Organization of Students and Total Task Time: External and Internal Load Recorded during Motor Activity

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1. In Abstract, “The organization of the students and the time taken to execute the learning tasks determine the physical and physiological demands they support during Physical Education classes.” What is the difference between physical demands and physiological demands? In this sentence, what do “they” refer to? Students? Tasks? Or both? Or organization and time? It seems awkward to parallel “organization” and “time.”
2. In Abstract, “The aim of this study was to determine which organizational and pedagogical elements used to design different learning tasks for soccer provoke greater external (Player Load) and internal (Heart Rate) load….” You may want to add PL following “Player Load” like this: (Player Load, PL). You may want to add HR following “Heart Rate” like this: (Heart Rate, HR). PL and HR are used very frequently in the paper.
3. In Abstract, “The results recommend the following types of tasks with simultaneous participation: individual games, numerical inequality SSG and numerical equality SSG lasting less than 6 minutes; and numerical equality SSG and Full Games lasting between 6 and 10 minutes.” Here you mentioned four types of game situation: individual games, numerical inequality SSG, numerical equality SSG, and Full Games. The only type of game situation that you did not mention was “task without opposition.” Did you indicate that you suggest that a coach did not use a task without opposition? However, here might be misleading. Maybe a task without opposition provides some benefits. You may clarify this in your discussion.
4. Why is it always good to “attain higher levels of PL and HR”? Why not just “appropriate” levels of PL and HR?
5. For the “participation type, i.e., consecutive (organization in rows and students participating one by one) and simultaneous (groups organization and all students participating at the same time),” we can imagine that the “simultaneous” way will probably attain higher levels of PL and HR without recording the data, because students need not to wait in rows. Does this overlap with “task time” students take? Or can you explain or discuss why intuitively a coach sometimes prefer to use a consecutive way?
6. In 2.3, “It necessary to know…” Here is a typo: it “is” necessary….
7. In 2.5, maybe a doctoral student is better than “Ph.D. student.”
8. Based on “2.5. Procedure” and according to Figure 1, readers may not be able to tell how this study designed or conducted “participation type” and “task time.” In the 11 sessions in the figure 1, we did not see whether the participation type is consecutive or simultaneous. Neither did we see how long the task time is. So, readers would be confused about how the relevant data were collected. Perhaps more details were required.
9. More explanations might be required for readers to understand Figure 4. For example, what do those numbers mean next to the dots? It seems the figure is in a two-dimensional plane. Then, is there any meaning in the X and Y axis?
10. Similarly, Figure 6 is hard to catch. First, some number is not clear to read. Second, the Full game is 997.88 for iTL if my reading is correct while the equality SSG is 988.66 if my reading is correct. However, although the numbers for these two are close, these two dots separate very far apart. Readers would feel confused to read Figure 6.

Author Response

Reviewer 1’s comments

First of all, we would like to express our gratitude to reviewer 1 for the time in reviewing our manuscript and for providing us comments helpful to improve this manuscript quality. We have found suggestions very constructive and have answered their concerns.

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All manuscript

- First, a native translator performed a grammatical revision of the manuscript (certificate attached).

- All corrections were marked in red.

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Reviewer’ note: In Abstract, “The organization of the students and the time taken to execute the learning tasks determine the physical and physiological demands they support during Physical Education classes.” What is the difference between physical demands and physiological demands? In this sentence, what do “they” refer to? Students? Tasks? Or both? Or organization and time? It seems awkward to parallel “organization” and “time.”

Authors’ response: Thank you very much for your comment. Physical demands refer to the external load, while physiological demands refer to the internal load. In this sentence, “they” refer to the students. All these aspects were indicated in the abstract.

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Reviewer’ note: In Abstract, “The aim of this study was to determine which organizational and pedagogical elements used to design different learning tasks for soccer provoke greater external (Player Load) and internal (Heart Rate) load….” You may want to add PL following “Player Load” like this: (Player Load, PL). You may want to add HR following “Heart Rate” like this: (Heart Rate, HR). PL and HR are used very frequently in the paper.

