Semantic fluency including task switching predicts academic success in medical school

Sabrina Kaufmann; Änne Glass; Peter Kropp; Brigitte Müller-Hilke

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0244456

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJuly 17, 2020
27 Aug 2020 Decision Letter - Jorge Leite, Editor PONE-D-20-22162 Semantic fluency including task switching predicts academic success in medical school PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Müller-Hilke, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. 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. ============================== ACADEMIC EDITOR: Please find attached the comments from the reviewer. The reviewer highlights several important issues, which I would like to see addressed. Moreover, it will be important to provide more information about the study design and methods, as in the present form, it may be hard to replicate. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Oct 11 2020 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. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Jorge Leite Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. Thank you for including your ethics statement: "The study was approved by the local ethics committee, is registered under A 2016-0186 and written consent was obtained from all study participants." i) Please amend your current ethics statement to include the full name of the ethics committee/institutional review board(s) that approved your specific study. ii) Once you have amended this/these statement(s) in the Methods section of the manuscript, please add the same text to the “Ethics Statement” field of the submission form (via “Edit Submission”). For additional information about PLOS ONE ethical requirements for human subjects research, please refer to http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-human-subjects-research. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] 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: Partly ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 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 ****** 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: No ****** 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: Thank you very much for the opportunity to read and review the article entitled: "Semantic fluency including task switching predicts academic success in medical school". Overall, the article is well-written and easy to follow. I do have several comments and concerns regarding this manuscript. In the Abstract, the sentence: “Academic success was evaluated twofold, via outcome of the first state exam and whether it was passed in normal time” is not clear enough and needs to be rewritten. In the Introduction, Page 3, l44, “ourselves” is redundant. Introduction. The construct of executive function (EF) needs to be better defined and explained. In particular, the authors should present different models of EF. Next for this particular study, authors need to provide a rationale on why they selected these particular EF as predictors of academic success. Task description. The authors should provide more details regarding the tasks employed and the EF constructs they are purported to measure. For example, Trail Making Test was used as a test measuring construct of Monitoring. However, TMT is used to measure the construct of visual attention and task switching. Participants. Please describe the procedures for selecting participants in more details. In particular how many participants, how many (fe)males, mean age and SD. This description of participants should be in this part of the paper and not in the results section. Figure title is inappropriate (Fig 1. The majority of our cohort was female and academically successful). Discussion. Some sentences in discussion belong to the Introduction section of the paper, for example, page 14: “Verbal fluency tests are frequently used in neuro-psychological assessments, clinical practice and research and have proven reliable tools to assess executive functions.” It is very unlikely finding that motivation was not correlated with the results of first state exam. Can the authors offer us an alternative explanation for this finding? I also think that the results would be more clear if presented in a tabular form instead of figures. Two suggested references regarding EF for the authors: Zelazo, P. D., Craik, F. I., & Booth, L. (2004). Executive function across the life span. Acta psychologica, 115(2-3), 167-183. Best, J. R., & Miller, P. H. (2010). A developmental perspective on executive function. Child development, 81(6), 1641-1660. Thank you once again for the opportunity to review this interesting study. I wish the authors all the best in their future endeavors. ****** 6. 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: No [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244456.r001
Revision 1
23 Sep 2020 Author Response PONE-D-20-22162 “Semantic fluency including task switching predicts academic success in medical school” Dear Dr. Leite, We are grateful for the opportunity to resubmit our revised manuscript and we appreciate both, yours and the reviewer´s comments as they pointed out potential misunderstandings and weaknesses and therefore helped to improve the manuscript. Please, find below our rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised. The comments are printed in italics, our responses in red. We resubmit our manuscript in two versions, i) containing all changes made to the original version marked in red labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes' and ii) an unmarked version of our revised paper without tracked changes labeled 'Manuscript'. ACADEMIC EDITOR: Please find attached the comments from the reviewer. The reviewer highlights several important issues, which I would like to see addressed. Moreover, it will be important to provide more information about the