Self-Concept and Feeling of Belonging as a Predictor Variable of the Attitude towards the Study from the PISA 2018 Report

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article presents a reflection on the importance of self-esteem in relation to the sense of belonging to the educational context and, consequently, of success at school. The article presents an analysis of these states in the context of a Spanish secondary school.
Although the article is interesting and the state of the art well formulated, the submitted version seems to be a draft rather than the final article. The results and conclusions are not sufficiently argued, and the few data reported are in Spanish and not in English.
I suggest to the authors a thorough revision of the text and English, because the topic is interesting and the article has potential, but needs to be improved.

Author Response

The one related to academic performance has been eliminated from the objectives, since it was an error. And what is intended to address is the feeling of belonging to the center. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This study is based in the results obtained by the PISA 2018 assessment. It is interesting how authors make use of these data, since it represents an important sample of the secondary educational level students. Therefore, it is very interesting to analyze these data.

Nevertheless, I found many aspects that makes reconsider the manuscript and I should make some comments about those aspects:

• Title: the study does not analyze the effect of self-concept and feeling of belonging on school success or achievement. Even when at the end of the introduction section this objective is mentioned (the objective of this work are to analyze the feeling of belonging and self-concept, and their influence on academic success...), the study does not include these analyses. Therefore, the title changed and the second objective removed.
• Materials and methods:
  • Instrument: It is not clear which are the items included in the instrument used; this fact makes difficult to replicate the study. Therefore, I would ask to consider introducing the specific items.
  • Data analysis: It is not explained how the structural equation model has been carried out (I do not think SPSS v26 support this analysis). It would be interestingto include this analysis in this section.
•  Results: Table 1 should be translated.
• Discussion: I can not find out where the last three paragraphs are supported by results. In the case these would be supported by results, they lack of discussion.

Author Response

The data analysis section has been restructured. The results section has been restructured. An appendix has been added at the end of the work with the items used in the results. 

Reviewer 3 Report

This review is obviously a second round. I can see you added a SEM model. Still, there are several problems.

1. Your methodology section no longer matches how you actually conducted the study.
2. The SEM has a sufficient sample size and looks like it was adequately conducted, but the results and discussion do not explain the structure and the logicality of the choices. Here is an article which could serve as a model: Chen, B. H., Chiu, W. C., & Wang, C. C. (2015). The relationship among academic self-concept, learning strategies, and academic achievement: A case study of national vocational college students in Taiwan via SEM. The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher, 24(2), 419-431. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Chih-Wang-2/publication/271911855_The_Relationship_Among_Academic_Self-concept_Learning_Strategies_and_Academic_Achievement_A_Case_Study_of_National_Vocational_College_Students_in_Taiwan_via_SEM/links/5ac99d640f7e9bcd519759b6/The-Relationship-Among-Academic-Self-concept-Learning-Strategies-and-Academic-Achievement-A-Case-Study-of-National-Vocational-College-Students-in-Taiwan-via-SEM.pdf 
3. Your citations switch between end notes and in-text citations. MDPI requires end notes.
4. The new table switches to Spanish. For an article in English, please correct this.
5. Because the SEM results give little in-text information, the discussion does not substantiate the findings.
6. You mention the sample reported students who were retained. Looking at retention vs non-retention for an article on self-concept would place your results in context and offer very valuable, insightful information. Since you already have this information, all you would have to do is run the appropriate statistical tests. [I will admit that while I do not know the local context, but 11.8% retained seems especially high. Is this a statistic which is comparable to the population? This issue could be very important, as your sample sounds skewed. Please explain.]
7. All good research should have a section devoted to limitations and future research.
8. I would add information about academic self-concept (ASC). If you were to include ASC, I would include the work of H. W. Marsh (and possibly Shavelson). The article, according to your SEM model, includes this component. If self-concept is considered as multidimensional and often domain specific, such an erudition would substantiate your discussion issues (especially if you can include statistics on retention/non-retention).

Your article has vast potential, and I do not believe my recommendations include a great deal of work because you have all the data.

Author Response

An appendix has been added at the end of the work with the items used in the results. 

Appendix A
Educational self-concept:

My goal is to learn as much as possible. My goal is to fully master the material presented in my classes. My goal is to understand the content of my classes as thoroughly as possible.

Personal self-concept:

I usually manage one way or another. I am proud to have achieved. I feel like I can handle a lot of things at the same time. My belief in myself helps me get through difficult times. When I am in a difficult situation, I can usually find my way out of it.

Sense of belonging:

I feel like a stranger at school. I make friends easily at school. I feel like I belong to the school. I feel uncomfortable and out of place in my school. Other students seem to like me. I feel lonely at school

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The paper is devoted to a very interesting topic - the interrelationship of personal and educational self-concept and sense of belonging to a school.
However the results are presented unclear and without details, there is an insufficient amount of data about the methodology and obtained results. 
First of all, it is recommended to include what statements from PISA 2018 report are the base of research. There is only information (at the figure) that there are 3 items at Personal self-concept, 5 at Educational self-concept, and 6 at Sense of belonging. But what are they? The lack of this information is especially strange because in the figure we can see the correlation between these unknown variables.

The main results obtained should be described in words, and not only represented by a diagram. 

The more important question is about the main idea as it is claimed in the title - the influence of Self-concept and the feeling of belonging to success at school. I'm not sure what is educational self-concept is (there is no definition or components that revealed the essence in the paper), but it isn't the academic performance. So it's not clear how the authors can solve the claimed issue.

Table 1 is written in Spanish

Author Response

The results section has been restructured.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The article presents a reflection on the importance of self-esteem in relation to the sense of belonging to the educational context and, consequently, of success at school. The article presents an analysis of these states in the context of a Spanish secondary school. The article is interesting and the state of the art well-formulated, moreover the authors addressed the changes asked in the first review and the English is now edited and readable with ease.

Considering all these aspects.

 

 

Author Response

Thank you very much for your kind words and for your help, which has made a significant improvement to our manuscript.

Reviewer 2 Report

Authors have included the recommendations made in the first review round. Therefore, I do not have any special concern with this new version.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your kind words and for your help, which has made a significant improvement to our manuscript.

Reviewer 3 Report

Table 1 still needs fixed.

There is a lot of improvement, but you could do so much more with the SEM. Still, there is significant improvement. There could be better integration with the discussion.

Author Response

The error in table 1 has been corrected.

An error in the SEM has been corrected