I Explain, You Collaborate, He Cheats: An Empirical Study with Social Network Analysis of Study Groups in a Computer Programming Subject

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The theme of the article is very important in the context of higher education and it gives room for important practical applications. The investigation design is well described and methodological details are abundant throughout the paper. In this sense as readers we do feel confident about the results. The discussion and conclusion are adequate. So, in my opinion this is a proposal with a very high level of internal coherence that nevertheless has some room for improvements, as suggested below:

1. Please review the introduction and the theoretical framework looking for the description of the investigation aims, the paper aims and the research questions. I think that in different points of the text you talk about those and not always with the necessary clarity. Avoid repetitions and state clearly all of this in the same place of the text.
2. I don’t think you did a literature review (more demanding) and your theoretical framework needs to be reviewed and strengthened. Please see line 75 and following – this is not theory but just a description of the many situations’ students have collaborative opportunities. This might fit in other sections of the text. On the other hand, if you really want to argue students form communities of practice (on Wenger and Lave terms) then theory is really missing. Also, please review the issues around the social construction of knowledge. Ultimately all knowledge is of course socially built and this is hardly a news on social sciences. Your statements on academic ethics needs to be deepened: first, one has to understand the importance of the issue nowadays (and not only because some studies on computer science and engineering reported high levels of dishonest behavior). This is surely a broader issue. Please do not used Wikipedia, not even on second hand! There is lots of literature on plagiarism.
3. I think not all figures are necessary – for example, figure 3 and 4?
4. Quantitative studies are of course very useful and your paper show it. But there are unable to provide deeper explanations. I feel strange that while you speak on future investigations you do not have the need to understand – not even why they cheat? You just assume that students cheat because they want to pass the course. Don’t you think that is a bit simplistic and a deeper understanding of the issue will also be useful? Mixed approaches will be adequate to study some of these issues I suppose.

5. You might want to improve your writing. Be more concise and precise and you might reduce the overall dimension of the text to facilitate reading.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is quite interesting, however, the still needs to be improved in certain aspects:

1. The abstract needs to be rewritten. The authors need to write such that points like purpose, methods used, results, conclusions, implications, and originality of the research are covered.

2. The authors need to restructure the Introduction and Literature Review sections. In the Introduction, the authors should give a background of the study, highlight the motivation of doing the study, mention the research gaps, and how the current study would be contributing to filling those research gaps. 

    

   The authors need to define the scope of the paper. Attempting to present too many research questions through data analysis is not advisable.

   At the end of the Introduction, the authors could add a paragraph summarizing the research objectives/ research questions of the study and also describe the structure of the study

    

3. The authors need to put in more effort and add about previous works from more authentic sources. It is advised not use to sources such as Wikipedia for citing scientific works. The literature review in the current state is not enough to justify the research objectives. 

4. With respect to the section of Results, the authors have put in too many tables and it is very confusing to understand the flow. So the authors could consider putting in the most important tables in the paper. Moreover, the authors need to improve the overall presentation flow of the Results to make it easier for a reader to understand the findings.
5. The authors could add a section of Implications, highlight the importance and relevance of doing this study and how it would benefit the other stakeholders involved.
6. The authors could add a section on the limitations of the current study and thereby improve the writing part of directions for future research.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx