PONE-D-20-37558

Effectiveness of blended learning in pharmacy education: A systematic review and meta-analysis

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Thunga,

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.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Gwo-Jen Hwang

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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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: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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: No

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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: First, thank you for submitting this review and meta-analysis to the journal. Please consider the following during the peer review process:

1. Abstract - You can remove "This review follows the PRISMA guideline." - PRISMA is a reporting standard, not a methodology. In the full text, you can certainly say your review adheres to the reporting standards recommended by the PRISMA statement.

2. Eligibility (Page 3) - Please clarify. You state in (3) "pre-test score for single arm studies" and (5) "were two groups" - so did you included single group papers or not? Based on results, you included 2 single arm studies, so (5) doesn't appear to be an accurate inclusion criteria.

3. Acronyms - Spell out all acronyms for first use. For all tables, please include the abbreviations and acronym definitions as a key.

4. Page 13 - "face-to-face" and "face to face" (be consistent)

5. Quality Assessment - A significant majority of studies used prior year scores as control with few studies attempting to control for confounding. Is it appropriate to pool the results of analyses?

6. Unequal weighted test scores - It appears by focusing on the mean difference, you equally weight 1 point on a 100 point exam vs. a 50 point exam, despite the point value being worth twice as much on the latter.

Reviewer #2: This study was a SR and MA that sought to assess the effectiveness of blended learning teaching strategies compared to traditional lectures. The study was well done. Methods were clear. Technical writing and grammar need to be revised. Attached is a file with grammatical revisions.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: T. Joseph Mattingly II

Reviewer #2: Yes: Alexandra Perez

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-20-37558_reviewer.pdf

Effectiveness of blended learning in pharmacy education: A systematic review and meta-analysis

PONE-D-20-37558R1

Dear Dr. Thunga,

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.

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Kind regards,

Gwo-Jen Hwang

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

**********

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

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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: No additional comments. Thanks for your submission to the Journal!

Reviewer #2: The authors still need to made some minor grammatical edits. After these corrections are made, it is ok to fully accept.

Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-20-37558_R1_reviewer_resubmission.pdf