PONE-D-22-27417Lecturers' readiness for EMI in Malaysia higher education: Fantasy or realities?PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Yueh Yea Lo,

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.

==============================

ACADEMIC EDITOR:

Authors are requested to reply the queries/ suggestions, asked by both the reviewers.

==============================

Please submit your revised manuscript by Mar 11 2023 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,

Priti Chaudhary, M.S.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal requirements:

When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements.

1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf

and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf.

2. Please provide additional details regarding participant consent. In the ethics statement in the Methods and online submission information, please ensure that you have specified what type you obtained (for instance, written or verbal, and if verbal, how it was documented and witnessed). If your study included minors, state whether you obtained consent from parents or guardians. If the need for consent was waived by the ethics committee, please include this information.

3. We note that you have stated that you will provide repository information for your data at acceptance. Should your manuscript be accepted for publication, we will hold it until you provide the relevant accession numbers or DOIs necessary to access your data. If you wish to make changes to your Data Availability statement, please describe these changes in your cover letter and we will update your Data Availability statement to reflect the information you provide.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

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: Partly

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

**********

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

**********

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: There is moderate level of role of lecturers readiness for EMI regarding knowledge,understanding,skills,abilities and attitudes .Since English is second language in Malaysia. Malaysian Ministry of education has to make policy decision for lecturers readiness for EMI by undergoing training or their selection criterion should have EMI trained persons to impart better quality of education to enhance cultural communicative competence in many increasingly diversified student body in EMI classroom.Difference existed in lecturers readiness based on gender age academic qualification teaching course teaching involvement and EMI training.Experience lecturers manifested more negative attitude towards EMI. Elder lecturers had high degree of negative attitude towards higher education EMI.The study should be carried out throughout Malaysia including all lecturers readiness for EMI and for better conclusion of having trained teachers with positive attitude towards readiness for EMI knowledge and for training of EMI.

Reviewer #2: The authors’ examined lecturer readiness to teach via implementation of the English Medium Instruction (EMI) based on self-reporting of lecturer participants. It is unclear what the latter part of the title, “Fantasy or realities?” reference for the purpose of the study. Based on participant responses, the overarching conclusion indicated that lecturers with more knowledge, understanding, and experience in EMI were more accepting of the practice. Thus, following the conclusion, it would be beneficial to know what recommendations the authors have in advancing and facilitating more positive acceptance and readiness of lecturers for EMI at all levels, i.e., what professional development opportunities or programs would be offered? The study was limited to two private higher education institutions and did include representative sample from public institutions of higher education in Malaysia – the conclusion only noted that “current study limitation was the employment of self-reported questionnaire, which potentially produced social desirability response bias.” Please see additional comments below.

Introduction, p.7, 1st sentence of paragraph 1 – Whom do the authors mean when they stated that EMI is “gaining traction, particularly among relevant scholars.” Who are the relevant scholars?

Introduction, p. 9, in the last full paragraph before the Literature Review section, is “academic qualification” interchangeable with “educational qualification”? Also, please clarify what it means by “diversified EMI classrooms” as this phrasing and similar such phrasings were used in the manuscript, for example, diversification of student nationalities, learner pre-knowledge level, learning styles, etc?

While the authors provided a brief literature review of EMI from the perspective of lecturer training, skills, and acceptance, there were no definitions of what EMI training requirements, competencies, and knowledge base entailed. Are the competencies for gaining the skills and knowledge of EMI broad to where the skillset is transferable across all disciplines, is the approach of EMI specific for broad categories of disciplines (e.g., sciences vs liberal arts)? It would be useful to briefly note which disciplines use EMI more frequently.

Methodology, p. 12 – inconsistency between abstract and description in methodology: abstract stated that a survey questionnaire was administered to 227 lecturers, while Methodology section implied distribution of “250 questionnaires in person”; rather than stating in abstract that the questionnaire was completed by 227 lecturers (out of 250 invited participants). The survey completion was noted to be voluntary and anonymous. How was anonymity preserved in receiving completed surveys when the survey was distributed in person?

Table 1 noting the participants’ characteristics is not clear. What does the “Frequency” column reference – the percent of participants in the 4 disciplines noted? Recommend using a more descriptive title representing the data for the table.

Recommend proofreading for consistency in verb tense used throughout (some were present tense while others were past tense) as well as run-on sentences (e.g., Results, p. 15, last sentence before Table 3 and last sentence on p. 19 before Table 8).

While much of the results were reflective of other studies, the postulate “that lecturers without adequate EMI training and preparation would be less…responsive to students’ different learning environments in content knowledge and the English language…” is unclear. How does knowledge of EMI contribute to a lecturers’ responsiveness to students regardless of learning environment, or is this in relation to a lecturer’s capability to respond in the English language?

It would be interesting to learn of a follow-up from this study after an intervention to provide internal faculty/professional development on EMI and resource support using this same survey – how would the attitudes have changed based on participant characteristics? (for both private and public institutions)

**********

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: 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.

Lecturers' readiness for EMI in Malaysia higher education

PONE-D-22-27417R1

Dear Dr. Yueh Yea Lo,

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,

Priti Chaudhary, M.S.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: