Examining the Effects of Peer-Led Team Learning as a Support for Community College Transfer Students’ STEM Achievement

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Overall, it is a well-written article. The purpose of the study is clearly described at the beginning and re-addressed later. However, I suggest you to read the feedback and revise your paper. 

1. Introduction: I suggest the authors include PLTL literature. You mentioned that the results of your project are consistent with previous studies, but the literature review lacks detail. You should show what studies have been done and how your study contributes to this line of research.
2. Materials and Methods:
   1. Setting: I appreciate that the authors added citations for more information about the PLTL program (lines 214-215).
   2. Participants: I like the details about the participants. However, I would like to know their college year as well.
   3. Procedure (lines 313-324): I recommend reorganizing this paragraph. Also, be specific about the participants in the focus group and those in the interviews, as they are not the same.
   4. Procedure (lines 343-347): I suggest presenting either (1) both the priori codebook and the revised codebook for the readers to see the changes/revisions or (2) only the revised codebook, as your results discuss more about the new codebook.
3. Results:
   1. I recommend including subtitles for your results based on the codes or themes. Currently, the themes are discussed back and forth, which is not very organized and can confuse readers.
   2. (line 353): What do you mean by “data points”? What is the unit of the “121” counts? Please explain.
   3. For the participants’ interview excerpts, use block quotes that start on a new line and indent the block about ½ inch from the left margin. You should correct the format throughout the Results section.
   4. As mentioned above, the results section is not very organized, and some phrases or sentences seem to be in the wrong places.
      1. For example, “equality of outputs…(p. 1687)” on lines 378-380 shouldn’t be there because that paragraph discusses social constructivism.
      2. Another example, “Although… the material.” (lines 408-412) should be moved and combined with lines 430-434.
   5. As you mentioned, you have a large number of double-coded data points for equity of inputs and equity of fairness. I don’t understand why you kept these two. You did not clearly differentiate these two, and you should not be able to distinguish one from the other, making it difficult to avoid double coding. I recommend structuring your results around the new coding book.
   6. Table 2 is too long and redundant with the text. You can simplify this table or delete it, as you address this in lines 501-514.
4. Limitation: I think you need to describe your limitations more specifically. Your paper did not include any data from 13 participants, and I am not sure if these 4 voluntary interviewees represent the entire group of participants.
5. References: It seems that you used APA 7th style for the citations. However, you did not adhere to the rules correctly.
   1. The journal titles and volume numbers are not italicized.
   2. Some references do not include all the information. For example, in [3], the article title is missing. I recommend checking the entire References section.

Author Response

Comment:

Overall, it is a well-written article. The purpose of the study is clearly described at the beginning and re-addressed later. However, I suggest you to read the feedback and revise your paper. 

1. Introduction: I suggest the authors include PLTL literature. You mentioned that the results of your project are consistent with previous studies, but the literature review lacks detail. You should show what studies have been done and how your study contributes to this line of research.

 

Response to review comment:

Thank you for this suggestion we have added in a paragraph in the introduction (lines 65-78) to include this information.

 

Comment:

1. Materials and Methods:
1. Setting: I appreciate that the authors added citations for more information about the PLTL program (lines 214-215).
2. Participants: I like the details about the participants. However, I would like to know their college year as well.
3. Procedure (lines 313-324): I recommend reorganizing this paragraph. Also, be specific about the participants in the focus group and those in the interviews, as they are not the same.
4. Procedure (lines 343-347): I suggest presenting either (1) both the priori codebook and the revised codebook for the readers to see the changes/revisions or (2) only the revised codebook, as your results discuss more about the new codebook.

 

Response to review comment:

We appreciate your comments on our detail of the setting. For your comment about participants, we added this information into the manuscript in section 2.2 under participants (lines 280-272, and within descriptions of the interview participants). We also modified the procedures section according to your suggestions (lines 342-364). The fourth comment was not fully addressed because a revised codebook was not created. However they procedure for theme creation was made more clear with revisions within the second paragraph under the section 2.4 Analysis (lines 392-401) to make this clearer. The researchers coded data points to the terms within the codebook and then developed themes and labeled them descriptively based around the data that was coded to the terms in the codebook.

 

Comment:

1. Results:
1. I recommend including subtitles for your results based on the codes or themes. Currently, the themes are discussed back and forth, which is not very organized and can confuse readers.
2. (line 353): What do you mean by “data points”? What is the unit of the “121” counts? Please explain.
3. For the participants’ interview excerpts, use block quotes that start on a new line and indent the block about ½ inch from the left margin. You should correct the format throughout the Results section.
4. As mentioned above, the results section is not very organized, and some phrases or sentences seem to be in the wrong places.
1. For example, “equality of outputs…(p. 1687)” on lines 378-380 shouldn’t be there because that paragraph discusses social constructivism.
2. Another example, “Although… the material.” (lines 408-412) should be moved and combined with lines 430-434.
5. As you mentioned, you have a large number of double-coded data points for equity of inputs and equity of fairness. I don’t understand why you kept these two. You did not clearly differentiate these two, and you should not be able to distinguish one from the other, making it difficult to avoid double coding. I recommend structuring your results around the new coding book.
6. Table 2 is too long and redundant with the text. You can simplify this table or delete it, as you address this in lines 501-514.

 

Response to review comment:

To your first point, thank you for this comment. Subtitles were added in the results section for clarity. For point two regarding data points, we included information to make this clearer in the first paragraph of Section 3 Results (lines 408-409). For point three regarding block quotes and indentation, we were following the style guidelines provided by the journal for manuscripts. However this was changed based on the reviewer’s recommendations and can be changed back based on editorial feedback. Thank you for your suggestions on point five with the double coded data points. This was done to communicate the relationships that existed between the terms in the codebook and the developed themes. Again, there was no new created codebook, only themes that developed from those data that were coded to each term in the codebook. We feel that the headings included within the results section make this distinction a bit clearer in terms of uncovering the relationships between themes and codes with in the codebook. We also appreciated your sixth comment in this section. However based on another reviewer’s comment of liking Table 2, we did not delete it but did truncate the information within the table.

 

Comment:

 

1. Limitation: I think you need to describe your limitations more specifically. Your paper did not include any data from 13 participants, and I am not sure if these 4 voluntary interviewees represent the entire group of participants.

 

Response to review comment:

We appreciate this suggestion. The fifth paragraph under the section 4 Discussion, Implications, and Conclusion was modified to include specificity of limitations regarding the data from the 13 participants, which included the four interviewees.

 

Comment:

 

1. References: It seems that you used APA 7th style for the citations. However, you did not adhere to the rules correctly.
1. The journal titles and volume numbers are not italicized.
2. Some references do not include all the information. For example, in [3], the article title is missing. I recommend checking the entire References section.

 

Response to review comment:

Thank you for this check of our reference list. The italics have been fixed and the addition of the title for the third citation has been included.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The abstract examines the connection between well-known (STEM, ECSM) and less-known (PLTL) concepts in a community college education context. The STEM problem is renowned internationally. The analysis of innovations to improve the efficiency of STEM teaching and learning is always timely. The study is based on modern scientific literature, and the half a hundred reference sources allowed the authors to review the progressive scientific endeavors of the past decade and a half, which were solved to a high standard. The first introductory chapter of the study contains a concise description of the conceptual system, presenting the characteristics of the Community College's training portfolio. Chapter 2 begins with a qualitative case study, correctly explaining the main actors and the training environment. After the presentation of the four interviewees selected from the 13 participants, a brief description and tabular presentation of the study follows, presenting the structure and content of the a priori Codebook used. The presentation of the results is sufficiently detailed; Table 2 summarizes the main characteristics of the interviewees. The final, 4th chapter of the study is a summary that frames the Discussion, Implications, and Conclusions. Although the findings are undoubtedly interesting, due to the unique nature of the case study and the modest size of the student sample, what has been described can only be considered a local methodological innovation and unsuitable for formulating scientific conclusions. Overall, the publication, which is undoubtedly rich in its literature review and contains novel elements in its methodological approach, despite all its originality, does not contain any significant scientific value or results at an international level from a publication point of view. Therefore, its publication is not justified.

Author Response

Comment:

The abstract examines the connection between well-known (STEM, ECSM) and less-known (PLTL) concepts in a community college education context. The STEM problem is renowned internationally. The analysis of innovations to improve the efficiency of STEM teaching and learning is always timely. The study is based on modern scientific literature, and the half a hundred reference sources allowed the authors to review the progressive scientific endeavors of the past decade and a half, which were solved to a high standard. The first introductory chapter of the study contains a concise description of the conceptual system, presenting the characteristics of the Community College's training portfolio. Chapter 2 begins with a qualitative case study, correctly explaining the main actors and the training environment. After the presentation of the four interviewees selected from the 13 participants, a brief description and tabular presentation of the study follows, presenting the structure and content of the a priori Codebook used. The presentation of the results is sufficiently detailed; Table 2 summarizes the main characteristics of the interviewees. The final, 4th chapter of the study is a summary that frames the Discussion, Implications, and Conclusions.

Response to review comment:

We appreciate your feedback and kind consideration of our manuscript.

 

Comment:

Although the findings are undoubtedly interesting, due to the unique nature of the case study and the modest size of the student sample, what has been described can only be considered a local methodological innovation and unsuitable for formulating scientific conclusions. Overall, the publication, which is undoubtedly rich in its literature review and contains novel elements in its methodological approach, despite all its originality, does not contain any significant scientific value or results at an international level from a publication point of view. Therefore, its publication is not justified.

Response to review comment:

Thank you for your insightful comments. However we disagree on the scientific contributions. A paragraph was added in the introduction to include the prior PLTL research and where our study adds to the body of literature. Mainly, and as mentioned by the reviewer to begin their commentary, very little research is being done in regard to PLTL and community college students, more specifically community college transfer students. Additionally other reviewers commented on the contribution our work has to this field.  

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I am pleased to review this manuscript and believe it contributes to STEM education by providing a detailed description of how Peer-led Team Learning may influence community college transfer students, a student population that needs continuous attention. The authors provide clear and adequate information about the study. However, some improvements are needed before accepting the manuscript for publication. 

1. Introduction: The introduction is mostly concise and clear. However, the paragraphs in section 1.2 are hard to follow. The first two paragraphs include some overlapping information about the features of CCTS. The third paragraph would better connect to the previous two paragraphs if the authors could include the literature on the impact of using PLTL with CCTS or specify that PLTL has not been applied with CCTS.

2. Materials and Methods: The authors did a great job adequately describing the study.

3. Results: The authors need to organize the results better to highlight their findings. It is helpful to include a figure illustrating the thematic relationships. However, it is hard to identify the themes in the rest of the result sections, even though the authors mentioned them in several places. I suggest the authors use subheadings for each theme and format the excerpts differently so that the audience can capture the key points quickly. Also, the authors stated that they identified the relationships among the themes. I want to encourage them to provide specific findings on the relationships.

4. Discussion, Implications, and Conclusions: This section connects to the results and discusses the limitations and significance of the study.  I suggest the authors connect the results to the literature more closely.  

Author Response

Comment:

I am pleased to review this manuscript and believe it contributes to STEM education by providing a detailed description of how Peer-led Team Learning may influence community college transfer students, a student population that needs continuous attention. The authors provide clear and adequate information about the study. However, some improvements are needed before accepting the manuscript for publication. 

1. Introduction: The introduction is mostly concise and clear. However, the paragraphs in section 1.2 are hard to follow. The first two paragraphs include some overlapping information about the features of CCTS. The third paragraph would better connect to the previous two paragraphs if the authors could include the literature on the impact of using PLTL with CCTS or specify that PLTL has not been applied with CCTS.

Response to review comment:

Thank you for your feedback. Section 1.2 Community College Transfer Students was reorganized.  The third paragraph in section 1.2 Community College Transfer Students (lines 189-192) has been revised to respond to the suggestion made in comment one on the impact of using PLTL with CCTS.

Comment:

2. Materials and Methods: The authors did a great job adequately describing the study.

Response to review comment:

Thank you for your kind words.

Comment:

3. Results: The authors need to organize the results better to highlight their findings. It is helpful to include a figure illustrating the thematic relationships. However, it is hard to identify the themes in the rest of the result sections, even though the authors mentioned them in several places. I suggest the authors use subheadings for each theme and format the excerpts differently so that the audience can capture the key points quickly. Also, the authors stated that they identified the relationships among the themes. I want to encourage them to provide specific findings on the relationships.

Response to review comment:

Thank you for this suggestion. In the section 3 Results, we have included subheadings to identify the themes. One of the sub-headings included directly points to the relationships to make this clearer.

Comment:

4. Discussion, Implications, and Conclusions: This section connects to the results and discusses the limitations and significance of the study.  I suggest the authors connect the results to the literature more closely.  

Response to review comment:

We find this difficult as the research regarding PLTL and community college transfer students is limited. There is little to draw on in this regard and why the results could not be connected to the literature more closely.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Based on the reviewers' opinions, the quality of the revised manuscript has improved significantly. The additional definitions (PLTL), the revision of the subsection, and the renewal of Table 2 can be considered significant changes. These changes have significantly enhanced the coherence of the study, making it more understandable and engaging. Its scientific value is remarkable. It recommends the publication.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have adequately addressed all my comments. I believe this work provides useful descriptive findings that inform the incorporation of PLTL in STEM learning for CCTS, an important student population.