Topic Modeling on Peer Interaction in Online and Mobile Learning of Higher Education: 1993–2022
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
The research and conclusions are laid out clearly and in an organized manner. There are a few minor errors that I suggest be corrected:
Line 119: ICT is an acronym that isn't defined
Lines 326, 343 and 360: Omit "The" and use the Issue as a name such as with Issue 15 and 17.
Line 344: the key term "live" seems awkward - if that is what was used that is fine, but it seemed like an adjective waiting for a noun.
In Figure 1: the first box on the left needs the word Higher to be capitalized.
Author Response
Line 119: ICT is an acronym that isn't defined
Response: Thank you for your valuable suggestions regarding our research. We have revised the content accordingly in lines 119-120.
Lines 326, 343 and 360: Omit "The" and use the Issue as a name such as with Issue 15 and 17.
Response: Thank you for your valuable suggestions regarding our research. We have revised the content accordingly in lines 341, 356, 373, 390.
Line 344: the key term "live" seems awkward - if that is what was used that is fine, but it seemed like an adjective waiting for a noun.
Response:
- Thank you for your valuable suggestions regarding our research. Concerning the key term "live" in Issue 11, "Peer Feedback and Self-Reflection in Online Learning," this term is derived from the analysis results produced by the CATAR software we used. We understand the semantic uncertainty of this term. However, we have chosen to retain this keyword to ensure that future researchers can replicate our study results.
- We will provide your suggestions as feedback to the original creators of CATAR for further discussion. This will help us better address similar keyword issues in the future and improve the accuracy and consistency of the keywords.
In Figure 1: the first box on the left needs the word Higher to be capitalized.
Response: Thank you for your valuable suggestions regarding our research. We have revised the content accordingly.
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
The paper provides a unique review of peer interaction, assessment, and participatory innovations in online and mobile learning within higher education. The use of topic modeling techniques to analyze a corpus of 485 articles from 1993 to 2022 is commendable. The segmentation into 19 distinct issues and their consolidation into three major thematic models demonstrate a clear and systematic approach to data analysis. The identification of significant themes and research focal points through clustering enhances the clarity of the paper's findings.
However, there are a few points that need to be revised in order to improve this paper:
1. The paper does not adequately address the limitations of the study. Discussing potential biases in the selection of articles, the challenges in topic modeling, and the limitations of the data sources would provide a more balanced perspective.
2. Topic 1 has 9 issues: 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, 15, 17. There is no explanation for why issues such as 2, 4, 6, etc. were not included. Do these numbering matters or not?
3. The caption of Figure 2: "Results of CATAR Clustering." should be changed into "Part of the results of CATAR clustering."
4. On page 4, the first occurrences of PRISMA and CATAR should cite their sources.
5. It would be beneficial if this paper could provide feedback, after viewing/reading these results, from practitioners or experts in this field of interest.
Author Response
1. The paper does not adequately address the limitations of the study. Discussing potential biases in the selection of articles, the challenges in topic modeling, and the limitations of the data sources would provide a more balanced perspective.
Response: Thank you for your valuable comments on our paper. We have incorporated your suggestions into the research limitations section of this study:
The inherent limitation of this study lies in analyzing sample articles solely from the Web of Science database. This approach may introduce potential biases in article selection, pose challenges for topic modeling, and limit the diversity of data sources. We recommend incorporating sample analysis from the Scopus database in future extended research. This inclusion will facilitate a comparative analysis of topic modeling differences between the two databases, thereby providing a more comprehensive and balanced perspective. We have added this explanation in lines 755-761.
2. Topic 1 has 9 issues: 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, 15, 17. There is no explanation for why issues such as 2, 4, 6, etc. were not included. Do these numbering matters or not?
Response: Thank you for your valuable comments on our paper. We have assigned issue numbers to the 19 clusters generated by the Content Analysis Toolkit for Academic Research (CATAR) software in sequential order from top to bottom. This is intended to enable future researchers to replicate and compare the study. We have added this explanation in lines 259-261.
3. The caption of Figure 2: "Results of CATAR Clustering." should be changed into "Part of the results of CATAR clustering."
Response: Thank you for your valuable suggestions regarding our research. We have revised the content accordingly.
4. On page 4, the first occurrences of PRISMA and CATAR should cite their sources.
Response: Thank you for your valuable suggestions regarding our research. We have revised the content accordingly.
5. It would be beneficial if this paper could provide feedback, after viewing/reading these results, from practitioners or experts in this field of interest.
Response: Thank you for your valuable comments on our research. Regarding your suggestion to provide feedback from practitioners or experts in the field of interest after reviewing the results, due to resource and time constraints, we were unable to include this aspect in our current study. However, we have incorporated your suggestion into the research limitations section and recommend conducting interviews and obtaining feedback from practitioners or experts in the field of interest in future extended studies. This will help further validate and enrich our research findings. We have added this explanation in lines 762-766.
