PONE-D-25-10820Exploring EFL Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices of Formative Assessment in Chinese ContextPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Lei,

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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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Muhammad Zammad Aslam

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments:

Please follow the reviewers’ critiques, specifically relevant to self-reported data issues which also lack evidence from literature. I also outlined some issues that should be addressed alongside.

Issues to be addressed.

1. Generalizability of the Sample

- A reviewer mentioned that your data is confined to a specific geographical region. You should address this limitation in your ‘limitations’ section by arguing that your study can be expanded in future research through broader sampling and focused FA practices. Additionally, discuss these points in the future implications section. Furthermore, revise your ‘Discussion’ and ‘Conclusion’ sections accordingly.

2. Methodological Limitations

- According to the nature of your study, self-reported data may introduce bias, which could be clarified by expanding your methodology and focusing on future plans. This should also be addressed in your discussion while citing previous studies in the context of educational research.

3. Clarity on the process of participants’ recruitment

- Follow the comments of Reviewer 2 regarding this issue by clarifying the participants’ details about their experiences, session times, etc. Explain the consent obtained. Explain how you maintained the validity of the electronic survey.

4. Quantitative Reporting of Qualitative Data

- Please incorporate direct quotes in your qualitative analysis, properly citing participants wherever necessary, in accordance with thematic analysis standards. Update your tables accordingly. For example, there are issues with Table 8 and its interpretations, ensuring all quantitative data in the text aligns with the tables.

5. Discussion needs to be strengthened

- As discussed earlier, your discussion should correlate with your theoretical framework. Various discussed variables are not compared with prior literature, i.e., ‘feedback literacy’ is not discussed compared with the results of Carless (2020), and so on. Moreover, your gaps are also not clear in your discussions

6. More Important Suggestions

a. Include a ‘limitations’ section following the ‘discussion’ to address the previously mentioned limitations.

b. Improve clarity and readability by presenting a ‘visual model’ of FA.

c. Importantly, emphasize the ‘policy implications’ within the context of Chinese EFL teachers.

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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: Partly

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: 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: The study’s sample is limited to university EFL teachers from a single province in China. While the sample includes a range of institutions and teacher demographics, it does not capture the full diversity of educational settings across China, such as variations in regional educational policies, resource allocation, or institutional cultures. This limits the generalizability of the findings to other provinces or to the national context, where formative assessment practices and challenges may differ significantly due to local factors, differing levels of economic development, or institutional priorities.

The reliance on self-reported data through questionnaires and interviews introduces the risk of response bias. Teachers may overstate their use of formative assessment or provide socially desirable responses, especially given the policy emphasis on formative assessment in China. Self-reporting also makes it difficult to verify whether stated practices align with actual classroom behaviors, potentially leading to discrepancies between reported and enacted formative assessment practices.

The study does not include direct classroom observations or analysis of formative assessment artifacts (such as student work samples, feedback records, or assessment rubrics). Without observational or documentary evidence, it is challenging to fully understand how formative assessment is implemented in practice, the quality of feedback provided, or the real-time challenges teachers face. This methodological limitation restricts the depth and validity of the findings regarding actual classroom practices. This should be discussed at length in the Discussion.

The manuscript is presented in an intelligible fashion and is written in standard English. The structure follows conventional academic organization, with clear sections for the abstract, introduction, literature review, methodology, findings, discussion, and conclusion. Each section logically builds on the previous one, and the arguments are supported by data and referenced literature, ensuring clarity and coherence throughout the text. Tables and figures are well-handled and referenced in the text, aiding reader comprehension. The manuscript also provides sufficient methodological detail for reproducibility and transparency, further contributing to its intelligibility.

Reviewer #2: The study presents a valuable and relevant investigation into formative assessment in EFL contexts and is generally well written and clearly structured. The topic is of practical importance and the mixed methods approach strengthens the research. However, several areas require clarification and improvement before the manuscript can be considered for publication.

1. It is unclear how two researchers managed to recruit and brief 322 participants within 60–90 days. It is recommended that the authors should clarify the recruitment process, including how many conferences were involved and how participants were approached and informed about the study.

2. I could not find page numbering, so I will be referring to the particular pages through page numbers as shown in the PDF file page count.

3. On pages 20, 21, and 23 (as per the PDF file), the authors report how many participants defined formative assessment in a particular way. Since qualitative data were thematically analyzed, reporting exact participant counts without context seems inconsistent with qualitative methodology. The authors should clarify their rationale for quantifying these themes or revise this reporting approach.

4. On page 28(as per the PDF file), the authors state that “36% of teachers report that formative assessment results...” This data point appears to be missing from Table 8. Please include this information in the table or clarify why it was excluded.

5. The discussion section currently reads more like an extension of the findings, with heavy use of quantitative data and limited integration of prior research. The authors are encouraged to engage more critically with existing literature, particularly studies on formative assessment in EFL contexts, to strengthen the scholarly grounding of their discussion.

6. The manuscript should be revised to fully comply with the Vancouver referencing style, as required by PLOS ONE. This includes proper in-text citations and reference formatting consistent with the journal standards.

The article has merit and makes a meaningful contribution but needs clarification and refinement in a few key areas before publication.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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PONE-D-25-10820R1Exploring EFL Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices of Formative Assessment in Chinese ContextPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Lei,

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 Sep 20 2025 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,

Muhammad Zammad Aslam, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

If the reviewer comments include a recommendation to cite specific previously published works, please review and evaluate these publications to determine whether they are relevant and should be cited. There is no requirement to cite these works unless the editor has indicated otherwise. 

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.

Additional Editor Comments:

The manuscript needs to fulfill the basic requirements following the traditional guidelines, such as explanations of teaching intervention for replication of the present study (such as detailed curriculum, description of texts or methods used, or other supporting educational material. If materials, methods, and protocols are well established, authors may cite articles where those protocols are described in detail, but the submission should include sufficient information to be understood independent of these references.

Positive Elements:

a) Evaluation of Sufficiency of Materials and Methods

The manuscript provides reasonable detail about both teaching approaches:

1. Lecturer-Guided Group; the intervention included a personal narrative from a guest lecturer with lived experience of depression. Topics covered included:

- Triggers of depression

- Recovery process

- Daily life during treatment

- Support systems

- Introduction to counselling services

- Personal message to students

Moreover, the background of the lecturer (age, past job, diagnosis timeline) is also explained in rich detail.

2. Non-Lecturer-Guided Group: A Health education teacher who is experienced in the field taught the necessary topics; Psychosomatic correlations, Seeking help, and maintaining social support

3. Curriculum & Tools:

- The five domains are assessed through a 24-item questionnaire, which is also validated by experts

- Folowchart for the Lesson plan is provided (pre/post/follow-up survey)

- Supporting materials (datasets, questionnaire in Japanese, ethics approvals, etc.) are present.

- A video follow-up (3 months later)

However, some areas should need enhancements clarifying objectively:

1. Lesson Plan Replicability:

- A full transcript may be outlined alongside the lecturer's session, alongside the narrative structure. Including an example lesson plan or structured summary would support replicability.

- Similarly, names of the chapters, names of the textbooks, or any other instructional materials may be needed alongside the teacher-led textbook content descriptions.

- The details about the videos, that is included in follow-up classes, should be needed. For instance, who is the creator? What is the script? How is this script relevant? Is the duration of the video is sufficient? What is the source of the video? etc

2. Availability of Teaching Materials:

- Please provide an English version of the questionnaire, which is a supplement for the international or multidisciplinary audiences.

- Are the lectures' notes, scripts, and slides available on request?

In summary, areas for improvement are:

- The description of lesson content, particularly for the teacher-led session, would benefit from the inclusion of exact textbook references, lesson objectives, or example discussion questions.

- For the lecturer-guided session, while the biographical narrative is informative, a more structured or script-based summary (e.g., main talking points, message themes) would be helpful for educators attempting to replicate the intervention.

- The video resources used in follow-up classes are not described in sufficient detail (e.g., content summary, creator, duration).

- The authors may consider providing an English version of the questionnaire in supplementary material for international audiences.

Educators and researchers, who are likely to adapt the intervention in different contexts, would benefit from the above changes.

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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

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: Yes

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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 very much for addressing my suggestions; I see that they have all been correctly incorporated.

Reviewer #2: I have read the author's response and deeply appreciate the effort and patience taken to address my comments. I look forward to seeing this research published.

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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

Reviewer #2: No

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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.

Exploring EFL teachers' beliefs and practices of formative assessment in Chinese context

PONE-D-25-10820R2

Dear Dr. Lei,

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 will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager®  and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. For questions related to billing, please contact billing support .

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,

Muhammad Zammad Aslam, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: