How Learning Time Allocation Make Sense on Secondary School Students’ Academic Performance: A Chinese Evidence Based on PISA 2018
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Interesting and relevant. But still, some things are not clear to me and must be improved.
p5l207-207: It is not clear what this means, is this time in school plus time at home?
p6l217: What do you mean with "high"? The correlation between SES and achievement mostly is no more than 0.20, which in my opinion is not very strong. Provide references if in your data r is more.
p8 Results: In this section and analyses Learning time total and Learning time per subject are analyzed, but it is not always clear which of the two is chosen and relevant (e.g., in the Tables' captions).
In addition, I feel that Time total does not that much. Some students are good at math, others at reading. Some spent much time at math (or reading, respectively), because they find it difficult. Some spent no time at math because they have a "math nod". So, adding up time math and time reading has little to do with practice, but just is a math exercise.
Also, in many national school systems there are different levels of education in the secondary system, some focus on theory, some on practice. Lumping them together will lead to strange findings.
I wonder whether there the PISA data als include an indicator for intelligence or earlier achievement score. If so, these should be used as a "correction variable" in the analyses.
In Figure 2, does this apply to the Total or Subject time scores? In addition, what you actually need here are longitudinal data. As it is now, you don't know if the different levels are a consequence of learning time or it is just chance as the data have been collected at the same time.
In the description of the tables, e.g. Table 2, much more explanation should be given.
Author Response
Thank you for your kind review and valuable comments. We are grateful to receive these comments and suggestions. The process of revision gives us the new opportunity to review our research, we take every advice seriously.
In order to make it easier for you to check item by item to save your time, we marked all the changes in red. You can only check the red notes when reviewing. The following is our response to each revision opinion. The words in black are comments, and the red words are the explanation. Thank you!
＃Comments for the Author：
Reviewer #1:
p5l207-207: It is not clear what this means, is this time in school plus time at home?
We have added the explanation of student learning in the manuscript. It mainly refers to the learning time invested in a particular subject or in all of the subjects. It includes the total learning time both inside and outside the classroom. The learning time investment measured by the PISA also excludes the time wasted on non-instructional activities as well, so the learning time refers to the time students spend on real learning.
p6l217: What do you mean with "high"? The correlation between SES and achievement mostly is no more than 0.20, which in my opinion is not very strong. Provide references if in your data r is more.
Thank you pretty much for your kind suggestion, we have revised our expression and changed “high” to “have correlation”. We also added more reference to support.
p8 Results: In this section and analyses Learning time total and Learning time per subject are analyzed, but it is not always clear which of the two is chosen and relevant (e.g., in the Tables' captions). In addition, I feel that Time total does not that much. Some students are good at math, others at reading. Some spent much time at math (or reading, respectively), because they find it difficult. Some spent no time at math because they have a "math nod". So, adding up time math and time reading has little to do with practice, but just is a math exercise. Also, in many national school systems there are different levels of education in the secondary system, some focus on theory, some on practice. Lumping them together will lead to strange findings.
Thank you for your comments, we would like to give some explanations about this. First of all, about students' excelling and learning time input, PISA is based on a large sample survey to measure students' learning time and academic performance, under the big data analysis, it is still generally possible to analyze the relationship between learning time and academic performance, and the issue of interest orientation of some students' learning time allocation is relatively small. In addition, regarding the differences in national education systems, since we selected a sample of Chinese regions, the Chinese compulsory education curriculum system is uniform and there is no emphasis on theory over practice or vice versa. Of course, we will follow up by examining the relationship between learning time and academic performance across countries and focusing on the differences in education systems across countries.
I wonder whether there the PISA data also include an indicator for intelligence or earlier achievement score. If so, these should be used as a "correction variable" in the analyses.
According to the information we know, there is no intelligence or earlier achievement score in PISA test, we also want to involve this information if it has. Of course, we considered the control variables such as family background, school quality, innate cognitive ability and so on in order to improve the limitations.
In Figure 2, does this apply to the Total or Subject time scores?
The three curves in Figure 2 represent the relationship between time investment in math, science and reading and the academic performance in these three subjects. With the curves shift to right, it represent the coefficient of influence of the leaning time investment for each subject on students’ academic achievement with better academic performance. We added the explanation in the manuscript in order to make sure the readers can understand.
In addition, what you actually need here are longitudinal data. As it is now, you don't know if the different levels are a consequence of learning time or it is just chance as the data have been collected at the same time.
Thank you for your comments, it is true that using longitudinal follow-up data can better guarantee causal inference, but although the PISA data test is held every 3 years, there is no longitudinal data available due to the different sample groups of students in each test, therefore, we can only include some student background and cognitive ability, which can also largely guarantee the scientific validity of the results, and we have included this point in our limitations of the study. Of course, the results of a large number of research on PISA have been analyzed based on cross-sectional data.
