Fostering Competence and Autonomy in High School Physical Education Classes: An Exploration of Intricate Relationships

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is an excellent study and makes a valuable contribution to the field physical education, specifically fitness testing, and self-determination theory. Your work was informative, insightful, theoretically grounded, and effectively structured; well done. Unless there are journal specifications regarding word count, I suggest the considerations below:

- There is no Introduction in this manuscript. I believe there is value in adding an Introduction to contextulaise background relevant to this study, and to emphasise why this is important (or under-investigated).

- More information on participants (age, gender, where they were selected from in terms of school, geographic location, socioeconomic status, ethnicity).

- What was the rationale for selecting the 11 tests?

- Apprehension is mentioned in the Autonomy section of the Results for MSFT. I believe this warrants further deconstructing - how did you know this?

Author Response

Thank you for the supportive comments. I believe that these comments have significantly strengthened this work. I hope that the added introduction satisfies the need for contextualization. 

Comment 1: There is no Introduction in this manuscript. I believe there is value in adding an Introduction to contextulaise background relevant to this study, and to emphasise why this is important (or under-investigated).

Response 1: An introduction has been between both pages 1 and 2. This part also emphasizes the need to investigate how assessments can align with the conceptualization of physical literacy.

Comment 2: More information on participants (age, gender, where they were selected from in terms of school, geographic location, socioeconomic status, ethnicity).

Response 2: More information added on page 4. 

Comment 3: What was the rationale for selecting the 11 tests?

Response 3: Rationale provided on page 3, within the paragraph under "materials and methods".

Comment 4: Apprehension is mentioned in the Autonomy section of the Results for MSFT. I believe this warrants further deconstructing - how did you know this?

Response 4: This was added on page 5, immediately following Figure 1.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

I am delighted to review an article draft entitled "Fostering Competence and Autonomy in High School Physical Education Classes: An Exploration of Intricate Relationships". It is a well-written and scientifically sound piece of research. However, there is room for improvement:

The research problem could be explained better (but briefly) at the abstract's beginning. 

Also, "various factors" in the 8th line of the abstract should be outlined right away.

My main concern is a limited theoretical background, I highly recommend involving more recent literature pieces to articulate the conceptual framework.

Limitations could be a great extent to conclusion (compensated by future research directions)

I would like to recommend moving fig. 2 to the discussion section but implications to the conclusion

I hope you find my comments helpful.

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, 

Thank you for the supportive comments and insight. I believe that the changes made, based on comments made, have strengthened the product.

Comment 1: The research problem could be explained better (but briefly) at the abstract's beginning. 

Response 1: Changes have been made to the abstract (page 1), based on this comment. Specifically identifying the problem with assessments not aligning with the conceptualization of physical literacy.

Comment 2: Also, "various factors" in the 8th line of the abstract should be outlined right away. 

Response 2: This has been changed to read "personal and environmental".

Comment 3: My main concern is a limited theoretical background, I highly recommend involving more recent literature pieces to articulate the conceptual framework.

Comment 3: The introduction has been significantly added to in order to build the theoretical background (pages 1 and 2). More literature has been added to highlight the misalignment between assessments and physical literacy, as well as the connections between SDT and physical literacy, and other relevant concepts.

Comment 4: Limitations could be a great extent to conclusion (compensated by future research directions)

Response 4: There has been a "Future Research Directions" section added, specifically looking at environmental factors that may be influencing how students conceptualization health and fitness. This can be found on page 10.

Comment 5: I would like to recommend moving fig. 2 to the discussion section but implications to the conclusion.

Comment 5: Fig. 2 has been moved to the discussion, which can be found on page 10.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

Thank you for addressing my recommendations.