PONE-D-21-33779Dental Student’s Perception of Gender Differences among Dental Faculty: A Cross-sectional StudyPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Shaista Rashid,

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.

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Carlos Miguel Rios-González, Ph.D

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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Partly

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: I Don't Know

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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: Yes

Reviewer #3: 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: Yes

Reviewer #3: 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: This is a very interesting study. Please note this reviewer’s comments below.

Title:

Regarding the title of Dental Student’s Perception of Gender Differences among Dental Faculty: A Cross- sectional Study

It might be better stated as the following since it only relates to one dental school approach or as: A Cross-sectional Study of Dental Student Perception of Dental Faculty Gender Differences

Throughout the manuscript, please check for clarity and sentence structure.

Page 3 Lines 56-57 regarding

Mentors and role models’ effect on gender related specialty preference has been well-

documented in medicine. [8,9]

Please rephrase this statement for clarity.

Page 4 Lines 75-76 regarding

Survey was administered separately among all clinical years in class and collected from all students regardless of participation.

Can you please explain what is meant by regardless of participation?

Line 77 regarding

No signed consent forms were collected to protect student privacy. Filling the survey was used as implied informed consent.

Please rephrase these two sentences for clarity.

Page 6 Table 1, is this table necessary since the content has been documented within the manuscript.

Page 13 Line 173 regarding

This difference highlights the importance of gender matching and having females in academic roles to inspire female students.

Do you have a reference for this sentence?

Page 14 Line 192 regarding

To increase dental faculty cultural competency, schools need to provide faculty development seminars on gender and cultural awareness.

Did you mean cultural diversity vs. cultural competency? One can never be fully culturally competent since it is a journey. The word cultural competency shows up during the entire manuscript whereas a better fit can be cultural diversity and not competency.

Regarding Methodology

Can you please share the survey as a table so that others can duplicate this work?

Can you explain the high survey response rate if it was on a volunteer basis and confidential?

Did you have a chance to compare D2, to D3 and D4 years of training regarding for any statistical differences? In other words, are the reports more significant or less significant as the dental students advance to clinical confidence.

Reviewer #2: This study (survey) is well conducted and reported. Data in table 2 (Students' exposure to faculty of different genders) may be better presented as a figure (Histogram). Data in tables 3-6 should be defined e.g. Mean (SD)

Reviewer #3: 1. Discussion on the limitations of the manuscript should be expanded further. Comments regarding cultural/racial/ethnic differences are limited since the majority of the sample were Caucasian/White students. Lumping the non-White students together appeared to be for purely statistical analysis reasons, but can be misleading since there are likely differences in perception/experiences among African American/Black, Hispanic/Latino, Asian, and Mixed/multiple ethnic groups.

2. Given the limitations of the data collected (e.g., sample in terms of race/ethnicity is rather homogeneous), the statistical analysis appears appropriate; however, the authors should determine whether much can really be concluded about the non-White students.

3. Authors noted the following: "Yes - all data are fully available without restriction." "The data underlying the results presented in the study is available on request from Shaista Rashid."

4. The manuscript needs to be edited throughout for grammar and clarity. For example, the use of apostrophes, especially accurately discerning between singular and plural, needs to be addressed. On p. 2, please explain "assorted prospective." On p. 7, please clarify ". . . no difference between male and female students in preserving female faculty as role models." On p. 12, need to edit: "This difference could also by (sic) sex stereotyping of women as being. . ."

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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: Yes: Mawlood Kowash

Reviewer #3: 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.

PONE-D-21-33779R1A Cross-sectional Study of Dental Students Perception of Dental Faculty Gender DifferencesPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Shaista Rashid,

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 June 30, 2022. 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: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Carlos Miguel Rios-González, Ph.D

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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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

**********

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

**********

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: The manuscript has improved with your additional edits. This reviewer has additional comments:

On page 4 regarding: Data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire adopted from the cognitive apprenticeship model in clinical practice.[18] Formatting...

Please check Formatting... and clarify the word.

On page 5 regarding: All questions have a not applicable (N/A) option.

Should it be All questions included a not applicable (N/A) option.

On page 13 regarding: This difference highlights the importance of gender matching and having females in academic roles to inspire female students.

Please rephrase this sentence by adding that: It to it is our belief or our reflection or that we speculate that "this difference highlights the importance of gender matching and having females in academic roles to inspire female students or something like that to highlight your reflection vs. a quotation."

It would have been instrumental to read the specific survey questions; however, the questionnaire was not included. The origin of the survey should be documented as well as where the questions came from or how they were formatted.

Reviewer #2: Table 4. Student’s mean (SD) perception scores for male and female faculty according to student’s gender and ethnicity

First row includes

Same applied for Male Faculty and Female Faculty twice and NO students Male and Female data.

or Table 6.

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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.

**********

[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.

A Cross-sectional Study of Dental Students Perception of Dental Faculty Gender Differences

PONE-D-21-33779R2

Dear Dr. Shaista Rashid,

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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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,

Carlos Miguel Rios-González, Ph.D

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE