Sustainable Effect of the Usefulness of and Preference for Digital Textbooks on Perceived Achievements in Elementary Education Environments

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper describes a study contributing to ensuring educational sustainability during and after the COVID-19 era by verifying the longitudinal effectiveness of digital textbooks.

The paper is well written, the argumentation is clear and the structure is consistent. Moreover, it describes an interesting topic that fits to the journal. However, I would need more information about the methodology, especially about the survey questionnaire. Where does this questionnaire come from? Was it developed by the authors? Was it tested? (how?) What were the items? If it is possible please add the questionnaire. Where the participants all from one school or different schools? How were they chosen?

Other than this, I would suggest some small improvements:

• Add some information about the Korean school system: We see that students have digital textbooks from 3rd grade on, but when do children start school, so how old are they when they are in 3rd grade? Also, how is the digital textbook used? Are there no analog books at all used in these classes? Who decides on the use of analog or digital books? How is it implemented?
• Figure 3 is not readable, consider a different representation/format
• Line 247: "there are some numerical differences"
• Separate conclusion and discussion. In the discussion more references to the cited literature are needed.
• Delete the last paragraph: This would be a further discussion that you address here the first time in your paper. If you want to discuss the side effects, it should have been already part of the background.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your comments.

Please find the attached document.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

1. Please identify your acronyms the first time they are used such as ICT.
2. Table 1 needs to be identified in the text.
3. Figure 1 needs to be identified in the text.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your comments.

Please find the attached document.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This research paper is focused on finding whether digital textbooks contribute to sustainable development in school education. The paper discussed the very important topic, especially in post-COVID 19 world, where education is strongly linked to digital devices. However, the current form of paper lacks in different aspects.

1. One major issue of this paper is "Methods". The information provided in this section is not sufficient, and it requires further information about the context, location, participants, data collection, data analysis of this research. I suggest authors should consider this pattern in describing their methods. As the target journal for publication is an international journal with international audience, the context and location of the study will add more value, and help the readers to better understand the research.
   And for participants, a table with all necessary information about all participants is required. 
   Data collection part is missing in the paper. Data collection is very important part of 'Methods", as it clearly describes the steps that researchers/authors took to collect the data, and whether these steps ensured the reliability and validity of the research. 
   Data analysis is provided, but I suggest hypothesis development should be stated separately, as hypothesis of any research is developed very earlier stage than the data analysis stage. I suggest adding one or two headings "theoretical foundation" and "Hypothesis Development" will help the readers to understand it better. 
2.  Another major issue is the structure and information provided. As I stated earlier in previous comment, hypothesis should be described separately. And the section "Measures" does not include any specific information regarding the questionnaire. Whether authors developed these measures by themselves, or they adopted it from other sources and revised it before using? . In the first case, if developed by authors, how did they check the validity and reliability of the contents? In the second case, if adopted from other sources, a detailed description is requires on "what contents were adopted from which source",  how did the authors revised these contents, and how did the reliability and validity of the constructs was checked? 
   And a questionnaire used for this paper should be attached in appendix. It will help the research to attract more readers, and also more opportunity to get cited after publication. 
3. The discussion section does not discuss the findings of the research in depth. The discussion should be focused on the findings of this paper, and argue these findings with the previous studies. The discussion section require massive revision. I suggest authors to read the following guidelines by the San José State University Writing Center for writing discussion in research paper. 
   https://www.sjsu.edu/writingcenter/docs/handouts/Discussion%20Section%20for%20Research%20Papers.pdf 
4. Some minor issues that needs consideration. 1- The conclusion part should be written separately, and this section further require to report the limitation of the research, and implications of the research, and suggestions for future studies. 2- The source of table 1 is missing, as it provides secondary information. 3- Despite of the fact that digital books/technologies improves students learnings, but recent research also reports the negative effects of these technologies on students. Thus, the negative effects of digital technologies should also be discussed, in the background section, and in the conclusion section. 

Author Response

Thank you very much for your comments.

Please find the attached document.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors have worked hard on revising the article. The major issues highlighted in the previous round of review have been addressed. However, I suggest the authors add the following information to the article. 
1. Please add "what language was used for the survey questionnaire in data collection? and what measures were taken during the translation process? 
2. It would add more value to the research if a table is added on the reliability of measures used in the questionnaire. 

3. following the rules of the Declaration of Helsinki of 1975, As the research included humans, and those below 18 years old, ethical approval (government institutions, schools, parents, etc. ) should be added in the methods section. 
https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/instructions#ethics 

https://www.wma.net/what-we-do/medical-ethics/declaration-of-helsinki// 

Author Response

Thanks for your comments again. Please find the attached document.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf