PONE-D-23-00431Predicting student and instructor e-readiness and promoting e-learning success in online EFL class during the COVID-19 pandemic: A case from ChinaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Yang,

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Reviewers' comments:

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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

Reviewer #3: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: 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: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: 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: No

Reviewer #3: 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: Dear authors,

PONE-D-23-00431

This project is interesting. Ideas are clear and the writing is concise and argumentative. Please see my comments below for your reference.

1 Please briefly describe the research problem and the importance of the work in the Abstract.

2 The Introduction starts with a general overview of the topic, presents a rationale for the paper, establishes the research problem, and specifies the objectives. When it comes to Chinese context in respect of the negative impacts online education brings, this reference is recommended to underpin your viewpoint (Wang, Y. (2023). Probing into the boredom of online instruction among Chinese English Language teachers during the Covid-19 pandemic. Current Psychology.43(1):1-15.https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-04223-3.)

3 The Literature Review provides a theoretical context for the research. It is suggested that this section needs to narrow its scope to the Chinese context by involving more burgeoning literature, such as a) Review of the book investigating dynamic relationships among individual difference variables in learning English as a foreign language in a virtual world, by M. Kruk. System 100:102531. doi: 10.1016/j.system.2021.102531? ; b) Gao, Y., Zeng, G. Wang, Y., Klan, A. & Wang, X. (2022). Exploring educational planning, teacher beliefs, and teacher practices during the pandemic: A study of science and technology-based universities in China. Front. in Psycho., 13:903244. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.903244).

4 Please carefully check the research gap presented in the Introduction and the Literature review, and then adjust them to make the research problem consistent throughout the whole study.

5 The Methodology is clear, but the research site and the samples need to be elaborated upon.

6 The Findings and Discussion summarize the results in clear and concise language. Please place your study within the context of previous studies more closely.

7 This paper features too many lengthy sentences. They not only make the paper unreadable and incomprehensible, but also lead to grammatical mistakes. Please do make every single sentence crystal clear and grammatically accurate first.

Reviewer #2: Given the number of instructors included in the study, there were arguably few students included in comparison, I wonder why that was. I mean, there were too few students compared to the number of instructors.

In page 9, the authors write: "In this adapted framework, the capitalized letters “I” and “S” refer to “instructor” and “student”". But I do not see these abbreviations being used in the literature review, perhaps these two paragraphs would be better located in the methodology? In any case, it is not evident why these two paragraphs are there. I think that this notation is not even used (or at least consistently used) when providing the results, conclusion or in the tables.

In page 11, it says "A total of 6024 students were withdrawn in the student questionnaire" withdrawn? Did you mean surveyed? Check the writing in this section, it is confusing.

In page 12, what does "Subjective questions" mean?

The authors did not include enough information about the data collection instrument in the methods section. Also, the research design, specifically the pre-course and course delivery phases were not described.

Formal results and discussion sections were not provided, the results are provided just below methodology without another main heading. I think that results may be presented in better manner and properly discussed.

Writing style should be improved, the manuscript is readable, but in some sections, it becomes difficult to understand what the authors are referring to. There are also minor grammar issues such as use of verb tenses, plural/singular, and use of articles.

The authors have declared that data are fully available but then they stated that "All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files", I believe that given PLOS best practices, data should be fully provided in a data repository. Tables are valuable but they are not enough to suggest that all data were made available.

Reviewer #3: Thank you for submitting your research paper for PLOS. This paper covers an important topic. While it is a well-written paper, there are some issues that need to be addressed.

1. The novelty of this paper is not clear as many research papers have been published in this area. Thus, the novelty of this paper should be further justified by highlighting main contributions to the existing literature in order to be published in a reputable journals that seek new knowledge and insights.

2. The authors need to add a paragraph at the end of the introduction to show the structure of the paper.

3. The authors are required to provide a description of the data analysis methodology at the beginning of the data analysis section.

4. The authors need to define the population of the study and sampling technique adopted. Also please justify why your chosen sampling technique and sample size are appropriate.

5. Theoretical and practical implications should be reported after the discussion section. It is recommended to rely on the findings to provide thorough implications.

6. The authors are advised to strengthen the literature review and discussion sections by including more recent and relevant literature. This includes but not limited to:

- Novel extension of the UTAUT model to understand continued usage intention of learning management systems: the role of learning tradition. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-021-10758-y

- Towards a Sustainable Adoption of E-Learning Systems: The Role of Self-Directed Learning. Doi: https://doi.org/10.28945/4980

- Developing a Holistic Success Model for Sustainable E-Learning: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach. Doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/su13169453

- Evaluating E-learning systems success: An empirical study. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.08.004

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Yongliang Wang

Reviewer #2: Yes: Juan D. Machin-Mastromatteo

Reviewer #3: Yes: Ahmad Samed Al-Adwan

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Predicting student and instructor e-readiness and promoting e-learning success in online EFL class during the COVID-19 pandemic: A case from China

PONE-D-23-00431R1

Dear Dr. Yang,

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,

Ehsan Namaziandost

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Dear authors,

Considering the comments, the paper has improved significantly, however, it is important follow the referencing style (in-text and reference list) followed by the journal.

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 #3: 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 #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #3: 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 #3: 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: No

Reviewer #3: 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: Dear authors,

I am happy with your revised version. I suggest that you should revise your language from A to Z.

Best wishes

Reviewer #3: Thank you for resubmitting you revised version. The paper has improved significantly after addressing the reviews comments. However, it is important follow the referencing style (in-text and reference list) followed by the journal.

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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: Yongliang Wang Nanjing Normal University

Reviewer #3: Yes: Ahmad Samed Al-Adwan

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