PONE-D-22-33318Characteristics of perceived effective telesupervision practices: A case study of supervisees and supervisorsPLOS ONE

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This manuscript is a part of Dr Priya Martin's postdoctoral fellowship which was funded through an Advance Queensland Industry Research Fellowship Grant by the Queensland Government Department of Tourism, Innovation and Sport; and co-funded by Darling Downs Health, Southern Queensland Rural Health, the University of Queensland Rural Clinical School, and the University of South Australia. Grant number - AQIRF115-2020-CV.”

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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: 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: 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: 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: Thanks for undertaking this important work that is going to be increasingly relevant in the new normal of a post-COVID world. I agree with the authors' observation that this approach may no longer just be confined to rural areas.

While the paper is generally well written I think there are a couple of areas that I think need a little more explanation:

- what are the specifics of the supervisory arrangements? For example they may be legislative (eg supervision of medical interns), educational (eg Registrars in general practice or teaching hospitals) or just good practice. Describing the context would be helpful in understanding the generalizability of the findings

- Proctor's tripartite model may not be familiar to all readers so I would suggest a brief explanation of the terminology used

Also, I note there is no mention of programs like the Remote Vocational Training Stream (https://rvts.org.au/) which has been using remote telesupervision for over 20 years.

The findings seem appropriate and grounded in the data, although I note there were only three sets of interviewees, which seems low. A comment on why this number was chosen, and whether data saturation was achieved may be worth considering.

The paper is generally well written and clear, although I wonder about the use of the term 'content experts' in line 111 - I think the expertise described is more process-based / educational than in the content being taught. Finally, line 253 says 'Several healthcare workers...' - I suspect it was more than this, and these words should be revised.

Thank you for the opportunity to review this paper.

Reviewer #2: Thank you for conducting this study. The topic is very interesting, current and useful for better understanding and utilizing telesupervision. Below are some suggestions:

-In the Introduction paragraph, I suggest providing more justification for the choice of Case study method and the Proctor model for data analysis

-In the Materials and Methods section, I suggest providing more explanation for the choice of the overarching constructionist theoretical paradigm and the sample selection method. It is not clear how the selecting cases was conducted. Was the snowball sampling strategy used? At the end, were the 6 participants the most relevant to the issues studied?

-Lastly, in the Results section, under the category 'Right supervisor and right supervisee,' I suggest highlighting the characteristics of the supervisor that are useful in telesupervision, as the characteristics listed (such as open and honest, supportive, good at feedback provision, non-judgmental, approachable) seem general, regardless of whether the supervision is remote or face-to-face.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Tarun Sen Gupta

Reviewer #2: No

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Characteristics of perceived effective telesupervision practices: A case study of supervisees and supervisors

PONE-D-22-33318R1

Dear Dr. Martin,

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,

Federica Canzan

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: (No Response)

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

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: N/A

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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

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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: Thank you for addressing the reviewers' comments, I feel the manuscript is now stronger and an important addition to the literature. I note the response to my comment about citing the RVTS (Reviewer 1 / Comment 3). I would respectfully suggest that the paper could well include a reference to RVTS as an example of a successful longstanding program based on telesupervision in remote areas, but am happy to leave this decision to the discretion of the editors / authors.

Reviewer #2: Again thanks for undertaking this important work regarding telemonitoring and for taking the comments into consideration. The authors made the minimum revisions required, it could have been more argued.

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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: Prof Tarun Sen Gupta

Reviewer #2: No

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