Peer Review History
| Original SubmissionJuly 16, 2020 |
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PONE-D-20-22094 Validity concerns with the Revised Study Process Questionnaire (R-SPQ-2F) in undergraduate anatomy and physiology students PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Johnson, 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. Please ensure that your decision is justified on PLOS ONE’s publication criteria and not, for example, on novelty or perceived impact. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Nov 16 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:
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, Francesca Chiesi 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 [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: Yes ********** 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: Yes ********** 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: First of all I would like to congratulate the authors for the article, well structured and articulated. The paper is very exhaustive and complete. However, despite its good quality, I would like to suggest some minor issues, in my opinion, easy to adjust. 1) The article is very long. It is clear that as it contains both qualitative and quantitative analyzes, the results section requires a lot of space; however, in my opinion, there is a lot of methodological and procedural information in the result, to make the reading complex and difficult to follow. I suggest the authors to shorten the following sections (and evaluate to integrate discussion): - Development of SAL theory [shorten lines 16-44; evaluate to delete lines 45-53] - Development of Surface and Deep Approaches to Learning [lines 76-88] - Analysis [delete lines 237-244; shorten lines 254-271] - Examples of Analysis [the section is very long. Evaluate to shorten in not more than 20-25 lines] - Model specification [lines 563-573 should be maybe moved to data analysis] 2) I suggest the author to spend some lines in a small review of specific recent studies regarding medical students. I feel that the authors should add 20 new recent literature contributes regarding medical students at least and new theoretical perspectives (e.g. Variation theory and others) regarding student approaches. 3) In my opinion one aspect lacking is the contents concerning the professional teaching practice and the implications and applications of the instrument. Discussion is short and not did fully discuss results. 4) The research question s too limited. Please, try to better develop a rationale and a literature review that better explain the research gap that the study wants to fill in and the research questions. 5) Try to explain why the response rate is so low. 6) Since the article is very long, I try to suggest to delete some figure (figure 1, 2 and 3). Thank you for this opportunity. ********** 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: Yes: Massimiliano Barattucci [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. |
| Revision 1 |
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PONE-D-20-22094R1 Validity concerns with the Revised Study Process Questionnaire (R-SPQ-2F) in undergraduate anatomy and physiology students PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Johnson, 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. I accurately read the revised manuscript and checked the changes made in response to the reviewer’s comments. Whereas I can appreciate the effort made to improve the paper, I have two main concerns about some psychometric issues. 1. The CFA fit indices are clearly very poor and not moderate. Did you test any different model? I suggest looking at the modification indices or to exclude some items to identify a better factor solution. 2. I’m not sure I can understand how the factors can be deemed reliable but not valid: p. 32, line 755 - “We thus have minimal evidence that the two-factor structure of the R-SPQ-2F is a moderately reasonable fit to the data for this population, which supports the R-SPQ-2F reliably measuring two distinct factors. This would agree with the findings of Stes and colleagues [By the way, Stes et al.’s findings are not described in the introduction because have been deleted]. However, in light of the results from the other components of this study, we have reason to believe that the two factors measured by the instrument may not truly represent deep and surface approaches to learning, calling into question the validity of the instrument. p. 34, line 815 - “While the reliability of the two-factor structure of the R-SPQ-2F has been deemed acceptable, questions about the validity of this instrument remain”. Usually reliability is measured using Cronbach’s alpha or McDonald’s Omega, but this is not the case. Hence, I suggest to specify how reliability was assessed. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised above. Please submit your revised manuscript by Feb 20 2021 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:
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, Francesca Chiesi Academic Editor PLOS ONE [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] [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. |
| Revision 2 |
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PONE-D-20-22094R2 Validity concerns with the Revised Study Process Questionnaire (R-SPQ-2F) in undergraduate anatomy and physiology students PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Johnson, 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 detailed below. I accurately read the revised manuscript and checked the changes made in response to my comments. Whereas I can again appreciate the effort made in revising the paper, unfortunately I’m not totally convinced that the revisions help to improve the paper or to solve my previous concerns. Overall, there is still a mixed use of two distinct concepts: reliability and validity. To the best of my knowledge, reliability refers to “internal consistency” and validity refers to the “internal structure” of a scale. If the internal structure (or factor structure) is not supported by the CFA, to discuss reliability is useless. In details: 1. “Our characterization of CFA fit is based on published and accepted fit index cut-offs [1, 2, 3].” The fact that similar indices have been published do not mean that they are acceptable (criteria are clearly reported by the Authors at p. 27, line 611-612). 2. ML and WLS estimation methods: fit indices are not acceptable in both cases, even if slightly better for ML. However, 11 out of 20 factor loadings are <.30 if ML estimation is used. This result confirms the inadequacy of the tested factor solution. 3. At p. 6, the Section Reliability and Validity is confounding: a) “Reliability is evaluated using measures of internal consistency”: why these measures were not calculated? b) reliability has nothing to do with the “equivalence to other instruments measuring the same constructs”. This aspect concerns validity. c) Criterion validity and construct validity definitions are inverted (and not investigated in the current study), and it is not mentioned internal construct validity that has to do with the factorial structure of a scale, largely investigated in the paper. 4. p.21, line 477-481: “internal consistency or single-scale instruments…. For instruments intended to have multiple factors, such…[31].” Even in the cited paper, the point is that to determine internal consistency, we need to know the internal structure of the scale. That is, if the scale has two factors, two internal consistency values should be reported (and a global value if the factors are correlated). Specifically, McDonald’s Omega is a better than Chronbach’s alpha when multiple factors have been identified. I strongly suggest deleting these two added parts. In conclusion, to my opinion results and discussion sections should stress that the CFA analysis did not support the intended factor structure of the scale. Thus, internal construct validity was not demonstrated. Reliability was not investigated (unless reliability indices were reported) and, however, is worthless if the scale is not valid. So I suggest to delete comments on reliability. Please submit your revised manuscript by Apr 03 2021 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:
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, Francesca Chiesi Academic Editor PLOS ONE [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] [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. |
| Revision 3 |
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Validity concerns with the Revised Study Process Questionnaire (R-SPQ-2F) in undergraduate anatomy and physiology students PONE-D-20-22094R3 Dear Dr. Johnson, 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, Francesca Chiesi Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: |
| Formally Accepted |
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PONE-D-20-22094R3 Validity concerns with the Revised Study Process Questionnaire (R-SPQ-2F) in undergraduate anatomy & physiology students Dear Dr. Johnson: 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. Francesca Chiesi Academic Editor PLOS ONE |
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