this topic, I defer to their comments and will ask you to simply respond to them. However, my view is that the main areas of concerns, which you would do well to address in rewriting the paper, are as follows:

1) add a short description of the Education System in Poland (R2)

2) explain, from a theoretical point of view, which concept of inclusive education are you referring to  (R1)

3) revise thoroughly the whole manuscript to improve readability (R3)

Beyond the above highlighted points, as I noted previously the referee reports are all of high quality, so please make sure to respond directly to individual referee comments.

Congratulations on the work so far; I look forward to reading the revision.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Mar 31 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

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Kind regards,

Simona Lorena Comi

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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“GS - UMO- 2012/07/B/HS6/01434 - Narodowe Centrum Nauki, Poland, www.ncn.gov.pl, funder does not play any role in the study or the article preparation”

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: I Don't Know

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The paper aimed to explore the academic achievement of students without special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in inclusive classrooms. Actually, it is the first research conducted in a Central Eastern European region and the first analysis of the academic achievement of students without SEND using a latent growth curve model.

On the one hand, I found the paper to be overall well written and much of it to be well described. I felt confident that the authors performed careful and thorough latent growth curve model processing. On the other hand, I found some of the description of the paper to be taken into consideration as an ad-hoc fact without any references.

I explain my concerns in more detail below. I ask that the authors specifically address each of my comments in their response.

Major comments:

- In the section “The development of inclusive education” you mention the research approach to be adopted in order to understand inclusive education, but since an enormous underlying problem with inclusive education relates to lack of agreement about what constitutes an effective inclusive school environment, I would suggest to provide the readers with a definition that you comply with.

See: Van Mieghem, A., Verschueren, K., Petry, K., & Struyf, E. (2020). An analysis of research on inclusive education: a systematic search and meta review. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 24(6), 675-689.

- In the section “Measures”, please provide the readers with a Table which will describe the three achievement tests in mathematics and in Polish and their tasks.

- In the section “Limitations and directions for future research”, please mention also that you have not conduct a Post-hoc power analysis and explain shortly why not.

- In the section “Limitations and directions for future research”, you can also add the following phrase: “In addition, with the ability to include more time points, we might have been able to get a clearer idea regarding what happens to achievement in the longer term”.

Minor comments:

- The manuscript includes grammatical and syntax corrections. Please, provide a final version.

- Page 2, Line 4: the acronym/abbreviation T1 has to be explained.

- Page 2, Line 16: keyword students without special educational needs to be replaced by students without special educational needs and disabilities

- Page 4, 11: needs a different word than ambiguous. I would suggest: “Inclusion in education is subject to many interpretations”

- Page 5, Line 20: Add a short explanation (two extra lines maximum with a citation) of the neoliberal model of education.

- Page 6, Line 14: How many of these 47 studies concerned students from primary and secondary education? Please clarify.

- Page 10, Line 18: Citation 53, add more recent citation to reinforce the argument such as:

a. Sirkko, R., Takala, M., & Wickman, K. (2018). Co-teaching in northern rural Finnish schools. Education in the North, 25(1–2), 217–238.

b. Scruggs, T. E., & Mastropieri, M. A. (2017). Making inclusion work with co-teaching. Teaching Exceptional Children, 49(4), 284–293.

- Page 11, Line 5: Please mention the specific special education reforms in parenthesis.

- Page 11, Lines 8-9: “Parents of children with SEND … rather than special schools”: this is a strong statement please provide readers with a citation.

- Page 11, Lines 11-20: Please refer to the law/reform that describes this framework.

- Page 11, Lines 23-25: Please provide readers with citation of the law which justifies the higher number of co-teaching classes.

All best wishes,

Reviewer #2: Thank you for the opportunity to review the manuscript, “Academic achievement of students without special educational needs and disabilities in inclusive education - does the type of inclusion matter?”. The field is in need of more research on this topic, and I think this paper will be an important addition to the literature. Below I list my concerns with the current version of the manuscript:

Abstract-Specify that the study was conducted in Poland.

Introduction- Please consider reorganizing your literature review to create a more cohesive flow. There are some short paragraphs that could be combined and long ones that can be split. Also, I suggest moving the paragraph on page 3 line 21 to the current study subsection. Similarly, the first paragraph on page 6 and the second paragraph on page 7 should be moved to the current study subsection for a better flow. Additionally, I think the authors need to explain Poland’s educational system in terms of the educational stages and grades (could be in the inclusive education in Poland subsection). For example, on page 12 authors stated that they selected first-grade students. What is the grade equivalent of this in terms of PreK to 12?

• Page 9 line 25 please explain what ad hoc interventions are. The reader needs examples to understand what this means.

Method- consider adding a demographics table to the participant’s subsection. Also, the authors stated that there were 174 students with disabilities in inclusive classrooms. It would be interesting to see their academic growth trajectories. If this was not planned as another paper, please consider broadening the aim of the paper for also students with disabilities and add a separate analysis.

Results- no suggestion

Discussion- The authors said the study had three main aims, but the first aim was not mentioned in the paper earlier. I suggest putting this information in the introduction and rewriting the research questions. Page 20 line 5 “Our study has shown that in the Polish educational system there is informal tracking of…..” I am unconvinced that the study finds informal tracking. Please explain more. Page 20 line 18 Authors said, “In summary, the results of our study indicate that not only many teachers, but also many well-educated parents perceive inclusive classrooms as a risk factor for the development of students without SEND.” Please explain how your study indicates this conclusion.

Terminology- It's not clear why the authors use students without special educational needs and disabilities instead of only students without disabilities.

I believe the authors should revise the overall manuscript to improve the readability of the text.

Some minor issues

• Page 7 line 23 “This diverse solutions…..” consider revising the sentence

• Page 8 line 22 “For instance, ……..” consider revising the sentence

• Page 9 line 13 “Most studies show that……” please provide a reference

• Page 9 line 20 “The positive effect” consider starting a new paragraph

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Dr. Sofia Mastrokoukou, Research Fellow at the University of Turin, Department of Pscychology

Reviewer #2: No

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Academic achievement of students without special educational needs and disabilities in inclusive education - does the type of inclusion matter?

PONE-D-21-30610R1

Dear Dr. Szumski,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Simona Lorena Comi

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: I really appreciated the thoroughness with which you delat my coments and accepted my suggestions. For the future it would be nice to move on with your research and try to implement this approach in other countries and conduct a cross-national research or even a longitudinal one.

Reviewer #2: Authors addressed all comments and the resulting manuscript would be a good addition to PLOS ONE.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: Yes: Sofia Mastrokoukou

Reviewer #2: No

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