Sustainable Growth of Transversal Competencies: Exploring the Competence Relationships among University Students
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDear authors,
Congratulations on your interesting research.
The research is very interesting and important. It proposes a network analysis on the relationship between transversal competencies of university students.
I recommend that the article be accepted pending minor revisions. My reason for this recommendation is that the presented research is methodically correct in all aspects and presents the research and its results in a comprehensive, structured scientific manner.
The abstract concisely reports the aims and outcomes of the research. The methods, results, and conclusion are presented in a structured manner.
The theoretical framework is well written and introduces the research concepts in a comprehensive manner. All the presumptions and affirmations are supported by many up-to-date references.
The method is described in detail. The research design is correct in all aspects. The assessment methods are valid for research purposes.
The results are presented in a structured manner and are easy to understand.
The findings section offers in-depth interpretations of the results, from which valid conclusions are drawn. Future directions of the research, theoretical and practical implications are interesting.
However, a few minor suggestions can be made to the authors:
The first suggestion would be to present what makes this study different from the existing ones (research gap).
In the methods section, the type of study, the research question or hypotheses, and the research objectives should be presented.
The Sample section should be renamed Participants, because no sampling procedure for selecting a representative sample was applied.
In the measures section, more information about the instrument should be presented, even if it was developed and presented in detail in a previous study. I recommend specifying the number of scales and subscales, the number of items on each scale and whether the items were taken from other recognized scales.
In the procedure section, the procedure for complying with ethical standards, obtaining approval from the ethics committee and obtaining informed consent from the participants could be specified.
In figure X should be made next to an explanatory legend of all abbreviations, or even in the circles that represent nodes, should be the full name of the competence.
The discussion part could start with a brief description, in a sentence, of the purpose of the study. The subsequent discussions could be done in relation to the research question or the hypotheses/objectives. in this way, a clearer structure of the discourse is ensured.
Congratulations to the authors!
Sincerely,
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for the valuable comments. We have made the corrections and highlighted them in yellow. Our responses are attached below.
All the best,
The Authors
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis study aims to explore the relationships among six transversal competences (i.e., civic, digital, entrepreneurial, global, innovation, and research) and their related sub-competences. However, the paper requires some meaningful adjustments in consideration of the following points:
1. The introduction should focus on research purpose, background, and topic. However, the current paper mixes prior research and theoretical background together with the introduction, making the content disorganized. Therefore, please restructure the paper into separate sections: 1. Introduction and 2. Literature Review.
2. Literature Review: Overall, there's a shortage of references which makes it difficult to sufficiently support the importance and necessity of this research. Please supplement the literature review to address this.
3. Research Problem or Hypothesis: Clearly state the research problem or hypothesis. However, before doing so, reanalyze the results of previous research to justify why comparing and analyzing the six transversal competences is necessary or hypothesize about it.
4. The sample consists of 1,575 participants with 25.5% men and 73.5% women, indicating a significant gender ratio difference. This could potentially impact the research results. Therefore, validation regarding this issue is necessary. However, there is no validation based on gender differences in the paper, lowering the reliability of the research results.
5. According to the research results, global and innovation competences rank the highest, while civic competence is the lowest. This seems to be the most important point of the paper. However, the reasons why global and innovation competences are the highest and why civic competence is the lowest are not adequately explained.
6. Please provide a more critical discussion on research results. Ensure that their interpretation of results is sufficient and insightful based on prior research.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageThis study aims to explore the relationships among six transversal competences (i.e., civic, digital, entrepreneurial, global, innovation, and research) and their related sub-competences. However, the paper requires some meaningful adjustments in consideration of the following points:
1. The introduction should focus on research purpose, background, and topic. However, the current paper mixes prior research and theoretical background together with the introduction, making the content disorganized. Therefore, please restructure the paper into separate sections: 1. Introduction and 2. Literature Review.
2. Literature Review: Overall, there's a shortage of references which makes it difficult to sufficiently support the importance and necessity of this research. Please supplement the literature review to address this.
3. Research Problem or Hypothesis: Clearly state the research problem or hypothesis. However, before doing so, reanalyze the results of previous research to justify why comparing and analyzing the six transversal competences is necessary or hypothesize about it.
4. The sample consists of 1,575 participants with 25.5% men and 73.5% women, indicating a significant gender ratio difference. This could potentially impact the research results. Therefore, validation regarding this issue is necessary. However, there is no validation based on gender differences in the paper, lowering the reliability of the research results.
5. According to the research results, global and innovation competences rank the highest, while civic competence is the lowest. This seems to be the most important point of the paper. However, the reasons why global and innovation competences are the highest and why civic competence is the lowest are not adequately explained.
6. Please provide a more critical discussion on research results. Ensure that their interpretation of results is sufficient and insightful based on prior research.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for the valuable comments. We have made the corrections and highlighted them in yellow. Our responses are attached below.
All the best,
The Authors
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsAlthough not sufficient, the feedback from the reviewer has been generally addressed.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageAlthough not sufficient, the feedback from the reviewer has been generally addressed.
