How curriculum delivery translates into entrepreneurial skills: The mediating role of knowledge of information and communication technology

Javed Iqbal; Xie Yi; Muhammad Azeem Ashraf; Ruihua Chen; Jin Ning; Shahnaz Perveen; Zahid Imran

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0265880

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionMay 21, 2021
2 Dec 2021 Decision Letter - Alessandro Margherita, Editor PONE-D-21-16858How curriculum delivery translates into entrepreneurial skills: The mediating role of knowledge of information and communication technologyPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Ashraf, 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 submit your revised manuscript by Jan 16 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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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 If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. [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: I Don't Know Reviewer #2: 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: No 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: 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: The paper aims to show how curriculum delivery translates into entrepreneurial skills and uses dimensions of curriculum delivery and a questionnaire survey to assess knowledge of information and communication technology and entrepreneurial skills with a study group of 482 students at universities in Lahore, Pakistan. The paper is well-written and easy to follow. Authors claim novelty in analysing the effects of dimensions of Curriculum Development (objectives, contents, teaching strategies and feedback/assessment) with the aim to develop recommendations for administrators and policy makers. 1. Will the team make the data available in a suitable form on open source? If not, please add comments to explain why 2. Methodology: The authors present a good overview of the developed hypotheses and the data collecting, incl. the development of the questionnaire with reference to the original works. The authors use well-documented dimensions of ES, CD and ICT knowledge and justify their selection. The sample demographics are discussed, however models do not consider personal or environmental factors. Furthermore, sample size is not discussed. Authors should add comments to clarify 3. Please review the document's literature reviews to make sure that it is clear throughout when authors are speaking about ES and ICT knowledge of students vs. ES and ICT knowledge of educators. This can be done e.g. in line 154: "CD can increase ES in students through ICT knowledge of educators" 4. Chapter limitations and future research, should be extended slightly. E.g. line 552: "explore other dimensions of variables", it is not clear what is meant here. Do the authors mean by considering the determinants of skills such as social and or demographic (The authors comment on the demographics of the survey group, but it is not clear if the sample is representative.) or do they refer to including other aspects of ICT literacy? Compared to ICT knowledge used here, the digital skills concept is broader (e.g. Van Laar et al., 2017). They may also want to comment on the effects the authors may expect on the study data and it’s conclusions. 5. Line 534 ff (implications and limitations): Authors should comment on using direct vs. indirect relationships and what the conclusions on the reliability of results are and what this means for the implications. Very minor: Line 55: Therefore, we predict that effective CD is associated positively with ES, (predict → hypothesize?) Line 163: Please check: "This study also complements previous work by clarifying CD in shaping ICT knowledge that leads to CD." Reviewer #2: 1) Support better the research gap, already in the introduction, with updated and authoritative literature; 2) Provide more details on the characteristics of the research sample, including limitations for generalization; 3) Extend the discussion with theoretical advancements (i.e. how the paper advances the extant knowledge in the field); 4) Replace the figures with high-quality ones; 5) Have the paper proofread by a professional mothertongue. ****** 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 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/. 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Revision 1
3 Mar 2022 Author Response PONE-D-21-16858 How curriculum delivery translates into entrepreneurial skills: The mediating role of knowledge of information and communication technology PLOS ONE 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: I Don't Know Reviewer #2: Yes 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The 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: No 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: No Answer: We thank the reviewers for their comments. We hired “Charlesworth Author Services” for language check, and we believe the language of the article is checked by the professional editor as well as by native speaker. A certificate of editing is attached. 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 aims to show how curriculum delivery translates into entrepreneurial skills and uses dimensions of curriculum delivery and a questionnaire survey to assess knowledge of information and communication technology and entrepreneurial skills with a study group of 482 students at universities in Lahore, Pakistan. The paper is well-written and easy to follow. Authors claim novelty in analysing the effects of dimensions of Curriculum Development (objectives, contents, teaching strategies and feedback/assessment) with the aim to develop recommendations for administrators and policy makers. Comment 1. Will the team make the data available in a suitable form on open source? If not, please add comments to explain why Answer: we have provided data as supporting documents. Comment 2. Methodology: The authors present a good overview of the developed hypotheses and the data collecting, incl. the development of the questionnaire with reference to the original works. The authors use well-documented dimensions of ES, CD and ICT knowledge and justify their selection. The sample demographics are discussed, however models do not consider personal or environmental factors. Furthermore, sample size is not discussed. Authors should add comments to clarify Answer: we have revised our article, and we have added sample size, and other clarification on why different factors were not discussed. Comment 3. Please review the document's literature reviews to make sure that it is clear throughout when authors are speaking about ES and ICT knowledge of students vs. ES and ICT knowledge of educators. This can be done e.g. in line 154: "CD can increase ES in students through ICT knowledge of educators" Answer: We thank the reviewer for pointing out this. We have added the required information. Comment 4. Chapter limitations and future research, should be extended slightly. E.g. line 552: "explore other dimensions of variables", it is not clear what is meant here. Do the authors mean by considering the determinants of skills such as social and or demographic (The authors comment on the demographics of the survey group, but it is not clear if the sample is representative.) or do they refer to including other aspects of ICT literacy? Compared to ICT knowledge used here, the digital skills concept is broader (e.g. Van Laar et al., 2017). They may also want to comment on the effects the authors may expect on the study data and it’s conclusions. Answer: We have revised and extended it. Comment 5. Line 534 ff (implications and limitations): Authors should comment on using direct vs. indirect relationships and what the conclusions on the reliability of results are and what this means for the implications. Answer: We thank the reviewer for this suggestion. We have revised this section. Very minor: Line 55: Therefore, we predict that effective CD is associated positively with ES, (predict → hypothesize?) Line 163: Please check: "This study also complements previous work by clarifying CD in shaping ICT knowledge that leads to CD." Answer: We appreciate reviewers’ suggestion, and we have revised it in accordance with the comments and suggestions. Reviewer #2: 1) Support better the research gap, already in the introduction, with updated and authoritative literature; Answer: we thank the reviewer for the suggestion. We have already added it in the introduction section. 2) Provide more details on the characteristics of the research sample, including limitations for generalization; Answer: We have revised it, and added research sample. 3) Extend the discussion with theoretical advancements (i.e. how the paper advances the extant knowledge in the field); Answer: we have spent a lot of time in writing the revising the discussion, and we appreciate these comments by the reviewer, as it helped us in improving the discussion session 4) Replace the figures with high-quality ones; Answer: we appreciate this concern, we have uploaded figure with high quality pixels. 5) Have the paper proofread by a professional mothertongue. Answer: For this article, we hired “Charlesworth Author Services” for language check, and we believe the language of the article is checked by the professional editor as well as by native speaker. 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 Reviewer #2: No -- Azeem Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265880.r002
10 Mar 2022 Decision Letter - Alessandro Margherita, Editor How curriculum delivery translates into entrepreneurial skills: The mediating role of knowledge of information and communication technology PONE-D-21-16858R1 Dear Dr. Ashraf, 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, Alessandro Margherita Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265880.r003
Formally Accepted
2 May 2022 Acceptance Letter - Alessandro Margherita, Editor PONE-D-21-16858R1 How curriculum delivery translates into entrepreneurial skills: The mediating role of knowledge of information and communication technology Dear Dr. Ashraf: 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. Alessandro Margherita Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265880.r004

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