The Fear of War Scale (FOWARS): Development and Initial Validation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper proposes new scale which might be useful in future research, it is well-written and offers clear conclusions. I have no major objections, but here are some specific suggestions on how to further improve the paper:

 1. It would be beneficial to include information about missing values and how they were handled.

2. Given that some initial items were deleted after the EFA, it would be good to list them and to explain whether their deletion have some impact on the content validity of the scale.

3. SEM model fits of the two-factor solution are relatively fine, but in my opinion it would be neccesary to compare them to the one-factor solution. Namely, the model indicates that both factors are highly correlated, and it might be more parsimonious to use the one-factor solution.

4. I would suggest to move limitations section into conclusion, now it is somewhat oddly placed in the discussion (first part of the discussion is not numerated at all).

5. Given that the sample is not random and not quite match the general population, it would be good to mention that the measurement invariance of the scale is not confirmed on other populations and should be tested in future research.

6. Discussion could be a bit broadened by suggestion in which areas of research the scale could be implemented.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper deals with a topical and well-worked issue. There are aspects of form that need to be taken care of, such as table 3 or even the alignment of table 4. The conclusion is very short and should be expanded a little more with all the work that has been done previously.

Author Response

Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx