PONE-D-21-33565An online communication skills training program for nursing students: A quasi-experimental studyPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Kim,

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Prabhat Mittal, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments:

Refer to the following citations

Mittal, P., & Raghuvaran, S. (2021). Entrepreneurship education and employability skills: the mediating role of e-learning courses. Entrepreneurship Education, 4(2), 153–167. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41959-021-00048-6

Mittal, P. (2020). Impact of Digital Capabilities and Technology Skills on Effectiveness of Government in Public Services. In 2020 International Conference on Data Analytics for Business and Industry: Way Towards a Sustainable Economy, ICDABI 2020 (pp. 1–5). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICDABI51230.2020.9325647

Chakraborty, P., Mittal, P., Gupta, M. S., Yadav, S., & Arora, A. (2021). Opinion of students on online education during the COVID-19 pandemic. Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies, 3(3), 357–365. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbe2.240

Yadav, S., Chakraborty, P., Mittal, P., & Arora, U. (2018). Children aged 6–24 months like to watch YouTube videos but could not learn anything from them. Acta Paediatrica, International Journal of Paediatrics, 107(8), 1461–1466. https://doi.org/10.1111/apa.14291

Yadav, S., Chakraborty, P., & Mittal, P. (2021). User Interface of a Drawing App for Children: Design and Effectiveness. In Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing (Vol. 1165, pp. 53–61). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5113-0_4

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: I Don't Know

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: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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: Yes

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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: The manuscript discusses the impact of an online training program on attributes that affect interpersonal communication like empathy, self-efficacy, and anger.

I am finding it difficult to make a recommendation for this article as it does not seem to report some important pieces of information to the reader:

1. Please submit the list of questions asked as a part of the standard questionnaires used. Please submit literature showing the validity and generalizability of these psychometric/behavioral assessment tools preferably in relation to other tools, if any. This is important to gauge the relative merits of these tools. It is difficult to rely on the study results without solid literature on the validity and generalizability backing the methods section.

2. The data tables need to show distribution of each test score as we are dealing with a sample of less than 30 units per control and experiment. Inferences from small samples have a higher risk of getting swayed in one direction or the other.

3. The study does not give details of when the training was conducted and when the pre-post tests were done. This in the case of an intervention that is online and informative in nature is important as it determines the test results.

4. The authors also need to clarify how the pre-post surveys were done. Were they online too?

I am a bit worried about the ramifications that can be drawn from these results in the absence of the above listed information.

Reviewer #2: The authors highlighted an important issue in the nursing practices in South Korea. Appreciated. However I have few comments.

1. How did you select your sample size?

2. Provide few more lines about research randomizer and G power program to make it more comprehensible for the readers.

3. Who designed NVC-CST program. The authors mentioned the program facilitator but I found lack of any information about who designed the program and what is the foundation of that training program.

4. Authors mentioned some causes (including inefficient communication) of premature resignation of newly graduate nurses, however I am interested to know why authors focused only one reason.

Rest is OK from my side.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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An online communication skills training program for nursing students: A quasi-experimental study

PONE-D-21-33565R1

Dear Dr. Kim,

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,

Sergio A. Useche, Ph.D.

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: Partly

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

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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: please add a sentence or two detailing when the pre and post test were conducted. The dates of the intervention and the pre and post test will be helpful.

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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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: No

Reviewer #2: No