PONE-D-22-10802Studying item-effects and their correlation patterns with multi-construct multi-state modelsPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Sengewald,

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 see the comments from two reviewers below and in two attachments. Both reviewers are positive about the manuscript, and have provided specific feedback that may improve the presentation of the study.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Hanna Landenmark

Staff 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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: 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

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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: 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 presents a multi-construct multi-state model that can be estimated from data on sets of items that measure multiple constructs that are administered at mutliple timepoints. In this way, item-effect variables can be estimated which are defined in line with Pohl (2008) as the difference between a latent-state variable that is specific to an item, and the common latent-state variable, which is the latent-state variable of a chosen reference item. The authors then apply this model to a dataset with items that measure positive affect and items that measure life satisfaction. I like that this model can help study the factors that contribute to systematic variance that is not captured in the common latent state. In general, I think this manuscript can be a nice addition to the literature on item effects. Below, I include several points and questions of clarification to help improve the presentation of the content.

I have uploaded my comments as a pdf attachment

Reviewer #2: The primary findings and approach in the manuscript are sound.

The statistical analyses seem to have been performed correctly.

The data underlying findings is not provided, though the authors describe the reason for this in their materials. Although the manuscript is well-written in most sections, there are some parts of it that need further attention before publication. See the attached document for further review comments.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Kaylee Litson

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: studying item effects review.pdf

Attachment

Submitted filename: Review PONE-D-22-10802.docx

PONE-D-22-10802R1Studying item-effect variables and their correlation patterns with multi-construct multi-state modelsPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Sengewald,

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 minor points raised during the review process. 

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

I was asked to guest edit this manuscript after my initial review as Reviewer 2. The paper has addressed both mine and Reviewer 1’s comments appropriately, and I enjoyed reading the revised manuscript. Like Reviewer 1, I appreciate the new addition of Appendix B and its overview of the modeling approach. Further, the expanded, edited introduction and discussion sections highlight the relevance of this new approach, and the additional clarity in results makes a strong contribution to this piece. Only minor revisions are requested prior to publication, and the necessary revisions are noted in the comments below.

Reviewer 1 describes an important concern about the mathematical configuration of the single construct models without item-specific factors that are presented in Appendix B (please see their review for an entire overview). They note, and I also see, that the variance of delta is intertwined with differences in factor loadings within the single construct models without item specific effects. They then make a suggestion about regressing the items on the reference item and changing delta to be the residual. This could be an important avenue for future work, yet in my own reading of this paper, this factor loading issue they raise is only relevant in the single construct models without item specific effects; in the manuscript, you seem to interpret the single construct models with item specific effects, as well as the multi-construct models with item specific effects, which have all factor loadings constrained to 1. Thus, this issue about factor loadings impacting correlation coefficients does not need to be addressed in the revision of the current manuscript, unless you feel inclined to address it.

That said, it was difficult to determine which exact model was being interpreted in the results, since there is a lot of specific terminology surrounding these modeling approaches. The paper would benefit from referencing the exact Appendix Figures in the results section when discussing each set of results. Please reference these figures in your revised manuscript.

In addition to this minor edit, there are a few minor line items Reviewer 1 noted. I also have a few minor line comments. All minor comments should be addressed in the final revision.

• The OSF link did not load, so please check that it is made accessible upon publication.
• Line 449-450 “Yet, other explanations cannot be ruled out.” Can you elaborate on this a little bit more. What competing explanations cannot be ruled out?
• Line 510 has an extra or missing word. Please revise.

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Please submit your revised manuscript by Jul 01 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,

Kaylee Litson, Ph.D.

Guest 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: (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

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

Reviewer #1: 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

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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

**********

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 enjoyed reading this revised manuscript which reads very well now. I have one more comment and some very minor things that I attach as a pdf.

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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: 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.

Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: review revised manuscript.pdf

Studying item-effect variables and their correlation patterns with multi-construct multi-state models

PONE-D-22-10802R2

Dear Dr. Sengewald,

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,

Kaylee Litson, Ph.D.

Guest Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Thank you very much for your interesting paper. Please do a final proof read of the paper and address any grammatical or spelling errors, as well as ensure all citations are included as appropriate. Congratulations, and I look forward to seeing this paper in press!