Strategies for Increasing Accessibility and Equity in Health and Human Service Educational Programs: Protocol for a National, Mixed Methods Study
, Erika Katzman 4, Cheryl Holmes 5, Stuart Kamenetsky 6, Iris Epstein 7 and Shahbano Zaman 1Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThanks for the opportunity for reviewing this study protocol titled “Strategies for increasing accessibility and equity in health and human service educational programs: protocol for a national, mixed methods study.” Please see my comments below for your consideration.
1. Several terms in this protocol are inappropriate for describing people with disabilities, for example, “disabled learners.” Please check the guidelines for writing about people with disabilities.
2. Please use the same terms throughout the protocol to increase the readability of this protocol. For example, HHS programs (line 118) and HHS profession (line 119). Do they represent the same term or different.
3. Line 89: What does class mean? Social economic status or something else? Please elaborate on it.
4. Need to elaborate the critical disability studies framework since this study will use it to conduct this study (line 97).
5. Please add research questions.
6. Please consider having a section under the Materials and Methods to describe all the tools and measures that will be used in this study, instead of stating them under the procedure. The information under procedure should just focus on how the study was or will be conducted.
7. Please revise Table 2. It’s hard to read. Please make it into a check list format. List all the items or topics on the first column, list the survey on the first row, and just use “Xs” to present which topic was included in which survey. Also, please describe the similarities and differences among these four surveys in the main texts and the purpose of the surveys.
8. Even though this study is still ongoing. Some information should be provided even if it’s still in the planning process.
a. The estimation of number of participants should be provided.
b. The length of the survey, number of items, and formats.
c. Reliability and validity information
9. Author(s) gave the definition of professional partners in section 2.2.2. It is still not very clear to me. Please add some examples (e.g., job titles). Is “regulatory agency” more formal than “regulatory body?”
10. The font size not consistent throughout the protocol (see p.4)
11. There are some extra spaces between sentences or missing a period at the end of a sentence. Please check them.
12. Restructure the data analysis section wither by research questions or qualitative and quantitative analysis. The later approach is used in the protocol; however, the section 2.5.3 should be under 2.5.2 because it’s also using qualitative analysis.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageThanks for the opportunity for reviewing this study protocol titled “Strategies for increasing accessibility and equity in health and human service educational programs: protocol for a national, mixed methods study.” Please see my comments below for your consideration.
1. Several terms in this protocol are inappropriate for describing people with disabilities, for example, “disabled learners.” Please check the guidelines for writing about people with disabilities.
2. Please use the same terms throughout the protocol to increase the readability of this protocol. For example, HHS programs (line 118) and HHS profession (line 119). Do they represent the same term or different.
3. Line 89: What does class mean? Social economic status or something else? Please elaborate on it.
4. Need to elaborate the critical disability studies framework since this study will use it to conduct this study (line 97).
5. Please add research questions.
6. Please consider having a section under the Materials and Methods to describe all the tools and measures that will be used in this study, instead of stating them under the procedure. The information under procedure should just focus on how the study was or will be conducted.
7. Please revise Table 2. It’s hard to read. Please make it into a check list format. List all the items or topics on the first column, list the survey on the first row, and just use “Xs” to present which topic was included in which survey. Also, please describe the similarities and differences among these four surveys in the main texts and the purpose of the surveys.
8. Even though this study is still ongoing. Some information should be provided even if it’s still in the planning process.
a. The estimation of number of participants should be provided.
b. The length of the survey, number of items, and formats.
c. Reliability and validity information
9. Author(s) gave the definition of professional partners in section 2.2.2. It is still not very clear to me. Please add some examples (e.g., job titles). Is “regulatory agency” more formal than “regulatory body?”
10. The font size not consistent throughout the protocol (see p.4)
11. There are some extra spaces between sentences or missing a period at the end of a sentence. Please check them.
12. Restructure the data analysis section wither by research questions or qualitative and quantitative analysis. The later approach is used in the protocol; however, the section 2.5.3 should be under 2.5.2 because it’s also using qualitative analysis.
Author Response
Please see attached file
Thanks
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsCongratulations on your article - it sounds like an interesting and important ongoing study, and I look forward to reading future articles that outline the data.
The ongoing nature of the study, and that none of the findings are shared in this article would be best explained early on, as this was confusing for the majority of the paper. I ended up having to re-read, use search terms to find where this was explained and looking back, I see the word protocol used in the title and the description of the article - but labelling this another way would help support the readers.
I have made comments throughout on the PDF and most of the points are very minor. I found some of the tables hard to read and understand - I have made note of these. It sounds like this is a complex study with many different facets and data source points. I am not a visual learner, but I found that the layout of the tables was hard to read.
I look forward to reading the final edited article.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see attached file
Thanks
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe research proposal is ambitious in its scope and well described in terms of theoretical frameworks. The research methodology and data analysis is described in detail. I have the following questions to the authors:
1. In the introduction the authors mention an underrepresentation of persons with disabilities in health and human services education programs. This may be little different from other sectors - what is the explicit relevance for studying this topic in this sector ?
2. Starting from line 81, the authors describe the scope of the study, based on the problem statement. I miss the explicit formulation of some concrete research questions.
3. Regarding the participants: line 133: disabled learners. Is it about participants who 'graduate' - what about broader experiential expertise ? Do they also belong to the research group ?
4. Table 2: what is the underlying framework for the themes being surveyed ?
5. Line 282: possibly interesting to evaluate ‘facilitators’ in addition to 'barriers' ?
Author Response
Please see attached file
Thanks
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsComments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thanks for further reviewing our manuscript. Please see attached our response to your comments. We highlighted all changes in the manuscript.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