study design and methods, as in the present form, it may be hard to replicate. We completely revised our Material & Method section accordingly, please see pages 6-9 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at done 2. Thank you for including your ethics statement: "The study was approved by the local ethics committee, is registered under A 2016-0186 and written consent was obtained from all study participants." i) Please amend your current ethics statement to include the full name of the ethics committee/institutional review board(s) that approved your specific study. done ii) Once you have amended this/these statement(s) in the Methods section of the manuscript, please add the same text to the “Ethics Statement” field of the submission form (via “Edit Submission”). done Comments to the Author Reviewer #1: Thank you very much for the opportunity to read and review the article entitled: "Semantic fluency including task switching predicts academic success in medical school". Overall, the article is well-written and easy to follow. I do have several comments and concerns regarding this manuscript. In the Abstract, the sentence: “Academic success was evaluated twofold, via outcome of the first state exam and whether it was passed in normal time” is not clear enough and needs to be rewritten. Done, please see page 2, L27-28 In the Introduction, Page 3, l44, “ourselves” is redundant. Agreed – and eliminated Introduction. The construct of executive function (EF) needs to be better defined and explained. In particular, the authors should present different models of EF. We revised our introduction substantially, please see pages 3 and 4 Next for this particular study, authors need to provide a rationale on why they selected these particular EF as predictors of academic success. As we could not find any hard data on EF being associated with academic achievements in medical students, we introduce our rationale in the introduction, page 3 L49-53 and page 4 L80-84. Moreover, we present a rationale for the tests chosen in the M&M section page 8 L153-159 Task description. The authors should provide more details regarding the tasks employed and the EF constructs they are purported to measure. For example, Trail Making Test was used as a test measuring construct of Monitoring. However, TMT is used to measure the construct of visual attention and task switching. We rewrote the chapter on “data collection tools” and now provide more details on the tasks employed. We also elaborate that we used part A only of the Trail Making Test – thereby eliminating the task switching aspect. We apologize for not pointing that out from the beginning – but are grateful for the chance to clarify this misunderstanding. Please, see page 8/9 L160-179 Participants. Please describe the procedures for selecting participants in more details. In particular how many participants, how many (fe)males, mean age and SD. This description of participants should be in this part of the paper and not in the results section. Done – please see page 6/7, L119-128 Figure title is inappropriate (Fig 1. The majority of our cohort was female and academically successful). We concurred with you point below that figures do not necessary help to clarify results – and deleted Figure 1 and presented the results in writing. Please, see page 10, L207-210 Discussion. Some sentences in discussion belong to the Introduction section of the paper, for example, page 14: “Verbal fluency tests are frequently used in neuro-psychological assessments, clinical practice and research and have proven reliable tools to assess executive functions.” Agreed – and deleted from the Discussion It is very unlikely finding that motivation was not correlated with the results of first state exam. Can the authors offer us an alternative explanation for this finding? Well – we tried. Please, see page 18, L306-310 I also think that the results would be more clear if presented in a tabular form instead of figures. We concur with your argument – and introduced Table 2 Two suggested references regarding EF for the authors: Zelazo, P. D., Craik, F. I., & Booth, L. (2004). Executive function across the life span. Acta psychologica, 115(2-3), 167-183. Best, J. R., & Miller, P. H. (2010). A developmental perspective on executive function. Child development, 81(6), 1641-1660. Thank you very much for these suggestions – they are highly appreciated! The latter one is incorporated into our manuscript as reference 10 Thank you once again for the opportunity to review this interesting study. I wish the authors all the best in their future endeavors. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244456.r002
10 Dec 2020 Decision Letter - Jorge Leite, Editor Semantic fluency including task switching predicts academic success in medical school PONE-D-20-22162R1 Dear Dr. Müller-Hilke, 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, Jorge Leite, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244456.r003
Formally Accepted
14 Dec 2020 Acceptance Letter - Jorge Leite, Editor PONE-D-20-22162R1 Semantic fluency including task switching predicts academic success in medical school Dear Dr. Müller-Hilke: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. 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. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Jorge Leite Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244456.r004

Open letter on the publication of peer review reports

PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process. Therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. Reviewers remain anonymous, unless they choose to reveal their names.

We encourage other journals to join us in this initiative. We hope that our action inspires the community, including researchers, research funders, and research institutions, to recognize the benefits of published peer review reports for all parts of the research system.

Learn more at ASAPbio .