In the description of the tables, e.g. Table 2, much more explanation should be given.
According to your suggestion, more explanation has been added.
Thanks a lot for your kind and valuable comments again, we are looking forward to your further feedback.
Best regards,
Ang LIU, Yuguang WEI, Qi XIU, Hao YAO, Jia LIU
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Editors
Dear authors,
Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this paper. This paper used the method of threshold regression and quantile regression to explore the optimal length of learning 13 time to promote the students’ academic. Before considering publishing this paper, this paper needs several improvements.
Material and methods sections
Author need to explain how and where the author can get or download the PISA 2018 test results?
How the authors can prove that this PISA test results is valid, reliable and no bias?
Dependent and independent variables explanation must be improve. In this section, Author may add initial hypothesis in their manuscript.
besides, Here I send several papers about attitude, academic performance and well-being may can improve this manuscripts.
Well-being have an impact on academic performances:
A. K. Erbas and A. A. Yenmez, “The effect of inquiry-based explorations in a dynamic geometry environment on sixth grade students’ achievements in polygons,” Comput. Educ., vol. 57, no. 4, pp. 2462–2475, 2011, doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2011.07.002.
T. T. Wijaya, I. F. Rahmadi, S. Chotimah, J. Jailani, and D. U. Wutsqa, “A Case Study of Factors That Affect Secondary School Mathematics Achievement: Teacher-Parent Support, Stress Levels, and Students’ Well-Being,” Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health, vol. 19, no. 23, 2022, doi: 10.3390/ijerph192316247.
Gender have an no significant impact on knowledge, performances and skill:
M. Salanova, W. Schaufeli, I. Martínez, and E. Bresó, “How obstacles and facilitators predict academic performance: The mediating role of study burnout and engagement,” Anxiety, Stress Coping, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 53–70, 2009, doi: 10.1080/10615800802609965.
X. Jian, T. T. Wijaya, and Q. Yu, “Key Factors Affecting Mathematics Teachers’ Well-Being and Stress Levels: An Extended Engagement Theory,” Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health, vol. 20, no. 1, 2022, doi: 10.3390/ijerph20010548.
Data analysis section:
what are the steps for data processing in this study?
What software is used for data processing?
Please add the limitations of this study and recommendations for future study.
The practical recommendations for school, stakeholders, teacher and parents can be added. The reader may waiting for this sections.
References section can be improve. The number of papers in the reference section shows how deeply the authors understand and analyze this topic.
All the best!
Author Response
Dear editors and reviewers,
Thank you for your kind review and valuable comments. We are grateful to receive these comments and suggestions. The process of revision gives us the new opportunity to review our research, we take every advice seriously.
In order to make it easier for you to check item by item to save your time, we marked all the changes in red. You can only check the red notes when reviewing. The following is our response to each revision opinion. The words in black are comments, and the red words are the explanation. Thank you!
＃Comments for the Author：
Reviewer #2:
Material and methods sections: author need to explain how and where the author can get or download the PISA 2018 test results?How the authors can prove that this PISA test results is valid, reliable and no bias?Dependent and independent variables explanation must be improve. In this section, Author may add initial hypothesis in their manuscript.besides, Here I send several papers about attitude, academic performance and well-being may can improve this manuscripts.
Thanks pretty much for your kind suggestions. Firstly, the way of accessing and downloading the result of PISA 2018 has been added in the part of Data Sources. Secondly, we also have added the scientific discussion of PISA, and a large number of studies have also been analyzed based on PISA data. Finally, with regard to the interpretation of independent variables and dependent variables, we have added some statements and cited references provided by reviewers.
Data analysis section: what are the steps for data processing in this study? What software is used for data processing?
We have added the steps for data processing and the software we used in this research.
Please add the limitations of this study and recommendations for future study. The practical recommendations for school, stakeholders, teacher and parents can be added. The reader may waiting for this sections.
We have already added limitations and recommendation according to your kind suggestions including practical recommendations.
References section can be improve. The number of papers in the reference section shows how deeply the authors understand and analyze this topic.
Thank you for your kind suggestions. We have added more reference.
Thanks a lot for your kind and valuable comments again, we are looking forward to your further feedback.
Best regards,
Ang LIU, Yuguang WEI, Qi XIU, Hao YAO, Jia LIU
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Thanks for the improvements. Please provide a more concrete explanation of Figure 2. In addition, it would help if you give some more explanation of the analysis techniques you used.
Author Response
point 1：Please provide a more concrete explanation of Figure 2.
Thank you for your suggestion, we have added more explanation of Figure 2.
point 2：In addition, it would help if you give some more explanation of the analysis techniques you used.
We have added some more explanation of the analysis techniques
Reviewer 2 Report
manuscript has been revised well.
paper ready to published.
Author Response
Thank you for your suggestion. Good luck
