-->PONE-D-25-05271-->-->Entrepreneurial Intention of Students: The Role of Digital Transformation and Use of Digital Tools in Education and Other Environmental and Personal Factors-->-->PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Lešinskis,

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 13 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,

Ali Junaid Khan, PhD

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. We note that the grant information you provided in the ‘Funding Information’ and ‘Financial Disclosure’ sections do not match. 

When you resubmit, please ensure that you provide the correct grant numbers for the awards you received for your study in the ‘Funding Information’ section.

3. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure: 

“The research is financed by the Recovery and Resilience Facility project "Internal and External Consolidation of the University of Latvia" (No.5.2.1.1.i.0/2/24/I/CFLA/007)”

Please state what role the funders took in the study.  If the funders had no role, please state: "The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript." If this statement is not correct you must amend it as needed. 

Please include this amended Role of Funder statement in your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf.

4. Please note that funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form. Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript. 

5. In the online submission form, you indicated that: “Available in Argos Openaire platform.”

All PLOS journals now require all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript to be freely available to other researchers, either 1. In a public repository, 2. Within the manuscript itself, or 3. Uploaded as supplementary information.

This policy applies to all data except where public deposition would breach compliance with the protocol approved by your research ethics board. If your data cannot be made publicly available for ethical or legal reasons (e.g., public availability would compromise patient privacy), please explain your reasons on resubmission and your exemption request will be escalated for approval. 

6. Please include your full ethics statement in the ‘Methods’ section of your manuscript file. In your statement, please include the full name of the IRB or ethics committee who approved or waived your study, as well as whether or not you obtained informed written or verbal consent. If consent was waived for your study, please include this information in your statement as well. 

7. Please include captions for your Supporting Information files at the end of your manuscript, and update any in-text citations to match accordingly. Please see our Supporting Information guidelines for more information: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/supporting-information. 

8. 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. 

Additional Editor Comments:

-->Be sure to:-->

• Rewrite your abstract and follow the IMRAD approach (Introduction, Method, Results, and Discussion)
• Improve introduction and clearly explain the gap and problem of study.

[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: Partly

Reviewer #2: Partly

**********

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

Reviewer #1: No

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: No

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: This paper addresses an up-to-date and interesting topic. This paper aims to investigate the impact of the digital transformation and digital tools in entrepreneurship education and their role in entrepreneurial intentions. The manuscript has a great potential, but reasoning does not flow naturally.

Although the idea underlying the work is interesting, I consider that the article must be improved in line with the comments below:

1. Please make your abstract attractive to readers (simple sentences without any repetition) and include 2-3 sentences ready to be cited exactly as they are. In one paragraph, your abstract should tell the readers why the study is important (maximum 25% of the text), what you did, i.e. your methodology (maximum 25% of the text), and what you found, i.e. main research results and their major implications (50% of the text). This is very important to promote your work because of the growing trend that authors use Google search to find and cite papers based on the abstract (instead of reading the full paper).

2. The introduction does not clearly argue with the interest of the research purpose. The first two paragraphs need to be enhanced with more arguments exemplifying the importance of entrepreneurship and this research. There are a lot of published work in 2025, such as Sebastian-Rivera et al. (2025, DOI: 10.1080/10447318.2025.2474489) or Atienza-Barba et al. (2025, DOI: 10.1007/s11365-025-01084-7), to strengthen the narrative on this. I miss a paragraph where you make it clear what are the contributions of your work to the literature.

3. The study aims to contribute to a large body of existing literature on digital transformation topics in the context of education. A new explanation is interesting only if it tells us things that other explanations cannot. What is the theoretical approach of this paper? Please see Barba-Sánchez et al. (2022, DOI: 10.3145/epi.2022.nov.17).

4. I require that you add text for each one of your hypotheses and justify each one of them separately and in a better manner you do now. Please try to separate the particular text that corresponds with one or another hypothesis.

5. An article must be self-contained, i.e. it must contain all the information necessary for its comprehension. How the sample has been chosen and to demonstrate that it is representative of the society being studied. I would also recommend adding a table with accurate information about the technical specifications of the study and another table with the comparative demographics between the population and sample.

6. In the methodology, the authors did not properly present the process of using "quasi-experiment" as a tool for gathering information.

7. It would be interesting to explain how the proposed model variables are measured. Add an annexed with the items that measure the variables.

8. Please add the validity and reliability of the measurement instruments. It is not enough to report the Cronbach's alpha coefficient and the average variance extracted (AVE).

9. The paper would be more interesting in more sophisticated analysis. If the questionnaire permits, which seems possible although do not have a copy of it in research, other technique would be used to test the hypotheses, such as Structural Equations Models (SEM) using the technique of Partial Least Square (PLS). Why did you not use SEM to test the hypotheses?

10. The Conclusion section does not offer value to the reader. The logic behind building research relevance should be sharpened. The authors should develop more the theoretical and practical implications of the study for the universities, teachers, and students/society.

11. Where are the limitations of this work? Please add a heading specifically for it.

I hope you find the above comments useful and I wish you the best of luck with developing the paper further. Finally, I'd like to compliment the authors for having made serious and interesting efforts in developing new approaches in corporate entrepreneurship.

Reviewer #2: Abstract

Basically, the abstract does not convey the appropriate and relevant information for its readers. The key findings and methodology are obviously missing in the abstract and this does not allow the reader to appreciate the work done. The abstract has no recommendations as well as practical implications. These two acronyms “CEE and SE” are used for the first time without their full meanings. The use of other environmental and personal factors in the topic is confusing. Which factors are classified as other factors?

Introduction

The introduction somehow attempts to provide relevant and appropriate information on the subject area. However, the researchers need to focus on the following: In the first paragraph under line 6, the authors tried to define digital transformation as, "digital transformation" refers to the difficulty of adjusting to digital technology and has been chiefly examined as a process that occurs in several industries, such as mechanical engineering and finance. This definition is misleading. Also, the way and manner the authors cite scholars in the text is not appropriate and consistent. For eg, under line three of the second paragraph, “The results of studies by Asimakopoulos et al., Cera et al., Iwu et al., and Wang et al. show a positive correlation between EE and the intention to pursue entrepreneurship [3, 4, 5, 6]”. The numbers 3, 4,5 and 6 should not be at the end of the sentence. Again, the citations in this sentence “Conversely, research by Reissová et al., Draksler and Sirec, and Martínez-Gregorio et al. casts doubt on or restricts the beneficial impact of EE on the intention to start a business” are not complete.

The introduction does not provide information on how the use of digital tools in education and digital transformation enhance entrepreneurial intentions but rather focus on how education enhances entrepreneurial intention. It is not clear from the introduction how digital transformation and the use of digital tools in education drives intentions.

Literature Review

Essentially, the authors have demonstrated some level of understanding by reviewing relevant and appropriate literature in the areas of entrepreneurial intention, digital transformation, entrepreneurial education, personal and environmental factors. However, the authors need to focus on the following:

1. The authors should rather use transitional words in a paragraph to review the impact of digital technologies on EE instead of bulletins.

2. The authors need to include the theory underpinning the study.

3. The authors need to talk about the workshop that they are referring to in the second hypothesis. The readers do not know anything about the workshop and can not relate to what you talking about

4. The hypothesis 3(H3) talks about the gender of entrepreneurial training participants yet you did not discuss about that training in anywhere. Also, there is no review of literature on gender and entrepreneurial intentions enhance what forms the basis of this hypothesis?

5. What exactly do the researchers mean in the H4 by saying the education of entrepreneurial training participants? Are the looking at the educational level or what exactly?

6. Again, there is no literature review to support H7 so it becomes difficult to understand what necessitated the formulation of the hypothesis.

Materials and methods

How the researchers determined and selected the sample size of 819 students is not clear. How many students participated in the workshop and how many were selected and on what basis? How many were from the Southern European countries and how many were from the Central and Eastern European countries? So, what was the criteria for inclusion and exclusion? How many were selected from the control group and how many from the experimental group? What were the justifications for the numbers chosen?

Moreover, how did the authors collect the data from the respondents?

How the researchers measure both the dependent and independent variables are not known. Also, how they measure the control variables has not been stated.

Furthermore, the authors need to include a table of the validity and reliability measures.

Results

The results are appropriate and relevant

Discussions

The discussions have nothing to do with entrepreneurial intentions of students but rather focus on how the use of digital technologies enhanced academic efficiency. It is therefore, difficulty to see how the findings are related to the researchers’ topic (entrepreneurial intention of students). The discussion is limited in context and does not address the findings of the study. The authors need to discuss their findings and relate that to previous studies as well as discuss the practical and theoretical implications of their findings

Conclusion

The conclusions are not in line with the findings. This is because the authors did not discuss their findings.

References

The authors have cited relevant authors. However, they to need to cite more current research.

**********

-->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.

Entrepreneurial Intention of Students: The Role of Digital Tools and Personal Factors in Entrepreneurship Education

PONE-D-25-05271R1

Dear Dr. Lešinskis

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,

Ali Junaid Khan, PhD

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: All comments have been addressed

**********

-->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

**********

-->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

**********

-->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: (No Response)

**********

-->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

**********