Peer Review History

Original SubmissionNovember 3, 2020
Decision Letter - Amanda A. Webster, Editor

PONE-D-20-34654

College from home during COVID-19: A mixed methods study of heterogeneous experiences

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Morris,

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.

I would particularly suggest you consider the comments provided by Reviewer 2 regarding Time 2 comparison and interview protocols and data analysis.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Apr 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:

  • 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,

Amanda A. Webster

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

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 stating the following in the Financial Disclosure section:

"This project was funded by National Science Foundation grants EDA-2009977 awarded to JM, PN, AD, and ER, CHS-2016365, and CHS-1941537, awarded to JM. Funding was also provided through a research gift from Google awarded to JM and a grant from Samsung awarded to JM, PN, AD, and ER.

KSK (the second author) was supported by a National Research Service Award from the National Institute of Mental Health (F31MH117827)."

We note that one or more of the authors are employed by a commercial company: Google

We note that you received funding from a commercial source: Samsung

a) Please provide an amended Funding Statement declaring this commercial affiliation, as well as a statement regarding the Role of Funders in your study. If the funding organization did not play a role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript and only provided financial support in the form of authors' salaries and/or research materials, please review your statements relating to the author contributions, and ensure you have specifically and accurately indicated the role(s) that these authors had in your study. You can update author roles in the Author Contributions section of the online submission form.

Please also include the following statement within your amended Funding Statement.

“The funder provided support in the form of salaries for authors [insert relevant initials], but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section.”

If your commercial affiliation did play a role in your study, please state and explain this role within your updated Funding Statement.

b) Please also provide an updated Competing Interests Statement declaring this commercial affiliation along with any other relevant declarations relating to employment, consultancy, patents, products in development, or marketed products, etc.  

Within your Competing Interests Statement, please confirm that this commercial affiliation does not alter your adherence to all PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials by including the following statement: "This does not alter our adherence to  PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.” (as detailed online in our guide for authors http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/competing-interests) . If this adherence statement is not accurate and  there are restrictions on sharing of data and/or materials, please state these. Please note that we cannot proceed with consideration of your article until this information has been declared.

Please include both an updated Funding Statement and Competing Interests Statement in your cover letter. We will change the online submission form on your behalf.

Please know it is PLOS ONE policy for corresponding authors to declare, on behalf of all authors, all potential competing interests for the purposes of transparency. PLOS defines a competing interest as anything that interferes with, or could reasonably be perceived as interfering with, the full and objective presentation, peer review, editorial decision-making, or publication of research or non-research articles submitted to one of the journals. Competing interests can be financial or non-financial, professional, or personal. Competing interests can arise in relationship to an organization or another person. Please follow this link to our website for more details on competing interests: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/competing-interests

3.We note that the grant information you provided in the ‘Funding Information’ and ‘Financial Disclosure’ sections do not match.

When you resubmit, please ensure that you provide the correct grant numbers for the awards you received for your study in the ‘Funding Information’ section.

[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

Reviewer #2: Partly

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: I Don't Know

**********

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: No

**********

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: 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: This is a very relevant study, well-designed and clearly written.

I agree with the methodological decisions of the authors and I find it valuable for other researchers in the field, since the findings underline the need for interventions oriented towards problem-focused coping, and suggest opportunities for peer role modeling.

Reviewer #2: The study uses an interesting methodology to sample data in snapshots collected regularly via text message, so data gathered at regular intervals across a couple of years. That the study has been under way since before the pandemic provided an opportunity to gather data on students’ experiences. There is obviously a very rich data set here.

I have a concern about Time2 (March 2020) as the key point for comparison. This was very early in the pandemic, particularly in the US, where lockdowns and other measures were only just beginning. A justification for this early view would be helpful as motivation for this study. The earliest comparisons suggest that some students were less-stressed in March 2020 compared to the earlier comparison points. Could this be a novelty effect? Was this somehow accounted for? Does the claim about low-stress hold up given the earliness of the data gathering? The links to coping strategies are important for us as educators to consider how to best support students through difficult circumstances.

I note that, for international readers of this paper, ‘spring’ and ‘autumn’ reference Northern Hemisphere seasons and this confusion could be obviated by using months instead of seasonal references. It would also be helpful to include a statement about how the local area and university were impacted and by what timeline as the pandemic grew and public health measures came into force. What were these? How did your university respond? This local context is important for considering the results and implications of this study. Further, do students take year-long courses at your university? Or all of them semester-long? Or a combination? If year-long, students may have had time to develop relationships, but if semester-long, the absence of personal interactions may be more acutely felt.

This study is embedded in a larger one, which gives a good grounding for asking the questions in this study. The analyses provide reasonable means to answering them. The statistical tools offer fine-grained and intensive data about the effects on and experiences for undergraduate students through the pandemic. The statistical analysis in the earlier section is detailed and reasonable, and the two sets of framing offer reasonable grounds to interpret the stats through the interviews.

I think limitations for aggregating big data needs to be acknowledged. There were also differences between Likert Scale ratings, and thus these would be interpreted differently. Similarly, self-report data is often called into question. How were these issues dealt with when the results were interrogated?

A growing literature base demonstrates and details challenges undergraduates faced during 2020/covid. Some of these are local-level challenges faced by students and the value of this study is the fine-grained detail that highlights and shows comparisons with earlier years. The study reports themes/challenges that may be common with what other research has reported, but the depth present here adds to this literature with its fine-grained detail.

I’d like to know more about why authors chose to organize themes from interviews as challenges and strategies, even as this is presumably a choice about how to present results.

There will be further interesting responses to the implications of the pandemic at the university level, particularly as many universities are pushing toward more online work while reorganizing/restructuring in response to financial strains.

There are important messages in the interview analysis, especially around social interactions that are afforded by on campus/in person activity that is necessarily associated with being a college student. This sort of engagement is perhaps underappreciated by those who advocate online learning for efficiency, cost etc, which is another key important result of the reported research—to draw attention to this aspect of college/university life and the social/protective factors entailed.

Where is the interview protocol?

p. 38, line 847 says there was training offered in CBT. The study didn’t talk about training.

The final discussion points do not really follow from the paper and what was presented.

There are very few minor production errors, misplaced apostrophes, etc

**********

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: Dimitrios Vlachopoulos

Reviewer #2: 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.

Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: WN review of MS.docx
Revision 1

PONE-D-20-34654

College from home during COVID-19: A mixed-methods study of heterogeneous experiences

PLOS ONE

Thank you for the opportunity to revise and resubmit our manuscript. We appreciate the thoughtful review of this work. Below, we address the concerns raised in the review.

Editorial issues and disclosures (grants, funding roles)

D1. Formatting

We have reformatted the main body of the manuscript and the tables to comply with PLOS ONE guidelines.

D2.a. Amended financial disclosures

In the cover letter, we include an updated funding statement clarifying commercial involvement (below).

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Nos. EDA-2009977 awarded to JM, PN, AD, and ER, CHS-2016365, and CHS-1941537, awarded to JM. Funding was also provided through a grant from Samsung awarded to JM, PN, AD, and ER.

KSK (the second author) was supported by a National Research Service Award from the National Institute of Mental Health (F31MH117827).

Additional support came from a Google Security and Privacy unrestricted gift awarded to JM that provided consulting income for researcher MM. SC, a researcher at Google, is an author on this paper who contributed to study design, analysis, and manuscript preparation. The specific role of this author is articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section. The manuscript was approved by an internal Google review.”

D2.b. Updated competing interests statement declaring a commercial affiliation

The support received from Google, the involvement of a researcher employed by Google, and the grant from Samsung do not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

D3. Grant information in the ‘Funding Information’ and ‘Financial Disclosure’ sections

The funding from Samsung and Google is now reported in the Funding Information section. There are no grant numbers for these awards.

R2.1 Time 1 versus Time 2 as a point of comparison

R2 raised the concern about the use of Time 1 as the comparison point across years, pointing out that March may have been too early to detect adverse consequences of the pandemic.

We thank R2 for raising this concern. In response, we reran the yearly comparisons based on data from the Time 2 surveys (collected in June of each year). The results were nearly identical suggesting that levels of depression, stress, anxiety, and loneliness were not higher in June of 2020 than in June of 2019. We have added the sentences below to the manuscript and have deleted the two sentences in the limitations that pointed out this issue (Revised Manuscript with Track Changes lines 904-906).

“Time 2 comparisons from 2019 and 2020 similarly indicates no yearly differences in depressive symptoms, anxiety, stress, or loneliness. ” (Manuscript lines 256-257; Revised Manuscript with Track Changes lines 262-263).

“There were no within-person changes in Time 1 depressive symptoms, stress, or loneliness nor were there any within-person differences in any of these variables, including anxiety, in Time 2 data.” (Manuscript lines 260-262; Revised Manuscript with Track Changes lines 266-268).

R2.2 Labeling of academic terms.

R2 pointed out that references to autumn and spring terms may confuse readers located outside the Northern hemisphere.

To address this potential confusion, we have added dates of the Winter and Spring terms to Table 1, described in R2.3.

We think the single seasonal label in the text (Spring term) will be less cumbersome for readers than a month and date combination.

R2.3 Clarification of pandemic timeline and local response

R2’s suggested that we describe the local and university responses to the pandemic.

In response, we added a timeline to provide context for our findings (Table 1; Manuscript line 133; Revised Manuscript with Track Changes line 136).

Table 1. Timeline of Local Response to the Pandemic

Date

Event

2/28/2020

Alerts about local community spread of COVID-19.

3/6/2020

University announced shift to online learning for the remainder of Winter term (6 January 2020 - 20 March 2020)

3/13/2020

University announced that Spring term (30 March 2020 - 12 June 2020) would begin online. Statewide ban on large gatherings and closure of K-12 schools.

3/18/2020

University announced that all of Spring term would be online

3/23/2020

Statewide stay-at-home order issued.

5/4/2020 - present (March, 2021)

Phased restrictions on in-person contact, based on county public health metrics. Classes remained online for the entire 2020-2021 academic year.

R2.4 Measurement differences in predictor and dependent variables

R2 asked for clarification on how we reconciled different Likert Scale ratings.

We thank R2 for the opportunity to clarify. For most of the comparisons, we standardized the variables before analyzing the data to account for measurement differences. The coefficients represent standard deviation units rather than the Likert scale ratings, allowing comparison of variables measured on different scales. The models reported in Table 2 are the only ones with unstandardized data. The variables used in these analyses are counts representing the number of active coping behaviors relative to maladaptive. The unstandardized variables allow the reader to see the relative change in distress indicators for each additional adaptive behavior relative to maladaptive ones. These decisions do not change the p-value; they affect only the magnitude of the coefficient. Since we refrain from comparing coefficients across models, we believe that these analytic decisions are sound and provide the reader with the most understandable metrics.

R2.5. Limitations of self-report

R2 mentioned that self-report data is often called into question and asked about how we handled concerns about self-report data in our analysis.

We appreciate R2’s concern about self-reported data. We note this as a limitation: "This exploratory study of college student experiences during the pandemic was limited by the self-report nature of assessments, time-based measures as a proxy for pandemic effects, and a college sample … Students' evaluation of their effectiveness in coping was not benchmarked with objective measures such as grade point average."

(Manuscript lines 860-865; Revised Manuscript with Track Changes lines 889-894)

While coping effectiveness may be less objectively assessed in self-report than by external measures such as grades, internal states such as stress and mood are best assessed by self-report (Stone, 2000). Additionally, a review of the empirical literature on the validity of self-reported health-risk behaviors concludes “self-reported data are accurate when individuals understand the questions and when there is a strong sense of anonymity and little fear of reprisal” (Brener, Billy, & Grady, 2003). Since all survey responses were kept confidential in this study, we have no reason to suspect that participants would be prone to bias their responses. Finally, we tested for the reliability and validity of the self-reported data and include these statistics in the measures section. All measures demonstrate strong psychometric properties, pointing to evidence of minimal response bias.

One limitation of self-reported internal states concerns retrospective bias, in which recent experiences dominate recall (Tourangeau, 1999). We address this bias through the use of experience sampling methods (ESM) which prompt individuals to describe current and very recent states (Trull & Ebner-Priemer, 2009). Comparisons between ESM data and traditional self-reports find poor to moderate agreement, suggesting inaccuracies in recall of mood and coping styles over long time periods (Stone et al., 1998; Solhan, Trull, Jahng, & Wood, 2009). Our use of ESM may therefore provide a more accurate description of participants’ psychological functioning and coping behaviors than methods relying on retrospective recall.

References:

Brener, N. D., Billy, J. O., & Grady, W. R. (2003). Assessment of factors affecting the validity of self-reported health-risk behavior among adolescents: Evidence from the scientific literature. Journal of Adolescent Health, 33(6), 436-457.

Solhan, M. B., Trull, T. J., Jahng, S., & Wood, P. K. (2009). Clinical assessment of affective instability: comparing EMA indices, questionnaire reports, and retrospective recall. Psychological Assessment, 21(3), 425.

Stone, A. A. (2000). The science of self-report: Implications for research and practice. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Stone, A. A., Schwartz, J. E., Neale, J. M., Shiffman, S., Marco, C. A., Hickcox, M., ... & Cruise, L. J. (1998). A comparison of coping assessed by ecological momentary assessment and retrospective recall. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(6), 1670.

Tourangeau, R. (1999). Remembering what happened: Memory errors and survey reports. In The science of self-report (pp. 41–60). Psychology Press.

Trull, T. J., & Ebner-Priemer, U. W. (2009). Using experience sampling methods/ecological momentary assessment (ESM/EMA) in clinical assessment and clinical research: introduction to the special section. Psychological Assessment, 21(4), 457–462. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0017653

R2.6 Organization of qualitative themes by challenges and strategies

R2 asked why we chose to organize themes by challenges and strategies.

To some extent, this structure flowed from the objective of this study. We sought to learn about students’ experiences during the pandemic -- widely recognized as a challenge for students and other populations. In-depth interviews allowed us to characterize those challenges and illustrate how these are contextualized in students’ daily lives. Students’ detailed descriptions of their attempts to learn and communicate in this context illuminated their strategies for academic engagement and psychosocial wellbeing. In the course of analysis, we recognized that most of the content and most of the codes related either to challenges that students faced or how they were coping with those challenges, so it was a natural framework for presenting the themes. We differentiated sets of students’ strategies and described them in detail with the idea that they could inform thinking about interventions.

R2.8 Inclusion of the interview protocol

The interview protocol has been added to the repository, as requested by R2.

https://github.com/kskuehn/UWEXP_COVID/blob/main/Interview%20Guide%20for%20PLOS%20ONE%20repository.docx

R2.9 Confusion around whether or not CBT was delivered to participants

R2 requested clarification about CBT offered in this study.

This study did not involve any treatment or skills training. We do propose broader dissemination of skills training offered in CBT and DBT modalities, based on the findings that active coping was associated with lower depression ratings as well as higher ratings of perceived effectiveness in coping. We have reworded the manuscript for clarity. The original text "To help students develop effective coping skills, the training offered in cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavioral therapies could be made broadly accessible." has been revised to "To help students develop effective coping skills, the skills training that is commonly part of cognitive behavioral and dialectical behavioral therapies could be offered to all students, not just those in treatment for mental health concerns.”

(Manuscript lines 849-852; Revised Manuscript with Track Changes lines 877-880).

R2.10 Connection between final discussion points and study findings

R2 raised the issue of whether our final discussion points followed from our findings.

We edited the final paragraph of the discussion to clarify the link with our results. The sentence, “Rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all approach to supporting students who are participating in college remotely, interventions may need to be tailored and prioritized for different individuals, keeping in mind the context for their struggles.”

is now worded:

“Rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all approach to supporting students who are participating in college remotely, our findings of heterogeneity underscore the importance of tailoring interventions, keeping in mind the context for their struggles.”

(Manuscript line 843; Revised Manuscript with Track Changes line 870).

We have confirmed that the remaining discussion points are rooted in our analysis.

R2.11. Production errors and typos

We reviewed the document and corrected errors. Those corrections are marked.

Additional changes

Two minor statistical corrections were made, described below. These do not alter the major findings or the points highlighted in the discussion.

In the initial draft, when providing the summary statistics for between-person coping as a predictor of distress during the 2020 Spring term, we accidentally reported the results for the Perceived Stress Scale-4 (PSS-4) instead of the Stress Severity Ratings. This error did not affect Figure 3 or the conclusions, which were rightly based on the Stress Severity item. This error has been in this revised submission (Manuscript lines 256-257; Revised Manuscript with Track Changes lines 262-263).

We also noticed that in the initial submission the coping models that predicted academic stress were erroneously reported from a mixed-effects model without the random time effect included. It was determined from fit indices (i.e., AIC and BIC) that this effect should be included and it was included in all of our other coping models. We therefore applied the model with the random effect to the ‘Coping comparisons during Spring 2020 term’ section. With this correction, the between-person problem-focused coping no longer predicted increased academic stress (as it had been reported in the initial submission). The corrected text reports the adjustment (Manuscript lines 343-344; Revised Manuscript with Track Changes lines 354-355).

For clarification, several variables initially only reported in S5 table were added to the text (Manuscript lines 268-272; Revised Manuscript with Track Changes lines 275-279) to describe the small changes in reported distress over the Spring 2020 term.

Some stylistic changes were made for clarity and one supporting reference was added. Those edits are marked in the manuscript.

One co-author, accidentally omitted in the initial submission, has been added. That change was made in the portal and the title page.

Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: Response to reviewers.pdf
Decision Letter - Amanda A. Webster, Editor

College from home during COVID-19: A mixed methods study of heterogeneous experiences

PONE-D-20-34654R1

Dear Dr. Morris,

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,

Amanda A. Webster

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

**********

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

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

**********

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: Thank you very much for the detailed response and the corrections. All issues have been addressed and the structure is clearer now. I recommend this paper for publication.

Reviewer #2: I appreciate that the authors have thoroughly addressed questions and comments from the earlier review.

I noted a couple of typos: Lines 268, 280, p. 12: words missing before naming tables (S5 table, S6-S8 tables)

**********

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: Dimitrios Vlachopoulos

Reviewer #2: No

Formally Accepted
Acceptance Letter - Amanda A. Webster, Editor

PONE-D-20-34654R1

College from home during COVID-19: A mixed-methods study of heterogeneous experiences

Dear Dr. Morris:

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. Amanda A. Webster

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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 .