PONE-D-22-07870The features and holistic athlete impacts of a UK sports-friendly school: Student-athlete, coach and teacher perspectives.PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Thompson,

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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Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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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

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

Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #2: N/A

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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?

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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: Review Manuscript PONE-D-22-07870

“The features and holistic athlete impacts of a UK sports-friendly school: Student athlete, coach and teacher perspectives”

Thank you for the opportunity to review this work!

General:

The current study aims to give insights into a Dual Career environment in the UK context by interviewing both student athletes and coaches/teachers about their experience of their immediate, intermediate and long-term development. The manuscript is in general well written and structured, but rather long and in some parts are repetitive.

The current study was an interesting read and advances the literature by providing detailed description of both the benefits and drawbacks of following a dual career at sports-friendly boarding school. Please find some more specific comments below that might further enhance the quality of the manuscripts.

Abstract:

It should be clear that “Salkeld High” is a fictive name or pseudonym from the beginning. I had to read until page 7 to find out about it. I would have it set in quotation marks throughout the text.

Sport friendly school student-athletes. Is school needed here?

Keep the same order of academic/vocational; athletic/physical; psychosocial and psychological in both parts of the abstract.

Introduction:

Generally, well written with relevant references. Gap in literature clearly identified (p. 5). Five gaps are addressed, will all be addressed?

The aim is clear and well-defined. Maybe you could mention Salked High instead of the general SfS expression in the aims.

Methods:

A critical realist approach was adopted, and the authors argue that a qualitative methodology enables the researcher to perceive the impacts of the students involvement in the SfS. I would argue that a case study methodology would fit the research aims better, because Stalked High is clearly your case and the student-athletes and the coaches/teachers and the first authors own experience are the informants about the case. You might want to consider re-formulating your research design.

Context of the study (or case description, l. 155ff): It can be difficult to find the right balance to present the case and then writing in the results section about it. Please see that the information is not redundant (what does the reader need to know before the results to understand the context?).

International people might not be familiar with the abbreviations of GCSE and BTEC.

l. 179. The first author worked (past). Is the work terminated or does it still go on?

Participants: when reading the information about the coaches and teachers, it was not clear who was (only) a coach, or if the always have a double role. Were there any teachers interviewed that have no coaching role?

Data analyses is well described.

l. 280. Figure 1 is clearly an empirical illustration of “Salked High” and should not be termed a programme theory model.

Results:

l. 307 ff. This case description is a repetition of the “Context of the study” from the Method section. Shorten or delete.

l. 335: Heading “Integrated Sport School Environment and Community”. Why not: “Features of Salkeld High” (as in Figure 1?

Just list the 6 features without elaborating here (about nr 4), you do that later in more detail.

l. 352 ff. Again, case description and repetitive. The authors are advised to go through the whole manuscripts to spot passages where the same information is given.

In the results part, focus on the empirical qualitative material (as it is done on p. 18-27).

Discussion:

The discussion is well elaborated and incorporates relevant literature.

Methodological reflection (p. 34). Clearly, the first author has a special role and position through her involvement in the SfS under description. The potential bias is described concerning interpretation of the data. However, it should also be discussed how her position potentially impacted the data collection with student-athletes (power-relation and hierarchy) and coaches/teachers (her peers). Could they really be open and critical when talking to a member of the same institution??

Concerning “transition”: The term has not been introduced before in the Introduction or with references to the broad transition literature. We know from previous case studies (Henriksen et al.) that environments are dynamic and are evolving concerning their staff, members, culture, and their surroundings.

Conclusions: Text and Table 1 (practical implications) is double information. Table 1 is not necessary.

Figure 1: Even though the Figure is quite loaded with information, I like the graphical summary including the development perspective/ outcomes. Should “impact” or “outcomes” be added to immediate/intermediate/long-term?

I hope these comments are helpful. Best of luck in further developing this research!

Reviewer #2: ABSTRACT

- In the Abstract you talk about the 'Impact of sport schools features on the holistic development of student-athletes'... Would you consider reviewing the title and short title to reflect both this aim, and also to reflect the 'case study' approach? This needs to be consistent across the whole study.

- In Abstract, specifcy number of teachers, and coaches. Show the strength of your sample.

- Line 31, Abstract is weak in presenting research Methods.

INTRODUCTION / LITERATURE

- 47-49 Need literature support.

- "Whole Person" - is that a quote? If yes, you need page numbers.

- page 3, 1/3.5 pages does not refer to sports and/or schools! You mention that in line 77 first. A little too late when you consider that the introduction is just 132 lines. Get the focus of the study clear earlier on.

- 82. that/which, instead of 'who permit[s]'.

- 82. Quote is not well integrated in the sentence.

- 82. Lines 82 to 84 you are using ' ' for direct quotes. You should be using " ". Be consistent across.

- 88. Do you consider a new para before 'While exploring...'

- The use of unneccessary acronyms, only makes it harder for the reader. If acronyms are used to reduce word count, then perhaps you need to review your writing. Otherwise, the acronyms make it harder for readers to remember what each one of them means.

- 87 ISCED - in full would give more context to the readers.

- in lines 88-93 you move from Literature to Scope, and then in 94 you move back to literature. Perhaps it is better if you reconsider the posiiton of lines 88-93.

- 94-97. It is not fully clear wheter an ASS = ESS and non-ss = sfs. You need to clarify what a non-ss is. Here it very much sounds like an SFS! Unclear consistency between 94-109 and Morris' Definitions (80-86).

- 131. Perhaps sentence needs to become'of an SfS in the UK and their impact on the holistic development of student-athletes, from the perspective of the student-athletes, coaches and teachers. As discussed earlier, you need to be consistent across the whole study on this.

- Paper needs better consistency in (1) Title and scope, (2) use of coaches/teachers Vs Coaches and Teachers.

- Try to reduce repetitions. Certain things are repeated only few lines later.

METHODOLOGY

- Line 136-142 you mention critical analysis but not thematic analysis.

- First time you mention TA is in line 250, and you do not mention it in 'research approach'

-146-153. Focus more on data collection. Should it be moved to reduce repetition?

- 152. ...and to enable an in-depth...

- 158-163 Can be written better.

- 164. Athletics and swimming wouldnt' probably cover tactics. Or would they?

- 179-180 Presents an issue of confidentiality. We know the authoer, so if one does a search for the authoer one would probably discover Salked High's real name. If I am right, I would say that Salked High in reality is Queen Ethelburga’s (QE) College... if this is yours - https://www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/blogs/carnegie-xchange/2021/04/the-impacts-of-sport-schools-on-holistic-athlete-development-ffion-thompson/

- 195 and 205. Selection Criteria and actual selection don't fully agree. In line 195 you say that participants had to be... the head coach of one of the programmes. In line 205 you say that one was director of sport. This raises questions. Why?

- 206. 'three of them being teachers' needs to be explained better (consistency with line 212 is important).

- Thematic analysis is not supported by any reference, nor it is clear which process of thematic analysis was applied. Clarke and Braun?

- The concept of Thrustworthiness needs to be underlined, especially to clarify how data led, to the findings in a trustworthy manner, and how themes emerged from that same process.

RESULTS

- I would rather use the term 'FINDINGS' instead of 'RESULTS'. But feel free to decide.

- If the last figure on the last page is Figure 1, it needs a clear caption with numbering.

-320-321. "So I think..." Sentence is not conclusive.

- Ex 318-321. Participants' direct quotes need to be better integrated.

-321-325. It is an important deep analysis of the implications of the model. Set it in a more 'visual' manner, perhaps in a section on its own?

- 326-327. Better in Limitations?

DISCUSSION & CONCLUSION

816-818. Peraps better to underline in Methodology?

IMPORTANT POINTS

- This study needs to clearly indicate the 'Themes', 'Sub Themes, and categories emerging from the data analysis. There seems to be limited coherence in the process of data analysis, presentation of 'results' and 'conclusion'.

- For a Thematic Analysis Approach, it would be better to use a categorisation chart to show how the data led to the themes, sub themes and categories emerging from the data.

- Coherence across the subtitles in the 'results' section and the conclusion / figure 1 may aid in having further clarity as to what the main findings are. Hence, perhaps coherence between the emerging themes (sub themes, categories) and the sections within the results' section would assist in the requested coherence.

- Table 1 is an important figure, but seems to be skipping an important step, that of the 'clarity' of the emerging themes.

- It is not exactly clear what the figure on the last page is presenting - it has no caption to support its position either.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Andreas Küttel

Reviewer #2: Yes: Renzo Kerr Cumbo

[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.]

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PONE-D-22-07870R1A case study of the features and holistic athlete impacts of a UK sports-friendly school: Student-athlete, coach and teacher perspectives.PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Thompson,

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 Nov 05 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,

Giancarlo Condello, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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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

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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

**********

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

Reviewer #1: N/A

**********

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

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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

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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: “A case study of the features and holistic athlete impacts of a UK sports-friendly school: Student-athlete, coach and teacher perspectives.”

General:

I congratulate the authors for significantly improving the manuscript and for doing a very thorough job by revising the text based on my and the other reviewer’s comments. After reading the new version, I have a few comments or suggestions that the authors may take on board for the next revision.

Abstract:

Well described and improved

Introduction:

Generally, well written with relevant references.

l. 123 “limited research evaluates how features affect athlete impact” is not clear.

l. 127. Kuettel, Christensen, Zysko & Hansen (2020) compared DC environments across Europe and emphasized the different DC mindsets depending on the cultural context.

l. 128-129. The same information is given in line 140-142. And again in 146-147. I believe it is most appropriate to state the aims just before the Method section.

Methods:

Critical realism is better explained and integrated in the project’s description. Participants are well explained. Data analyses and collection are well explained. It could be considered to first explain the collection part and then the analysis strategy and steps.

l. 276 the author immersed herself (singular)

l. 306 “Markers of Quality” heading is not very meaningful. Maybe add something with “research rigor”?

Findings:

The first part of the findings make sense (summarizing the results with Figure 2). However, the part starting from 347 until 367 seems somehow misplaced (is it needed at all?). I also do not recall that resilience was a topic described earlier or later in the discussion.

The part 355-359 belongs more to the discussion part (it is repeated shortly in the methodological reflections)

Heading numbers: Integrated Sport Environment and Community is labelled 3.1. but I could not find any heading 3.2.

Maybe it is more meaningful to label the six themes of your thematic analyses with 3.1 An integrated/structured combination…; 3.2. A performance program…; 3.3. A strong and coherent community; 3.4 ….

Discussion:

The discussion is well elaborated and incorporates relevant literature. Since you present a new conceptual map for exploring DC environments (Figure 2), it would be nice to read more about how your framework is different/better than previous frameworks described in the literature (Henriksen´s ATDE/ESF or DCDE/DC-ESF)

Smith & McGannon reference is double (49 and 98)

I hope these comments are helpful. Best of luck in further developing this research!

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Andreas Küttel

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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.

A case study of the features and holistic athlete impacts of a UK sports-friendly school: Student-athlete, coach and teacher perspectives.

PONE-D-22-07870R2

Dear Dr. Thompson,

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,

Rabiu Muazu Musa, PhD

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

**********

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

**********

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

Reviewer #1: N/A

**********

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

**********

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

**********

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 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.

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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: Andreas Kuettel

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