The Impact of Female Role Models Leading a Group Mentoring Program to Promote STEM Vocations among Young Girls

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This manuscript analyzes the impact that a group mentoring initiative led by a female STEM role model has on students between 10 and 12 years old, and whether the impact is different depending on their sex. The work analyzes how it affects their attitude towards technology, mathematical self-efficacy, gender stereotypes, science and technology references and career vocations.

Some issues should be addressed:

• Clarify if the project is addressed to STEM or STEAM disciplines.
• Define all the acronyms used in the manuscript (for example, AI in line 105).
• Legends in figure 1 and 2 are the same, correct them.
• Cite all the tables in the text.
• Check line 332.

Apart from that, English must be revised in all the manuscript.

Moreover, I have some questions for the authors:

• You address this intervention to students between 10 and 12 years old, but as some references point gender stereotypes seem to appear at an early age. Do you think you addressing projects to younger children would be more effective?
• In Table 7 it is shown that girls in the experimental group have a lower increase for Prof-4 (STEM professions with gender gap) than girls in the control group. How could you explain this fact? Do you think that this kind of interventions are beneficious for attracting women to these STEM professions?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This article, submitted to SUSTAINABILITY, presents findings from an intervention study in Spain. The aim of the study is to influence the attitudes of young girls towards STEM professions through a mentoring program provided to both boys and girls at school, led by women who are STEM role models in the community.  This is a very interesting topic, and this manuscript is promising. However, there are several things that need to be improved for the article to be re-evaluated for publication.

Length of the article: This manuscript seems long and excessively wordy (and checking it on a pdf word counter indicated over 12,000 words). I will comment specifically on some parts that can be removed, or how to condense other parts in the following comments, but in general, attention needs to be paid to conveying a clear succinct message. The ideas in this study are simple and important but are lost in excessive verbiage.

Abstract: The abstract needs to include the geographic information of the study. Attention needs to be paid to the verb tenses (should all be in the past), and extra words need to be removed. For example, the sentence “The program does not manage to improve the gender stereotypes held by young people and hardly does so in their mathematical self-efficacy” could be “The program did not improve young people’s gender stereotypes or mathematical self-efficacy”. The last sentence should indicate it is a conclusion, for example, “We conclude that the lack of STEM…”

Introduction:

• In lines 40-43 (and in other places), the authors shift quickly from children, to men and women. I suggest that they are clearer whether they are talking about children (at school), young adults (high school, university, early career, which could be referred to young men and young women), or adults (over 25, referred to as men and women).
• The statistics provided on lines 59-64 seem somewhat out of date for a study conducted in 2020-2021. If these are the latest available statistics, this needs to be stated, otherwise they should be updated to more recent figures.
• Lines 111-125 should come at the end of this section once the general introduction is concluded. Authors need to be clear what they mean by STEM references (explaining they mean women who are STEM role models in the community), and I would suggest using the term “gender” not “sex” in the research questions.
• Attention should be paid to the logical flow of the introduction, and the exclusion of irrelevant or unnecessary information (for example, are the paragraphs on gender color preference, lines 162-169, and genius, lines 289-295, really necessary?). A logical flow from general introduction, specific concepts, gaps in the field, focus of the study, and finally research questions, would make the introduction more targeted and easier to follow. This could then be followed by the full description of the Inspira STEAM program, and this information should not be repeated in the methods and materials section.
• Line 332 needs to be eliminated
• Figure 1 should be clearly presented as a logic model, and in a format that is easier to read.
• The phrase on lines 346-346 is jarring and out of place. It would be better to mention at the end of the paragraph that mentors must pass regular police checks for working with children.
• The authors should make clear that the criteria they refer to in line 365, are the criteria for the assignment of mentors to schools.

Materials and methods:

• This section can be shortened and more clearly presented. In particular, blocks 1 and 2 are not clear described, and could be simplified (and are arguably unnecessary to discuss). It needs to be clearly stated that the study includes the 303 students who responded fully to the measurement instruments and participated in the program (a lot of the other details are unnecessary)
• Figure 2 has the same title as Figure 1. It also needs to be simplified, and once again, removing the confusion of block 1 and block 2 would make it clearer.

Results:

• Once again, take care with wordiness and verb tenses. The results section should be written in the past tense, and hedging / filler words and phrases should be avoided. For example, line 520, “As in the previous case, we want to analyze whether…” should be “We analyzed…” Try to avoid phrases like “we decided”, “we see”, “If we analyze”, and just directly report the results. Also avoid emotive and informal language, such as “which is totally in line with the goals of the program” line 607.
• On line 549 the authors state “it is not significant in either the control group (-0.07, p>0.05)…” but the table shows a significant -0.08*. This needs to be corrected in either the txt or the table.

Discussion:

In general, the discussion is too long, wordy, and indirect. It should directly present the main findings and how they each relate to the literature earlier mentioned (no new literature should be included here, it should have been presented in the introduction), and clearly state how this study contributes to the field. The paragraph on 716-729 is very good, and a discussion section made of just five or six similar paragraphs would be sufficient. The limitations of the study and the instruments should be mentioned in a separate sub-section, and a sub-section for future study should come before the conclusion.

A shorter, more direct conclusion, that doesn’t include the future areas of study (which will be in their own subsection just before the conclusion) will finish the article with the desired emphasis.

All-in-all, this is a promising manuscript, and I hope the authors are not discouraged by the length of my comments nor the extension of the edits I am suggesting. Careful attention to these points, and improvement in the indicated areas, should result in an article worthy of publication.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper addresses a topic than, even not highly original, is having a significant relevance nowadays in which less and less children choose to follow STEM related professions.

The discussion of findings is coherent, balanced and compelling giving a full picture of the matter.

The conclusions are  supported by the results of the study and are also supported by secondary literature. The further research idea of analyzing the impact on the mentors who participated within the program is also relevant.

Author Response

RESPONSE: no actions required.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Congratulations to the authors of this paper. Their conscientious revision of this paper has resulted in a much clearer, well presented manuscript.

Author Response

Point 1. English language and style are fine/minor spell check required

Response 1. The English language and style have been reviewed by two professional Services: American Manuscript Editors in the first round and MDPI English editing service in the second round. The authors do not feel to have sufficient language skills to correct these two native reviews. However, we have changed small expressions that may be clearer in this way. If the reviewer can tell us the exact points of language errors we would be happy to correct them.

No additional action is required.