PONE-D-21-33695Health professions faculty’s perceptions of online teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemicPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Chidzonga,

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. Also Kindly mention how the questionnaire was developed. Was it validated? Was a pilot testing done? How exactly was the qualitative data analysed?  Please submit your revised manuscript by May 26 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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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Pathiyil Ravi Shankar

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

Reviewer #3: Partly

Reviewer #4: No

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

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: No

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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

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: 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: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: 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: The Manuscript titled "Health professions faculty’s perceptions of online teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic' gives a different perspective of challenges faced during the pandemic in the context of a low Income Country like Zimbabwe,Africa. The methodology is sound and robust.However,there are a number of things which can be improved in the manuscript.These are as follows:

1.Incomplete sentence in the abstract.

2. Naming of the tools used for teaching and learning correctly in the introduction section.For eg.Google Meet which was earlier called as Hangouts. Need clarification on what is Google School.

3.No mention of whether the questionnaire used in the study was validated prior to it being administered to the faculty.Also suggest to attach the Questionnaire as supplementary material.

4.The results were presented in tables with a legend included.However,the tables could be presented neatly after some more formatting.Table 7 was repeated twice in the manuscript.The written text had a repetition of the table legends and this can be improved.Data presented did not include parameters like Mean,Median and the statistical significance.This can be improved by doing a more rigorous statistical analysis.

5.The discussion section has been written well though occasionally there are repetition of statements.

6.The conclusion section had some incomplete sentences and were grammatically incorrect.This needs to be checked.

7,Many of the references need formatting according to the Journal requirements.Some references had the names of the Journal missing and some did not have the Year,Volume,Issue and Page numbers.This needs to be checked using a reference manager like EndNote or Mendeley.

8.Overall,there were numerous grammatical errors and missing punctuation markers.I would recommend the manuscript be proofread by a native English speaker or the manuscript be sent to a Professional Proofreading Service to amend the language used in the manuscript.This would ensure that the manuscript would be palatable to readers all over the world.

The manuscript can be considered for publication if all these issues are addressed.

Reviewer #2: Authors have put their good efforts in doing this study and writing manuscript. Authors have to clarify the queries and update the manuscript.

Abstract

it is unstructured. Authors have just mentioned the mixed response of participants on all variables; it will be better if they can elaborate important findings with data.

Methodology

Authors have to mention the study period and about piloting of instrument.

Results

Authors have to mention response rate of faculty. Even though the authors have given sequence to Tables but after table 1, table 7 appears; this could be due to mistake and needs to be corrected.

Discussion

First four paragraphs seems to be review of literature; this can be added in introduction. Discussion must focus on comparing and contrasting the findings with other study and inference of the findings.

Authors have to mention the limitation of study.

Conclusion

Conclusion should be drawn from findings of study. Authors have to look into and rewrite the conclusion.

Reviewer #3: 1.The topic for study is relevant to the current situation faced by faculty of higher education.

2. Please describe the sample selection process.

3. There are many repetitions in the introduction and discussion sections as well as in ethical clearnace part, please review and revise it.

4. Methodology section needs to be revised.

Reviewer #4: The topic is interesting.

The introduction would benefit from synthesis/integration of prior research into Health professions faculty’s perceptions of online teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic globally in general and Africa in particular. Identify the research gap followed by the need of the study.

Methodology:

The study design is a mixed method design. However, the methods in the main body lack detail and do not reflect an understanding of qualitative research. The plan for analysis should contain more detail. Which method of thematic analysis was followed? Who coded the data? Was it an iterative process between authors? How were themes determined?

Quantitative data: Sample Size is 29. The data was collected by online Google form which was emailed to the faculty. Taking into account that the participants were faculty of medicine, dentistry, nursing, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, pharmacy, health promotion and education, radiographers and medical laboratory scientists, the sample size is not adequate.

It is not mentioned in the paper anywhere when the study was conducted. (Year/ month of study).

Sampling: Which technique was used?

Results:

Table 7. Platforms used for online teaching have been repeated twice.

Table 8: About the possible solutions to the barriers to online teaching, whether the data was collected from the participants? as it seems to be generated by the authors.

Discussion: It has to be revised. Major part of the discussion is just the repetition of results.

Few of the sentences are not clear as authors need to specify which study they are referring to.

Eg. In agreement with other studies in the literature…….be more specific

However, literature indicates…….?

Literature indicates that some of the factors…..?

In line with other studies in the literature ……..?

Literature indicates……..authors need to be more specific about which study they are referring to and was the finding of the study.

Conclusions

It is not drawn from the findings of the study.

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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: Rano Mal Piryani

Reviewer #3: Yes: Dr. Medha Anant Joshi

Reviewer #4: Yes: Indrajit Banerjee

[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: PONE-D-21-33695_reviewer with comments.pdf

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-21-33695.pdf

PONE-D-21-33695R1Health professions faculty’s perceptions of online teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemicPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Chidzonga,

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.

Kindly revise as per the reviewers comments.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jul 29 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.

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,

Pathiyil Ravi Shankar

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.

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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 #4: (No Response)

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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 #4: Partly

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #4: 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 #4: 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 #4: 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: I believe that most of my comments have been addressed.There are some minor errors in the results section which need to be corrected in order for the article to be accepted for publication.

Reviewer #4: There are 4 peer reviewers for this paper. I am not able to find response from the authors to the 4 reviewers. I can only find response to reviewer 1 and the same text has been repeated for the response to the reviewer 2.

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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: Yes: Dr Sunil Pazhayanur Venkateswaran

Reviewer #4: Yes: Indrajit Banerjee

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[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: PONE-D-21-33695_R1 with comments.pdf

Health professions faculty’s perceptions of online teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic

PONE-D-21-33695R2

Dear Dr. Chidzonga,

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,

Pathiyil Ravi Shankar

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

**********

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: Perhaps to include a statement on the limitations of the study keeping in mind that only small numbers(n=29) responded to the online survey.Other points to consider is that students and faculty are now able to return to their institutions as more face to face sessions have returned and there is a hybrid arrangement for teaching and learning in most institutions.

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: Yes: Sunil Pazhayanur Venkateswaran

Reviewer #2: Yes: RANO MAL Piryani

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