STEM Students’ Academic Well-Being at University before and during Later Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Cohort and Longitudinal Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors

- congratulation to your article: "STEM Students’ Academic Well-Being at University Before and During Later Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-sectional Cohort and Longitudinal Study"

aim:

1 authors examined if students experienced lower academic well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic than before.

2 authors examined whether COVID-19 pandemic-related study stressors could explain lower academic well-being.

3. authors explored to what extent social support systems in the university environment could help students to cope with the potential negative effects of
the COVID-19 pandemic on their academic well-being.

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very well structured article. (introduction, methods, results, tables, conclusions) : - congratulation

- very interesting topic,

- no problem with references.  

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add to discussion: 

1.  Maturkanič, P.; Čergeťová, I.T.; Králik, R.; Hlad, Ľ.; Roubalová, M.; Martin, J.G.; Judák, V.; Akimjak, A.; Petrikovičová, L. The Phenomenon of Social and Pastoral Service in Eastern Slovakia and Northwestern Czech Republic during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Comparison of Two Selected Units of Former Czechoslovakia in the Context of the Perspective of Positive Solutions. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19, 2480. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19042480

2.

https://www.actamissiologica.com/sub/am1_2023.pdf  

THE RELEVANCE OF THERAPEUTIC APPROACHES IN ACCOMPANIMENT FOR SOCIAL WORK STUDENTS WITH POST-COVID-19 SYNDROME
Roman Kralik, Jan Zimny, Ivan Haringa, Marie Roubalova, Beata Akimjakova

p. 97-106

3.

Alam, S., & Hameed, A. (2023). Teaching Concerns in Higher Education: Impact of Covid-19 in Pedagogy. Journal of Education Culture and Society, 14(1), 318–332. https://doi.org/10.15503/jecs2023.1.318.332

4.

Tvrdoň, M., Akimjak, A., Slobodova Novakova , K., & Biryukova, Y. N. (2022). Covid-19 Pandemic and Human Rights – Myth or Reality?. Journal of Education Culture and Society, 13(2), 221–230. https://doi.org/10.15503/jecs2022.2.221.230

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Dear authors, editor:

I recommend publishing.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

There are lots of researches focusing on the psychological, mental, social effects of COVID 19 at school context, however, this study comes forward as it was designed as a longitudinal study.  Longitudinal studies are valuable sources to see how the particpants perceptions change in time. Thus I read the paper with a great interest.

In general the study is well-designed and the methodology is fine . There are some minor points that should be fixed and I think the issues that I raised in this review needs minor revision and they will strenghten the research. 

To start with the methodology, it was nice to see detailed info regarding the scales used in the research. However, I could not see the confirmatory factor analysis in the manuscript. I strongly recommend the authors to conduct CFA analysis with their current data set and include the results (fit indices) in the manuscript.

I think the second hypothesis is too long and I recommend the authors to rewrite (if possible). Here is the second  hypothesis (Hypothesis 2: Academic well-being is lower for STEM students who score higher on the following COVID-19-related stressors: worries about falling behind with the study, having a less enjoyable study period, their financial situation, and the value of the diploma.)  It is nearly a paragraph on its own.    

Another important problem is about the tables. I think the tables are anot reader-friendly and they seem too complicated to understand. If possible, the tables can be organized in a more clear format. Unlike the tables, the figures were very understandable and they enriched the manuscript visually.

I strongly recommend the authors to add a limitations sections. In this section please mention the problems you faced regarding data collection procedure, your sample etc

And my last recommendation is about the disscussion part at the end. The authors can develop their disscussions by citing more international literature. There are lots of studies on the psychological effects of COVID-19 from Italian, Spanish, Turkish context.

Regards

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper is very interesting and the topic covers a gap in relevant research. The methodology is proper and documented. However, there are certain gaps in the theoretical foundation of the study. For example, the concept of academic well-being is not well-defined. The same applies to STEM in the context of higher education.   An example of previous studies to get some further knowledge and exploration can be accessed from the following link:   https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.766307/full

10.20527/ecopsy.v7i1.6025

As well as the article From STEM to STEAM and to STREAM Enabled Through Meaningful

Critical Reflective Learning is found in the attached book.

The presentation of the Regression analysis in Tables 1 and 2 is not clear. There are also other ways to summarise regression statistics that are more visible and clear. It also good to clarify the conditions required for using regression analysis.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The article is perfectly publishable in Sustainability in the current version, but the authors should explain in a more detailed and substantiated way why the study focuses on STEM students and not on other types of students. It would be, for example, very interesting to know the changes that COVID-19 imposed on the academic well-being of students subjected to greater social pressure during the pandemic, such as Medicine or Health Sciences students. In any case, the article in question is a scientifically impeccable work. It makes clear from the beginning the objectives of the research on which it is based. It describes and discuss in detail the starting assumptions. It clarifies and assumes the biases that these assumptions can introduce into the analysis. It offers all the necessary information to know the characteristics of the student samples on which the work is based. Detects interpretive problems caused by the impossibility of including factors that are difficult to trace. In short, it does not say more than what the empirical evidence used irrefutably shows. It also offers a more or less secure future scenario from which to propose the most appropriate policies to try to guarantee educational well-being in states of emergency such as the one caused by the latest Covid pandemic. It is clear, therefore, that, although the study could have been extended to students from other disciplines, the work deserves to be published in Sustainability, without the need for changes in form or substance.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf