Values Building in Social Work Education in Visegrad Countries: Integrated Approach

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to review this manuscript, which I think is well done and timely.  The authors make a valuable contribution to the field of social work education and social work ethics.  

The recommendation of  concurrent classroom and field education is one to be seriously considered, but one that will be difficult, as the authors point out, because of the structure of the university.  Social work education in the US has had a similar issue in terms of faculty credentials - should a PhD be required?  How much practice experience should a PhD have prior to entering doctoral studies to be qualified to teach practice?  The authors have used the student voices to reflect this concern in V4 countries.  

The role, understanding and application of core values and ethical principles in social work is key if the profession is to protect and serve clients, communities and the profession itself. 

Thanks for a very interesting paper. 

Author Response

Thank you for the revision, we are glad that you perceive the text as beneficial. The topic of Ph.D. students into teaching is an internationally shared topic that we will be happy to discuss in the future.

Team of Authors

Reviewer 2 Report

Well done, authors. Your work is interesting and important.  Be careful when using terms like "under-researched."  Use a different term.  Interview based research can be generalized if you provide your method of selection and criteria used to choose informants.  Survey research want us to believe they do "social science" while qualitative researchers choose informants willy nilly. Provide informant demographics and be sure to sort informant demographics by country.  Different countries, different values, different approaches to social work and interpretations of valued approaches.  Next, list themes derived from each country's informants and give readers measures of theme agreement:  for example, 85% of informants from county X said that Y was critically important in social work among families with young children.  Be specific, detailed.  No need to use long verbatim quotations; themes are sufficient if you did a good analysis:  themes, define each one (give a short example), and measures of agreement among informants.  I cannot overstate the importance of giving readers details of precisely how you selected informants and how you arrived at interview questions.  Also provide the language/s used in interviews. Word choice is essential. Don't start a sentence with "Many...."  That term's ambiguity gives survey researchers reasons to attack your work.  Interview research uses language as its means of data collection:  so, be sure to tell readers the languages used by informants.  If you paper is accepted for publication, which I hope it will be, the editor might return it to me.  I will help edit.   Finally, interpretations for concept varies by countries' cultures. Is that correct?  If the answer is yes, you must explain how culture influences interpretations of the same social work concept.  Display themes and interpretations by culture.  You (plural) did good work and it's valuable.  Bravo

Author Response

Thank you for the revision, we are glad that you perceive the text as beneficial. We extended the methodology by: selection criteria, demographic data of research participants, justification of interview questions and the language used for the survey. We also added an explanatory summary and context of the research results at the beginning of the data analysis. The presented research will be followed by a quantitative research survey, in which the topics created within the framework of qualitative research will be measured (in all countries together and in individual countries separately). The aim of this procedure is to obtain the most comprehensive knowledge in relation to the studied phenomenon using the synergy of qualitative and quantitative research.  Please find attached last version of the manuscript (all changes are marked in yellow). Team of Authors