Youth Voices and Social Participation during a Pandemic: Dream Teens Powered by Jovem Cascais

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Overall, I believe that this manuscript can make an important contribution to the field. It is presents findings from participatory projects, rooted in PYD, and I think this context is well set out. However, I struggled with large parts of the manuscript and believe it lacked methodological detail and analytical rigour. I hope that this comments help and I've outlined specific queries / comments as follows:

1. Materials/Methods: Overall, I think large aspects of this section need clarity. Firstly, were applications for involvement (as per lines 106-114) made by schools/universities or young people directly? Secondly, where did 'working themes' used come from? Thirdly, and most importantly, I really struggled to visualise or follow the study design i.e. what were the components and how did they link together. I believe a visual or a flow chart outlining the study phases/stages would really help with this?

3. Methods/Results: In places, particular in the sections exploring qualitative work, more methodological detail was needed. What kind of qualitative study? How were data collected? I have similar concerns in the findings section - this felt more like presentation of the summary table without further analytical interpretation? 

4. Integration: How do findings from each of the phases integrate?

5. Discussion: What were the strengths and limitations of the study?

6. Abstract: Reflecting my queries as a whole, there were omissions here, particularly in relation to methods undertaken.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1,

First of all, many thanks for your time and review, which contributed to the improvement of this work. I attach the answers below to your comments.

1. Materials/Methods: Overall, I think large aspects of this section need clarity. Firstly, were applications for involvement (as per lines 106-114) made by schools/universities or young people directly? Secondly, where did 'working themes' used come from? Thirdly, and most importantly, I really struggled to visualise or follow the study design i.e. what were the components and how did they link together. I believe a visual or a flow chart outlining the study phases/stages would really help with this?

The description of methods and materials was revised and improved, and a figure with the study design was added (page 3).

3. Methods/Results: In places, particular in the sections exploring qualitative work, more methodological detail was needed. What kind of qualitative study? How were data collected? I have similar concerns in the findings section - this felt more like presentation of the summary table without further analytical interpretation? 

The methods and results section was broken into two studies, as were the participants (pages 4 and 5).

4. Integration: How do findings from each of the phases integrate?

Results are now more visual, for a better explanation (pages 6 to 10).

5. Discussion: What were the strengths and limitations of the study?

Section strenghts and limitations has been added (page 11).

6. Abstract: Reflecting my queries as a whole, there were omissions here, particularly in relation to methods undertaken.

The whole abstract has been revised and is now believed to be more comprehensive and complete (page 1).

Reviewer 2 Report

See report.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 2,

First of all, many thanks for your time and work, which contributed a lot to the improvement of this work. I attach the answers point by point. Best regards

1. Abstract – a clear aim of the study is missing. Please add.
2. Abstract - What kinds of qualitative data were collected and analysed?
3. “In the impact study, an improvement in action-research skills was 14 observed, with six individual projects being developed. (4) Conclusions: The results suggest that this project
   may constitute a relevant model for future work.” - These parts of the abstract are not
   informative. Comments 1 to 3 - The whole abstract has been redesigned and is now believed to contain all the necessary information (page 1).
4. Materials and Method section - There are misplacements of information in the Materials and Method section. Firstly, 2.1 Procedure and Participants. It is better to separate the Participant section from the Data Collection Procedures section. Secondly, there is an Instruments section but I find details on the instruments somewhere else. Please reorganize
   so that the Materials and Method section is systematic and follows conventions of research articles. Finally, the data analysis procedures should be described in the Materials and Method section, and not put in the Results section. Section 3 should be strictly for the results. All sections were restructured (page 4 to 11). I don't put lines because there were many changes and it would be hard to follow.
   5. P.5, “In a descriptive analysis, the respondents had a mean age of 18.76±3.541 years, 215 were mostly female (65.3%) and of Portuguese nationality (82.8%). The majority of the 216 respondents were students (74.9%), with 50.5% in secondary education, 33.9% in higher 217
   education and 15.6% in the 3rd cycle.” This is put in the Results section. These are not results of the study but they constitute a description of the respondents who filled in the questionnaire. Therefore, the information should be put in the Participants section. Amended (section 2.2.1 - page 4).
   6. P.7, “.2.2. Study 2 - Impact Evaluation Pre and Post Test”. The number of participants providing the data is confusing. There is mention of 7 acceptable answers, 12 active participants, and 9 participants. Please clarify. Section 2.1.2 - page 4 - has been reformulated and complemented.
   7. Pp.8-9, “Table 3. Summary table: Voices of Cascais' Youth”. This is a qualitative study, which means that the author(s) should give indication of which themes are dominant and shared by most the participants, and which are limited to a small number. Table 3 presents the 10 themes as having equal importance and relevance to the participants. Only the most talked-about topics are now presented (table 2 - page 8).
   8. The number of participants for the three studies are not presented clearly. I found the information that Study 1 involved 378 participants, but this information (N=378) is not clearly indicated in the relevant tables. The number of participants for Studies 2 and 3 are small, which is to be acceptable when the purpose is to collect qualitative data. However,
   the use of percentages without a clear mention of the total number will mislead the readers into thinking that the studies involved a large number of participants. Please make the participant number clear. Studies two and three have been merged, and this detailed description is now presented in section 2.1.2 - page 4.
   9. The Conclusions and Discussion section is mainly a summary of the results. There is a lack of analytical input from the author(s). The manuscript lacks comparison of the results with related findings to increase understanding of youth social participation. The results are not
   contextualized in the pandemic context which is used as a unique argument for the study at the beginning of the manuscript. The discussion was improved and conclusions discussed based on the themes under study (page 10 and 11).