Authors’ response: We agree with your recommendation. The acronyms PL and HR were added after the concepts Player Load and Heart Rate, respectively (line 16).

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Reviewer’ note: In Abstract, “The results recommend the following types of tasks with simultaneous participation: individual games, numerical inequality SSG and numerical equality SSG lasting less than 6 minutes; and numerical equality SSG and Full Games lasting between 6 and 10 minutes.” Here you mentioned four types of game situation: individual games, numerical inequality SSG, numerical equality SSG, and Full Games. The only type of game situation that you did not mention was “task without opposition.” Did you indicate that you suggest that a coach did not use a task without opposition? However, here might be misleading. Maybe a task without opposition provides some benefits. You may clarify this in your discussion.

Authors’ response: Thank you very much for your comment. In this case, the results indicate that these game situations, carried out with simultaneous participation and in a given time, are the ones that cause the students to move more and, moreover, that these movements are of greater intensity (lines 24 to 28). Following your suggestion, this information has also been added to the discussion (lines 453 to 454).

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Reviewer’ note: Why is it always good to “attain higher levels of PL and HR”? Why not just “appropriate” levels of PL and HR?

Authors’ response: In order not to confuse the reader, it was indicated that this study was intended to analyze which organizational and pedagogical variables the instructor should use to increase students' PL and HR, as well as MVPA opportunities (lines 127 to 128).

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Reviewer’ note: For the “participation type, i.e., consecutive (organization in rows and students participating one by one) and simultaneous (groups organization and all students participating at the same time),” we can imagine that the “simultaneous” way will probably attain higher levels of PL and HR without recording the data, because students need not to wait in rows. Does this overlap with “task time” students take? Or can you explain or discuss why intuitively a coach sometimes prefer to use a consecutive way?

Authors’ response: Based on your question, the reason for the use of consecutive and simultaneous participation by the PE teacher was explained (lines 158 to 161).

Delgado, M.A. Los estilos de enseñanza en Educación Física. Propuesta para una reforma de la enseñanza; ICE Universidad de Granada: 1991.

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Reviewer’ note: In 2.3, “It necessary to know…” Here is a typo: it “is” necessary….

Authors’ response: Thank you very much for reporting the mistake, which has been corrected (line 190).

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Reviewer’ note: In 2.5, maybe a doctoral student is better than “Ph.D. student.”

Authors’ response: Thank you very much for your suggestion. “Ph.D. student” was changed to “Doctoral student” (line 218).

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Reviewer’ note: Based on “2.5. Procedure” and according to Figure 1, readers may not be able to tell how this study designed or conducted “participation type” and “task time.” In the 11 sessions in the figure 1, we did not see whether the participation type is consecutive or simultaneous. Neither did we see how long the task time is. So, readers would be confused about how the relevant data were collected. Perhaps more details were required.

Authors’ response: We agree with your recommendation. Therefore, Figure 1 also shows the distribution in percentages of total task time and type of participation for each of the practical sessions.

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Reviewer’ note: More explanations might be required for readers to understand Figure 4. For example, what do those numbers mean next to the dots? It seems the figure is in a two-dimensional plane. Then, is there any meaning in the X and Y axis?

Similarly, Figure 6 is hard to catch. First, some number is not clear to read. Second, the Full game is 997.88 for iTL if my reading is correct while the equality SSG is 988.66 if my reading is correct. However, although the numbers for these two are close, these two dots separate very far apart. Readers would feel confused to read Figure 6.

Authors’ response: Based on your question, the interpretation of Figures 4 and 6 was explained (line 303 to 306). In addition, the quality of both figures has been improved.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments to the Authors

Thank you for the opportunity to review this paper. Overall, it is a well conducted and written study on an important topic. Please also see some concerns related to this paper.

Title

The title of the paper might spot interest in the reader. Also, the title of the paper is an accurate presentation of the research topic.

Abstract

Overall, the abstract is well written. I have only some minor comments. Firstly, why is physical education written in capital letters? Secondly, I ask Authors more key results to the abstract (with specific values). Thirdly, please add a sentence or two as a conclusion and a possible future direction.

Introduction

Overall, the introduction reads well. The Authors provide adequate review of the existing literature.  On the other hand, the introduction is relatively short, and I ask Authors to broaden several concepts mentioned in the introduction. For example, Authors state that on page 2, lines 64 to 66 that “…and they have a great potential to maintain the students’ motivation while they perform a very demanding activity, providing greater opportunities for reaching MVPA.” However, Authors do not mention what type of motivation are they currently meaning? Importantly, a recent study has highlighted that it is specifically intrinsic motivation in physical education that is related to adolescents MVPA (see Kalajas-Tilga et al., 2020).

Kalajas-Tilga, H., Koka, A., Hein, V., Tilga, H., & Raudsepp, L. (2020). Motivational processes in physical education and objectively measured physical activity among adolescents. Journal of Sport and Health Science, 9(5), 462–471. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jshs.2019.06.001

Before the materials and methods section, please add the present study section in which you mention the aim of the present study and the hypotheses of the present study.

Materials and Methods

The materials and methods section is well described for the reader.

I acknowledge the Authors for Figure 1 – it is well presented and clear. However, could you please increase the quality of this figure? It is a bit blurry.

Table 1 – footnote number 1 should go to the end of “Physical activity intensity”, not at the beginning.

Results

The results are also described in a well detail, Authors have done a well job on that.

Figure 4 – please increase the quality of this figure, these numbers on the figure are a bit hard to read.

Figure 6 – also here, please increase the quality of this figure, these numbers and words on the figure are a bit hard to read.

Discussion

The discussion is presented in detail and results are discussed by multiple angles.

Limitations and future perspectives – I believe a small sample size is also a limitation.

Please also add a paragraph for the practical implications.

Author Response

Reviewer 2’s comments

First of all, we would like to express our gratitude to reviewer 2 for the time in reviewing our manuscript and for providing us comments helpful to improve this manuscript quality. We have found suggestions very constructive and have answered their concerns.

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All manuscript

- First, a native translator performed a grammatical revision of the manuscript (certificate attached).

- All corrections were marked in red.

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Reviewer’ note: The title of the paper might spot interest in the reader. Also, the title of the paper is an accurate presentation of the research topic.

Authors’ response: Thank you very much for your comment.

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Reviewer’ note: Overall, the abstract is well written. I have only some minor comments. Firstly, why is physical education written in capital letters? Secondly, I ask Authors more key results to the abstract (with specific values). Thirdly, please add a sentence or two as a conclusion and a possible future direction.

Authors’ response: We agree with your recommendations. Physical education was written in small letters (line 14). In addition, specific values were added in relation to the results and a final conclusion (lines 27 to 30).

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Reviewer’ note: Overall, the introduction reads well. The Authors provide adequate review of the existing literature.  On the other hand, the introduction is relatively short, and I ask Authors to broaden several concepts mentioned in the introduction. For example, Authors state that on page 2, lines 64 to 66 that “…and they have a great potential to maintain the students’ motivation while they perform a very demanding activity, providing greater opportunities for reaching MVPA.” However, Authors do not mention what type of motivation are they currently meaning? Importantly, a recent study has highlighted that it is specifically intrinsic motivation in physical education that is related to adolescents MVPA (see Kalajas-Tilga et al., 2020).

Authors’ response: Thank you very much for the suggested reference. It was used to expand the information in the introduction (lines 69 to 71).

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Reviewer’ note: Before the materials and methods section, please add the present study section in which you mention the aim of the present study and the hypotheses of the present study.

Authors’ response: We agree with your recommendation. A section was added to mention the objective and the hypotheses of the study (lines 109 to 119).

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Reviewer’ note: I acknowledge the Authors for Figure 1 – it is well presented and clear. However, could you please increase the quality of this figure? It is a bit blurry.

Authors’ response: Thank you very much for your comment. Figure 1 has been saved in TIFF format and reinserted into the manuscript. Now, it also shows the distribution in percentages of total task time and type of participation for each of the practical sessions (suggestion of another reviewer).

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Reviewer’ note: Table 1 – footnote number 1 should go to the end of “Physical activity intensity”, not at the beginning.

Authors’ response: Footnote number 1 of Table 1 was inserted at the end of "Intensity of physical activity".

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Reviewer’ note: Figure 4 – please increase the quality of this figure, these numbers on the figure are a bit hard to read.

Figure 6 – also here, please increase the quality of this figure, these numbers and words on the figure are a bit hard to read.

Authors’ response: We agree with your recommendations. Figures 4 and 6 were replaced by others of higher quality. Their interpretation was also explained (lines 303 to 306)

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Reviewer’ note: The discussion is presented in detail and results are discussed by multiple angles. Limitations and future perspectives – I believe a small sample size is also a limitation.

Please also add a paragraph for the practical implications.

Authors’ response: Thank you very much for your suggestions. The number of participants was added as a limitation of the study (line 458). On the other hand, practical applications have already been described in the manuscript (lines 444 to 456).

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

1. You mentioned 1500 recordings. Can you explain how to get this number?
2. In 3.2, you mentioned “the sixth year class-groups.” Here is confusing because your participants are only from the “fifth” year.
3. In 3.5, I mean… Ph.D. in Physical Activity and Sport… and a doctoral student in Physical Activity and Sport. In my opinion, Ph.D. is used for a person who has earned the doctoral degree whereas “a doctoral student” is used if the person is still in a doctoral program.
4. In 3.5, “Consequently, the data recorded between the different planned tasks in each practical session, i.e., management time (placing the equipment), rest time, etc., and which influence the levels of physical activity, were not analyzed.” What do you mean “which influence the levels of physical activity”? If there is influence, why is this not analyzed?
5. You mentioned two class-groups in Abstract and in 3.2. Readers would be wondering whether there is any difference between these two groups in terms of treatment (intervention) and results. Did you divide these two groups into the experimental and contrast (control) group?
6. In 3.1, “…this study did not aim to analyze the time that the students spent in MVPA values….” However, “total task time” is still included. I am not sure whether here is clear.
7. In “2. Objective and Hypotheses,” some reasoning might be required to explain the hypotheses. For example, is there a conflict between Hypothesis (b) and Hypothesis (d)? Hypothesis (b) indicated that learning tasks of less than 6 minutes will result in the highest PL and HR, while (d) mentioned a duration between 6 - 10 minutes … will provoke the highest PL and HR. Can you provide some reasoning and clarification for these hypotheses?
8. Percentages in Figure 1 are different in the left and in the right. For example, for session 1, 91.30% is in the left but 100.00% is in the right. Here might be confusing. Can you provide some explanation about the difference?
9. You did not respond to my previous comments: In Figure 4 and 6, what do those numbers mean next to the dots? What is the calculation to get these numbers? It seems the figure is in a two-dimensional plane. Then, is there any meaning in the X and Y axis? In Figure 6, the Full game is 997.88 for iTL while the equality SSG is 988.66. However, although the numbers for these two are close, these two dots separate very far apart.
10. If Figure 4 and 6 are misleading, why do you not simply use a table to list or express the results?
11. In 5.4, “(2) increasing the time of motor performance causes the students to move less and, thus, makes the learning tasks less intense.” If there is more time for students, why do students move less?
12. In “v5.5. Limitations and future perspectives,” “v” is a typo.

Author Response

Reviewer 1’s comments

First of all, we would like to express our gratitude to reviewer 1 for the time in reviewing our manuscript again and for providing us comments helpful to improve this manuscript quality. We have found suggestions very constructive and have answered their concerns.

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All manuscript

- First, a native translator performed a grammatical revision of the manuscript (certificate attached).

- All corrections were marked in red.

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Reviewer’ note: You mentioned 1500 recordings. Can you explain how to get this number?

Authors’ response: Thank you for your comment. The origin of the data was explained (using inertial motion devices) (line 150).

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Reviewer’ note: In 3.2, you mentioned “the sixth year class-groups.” Here is confusing because your participants are only from the “fifth” year.

Authors’ response: We agree with your recommendation. Sixth year class groups" has been removed from the paragraph to avoid possible confusion for the reader.

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Reviewer’ note: In 3.5, I mean… Ph.D. in Physical Activity and Sport… and a doctoral student in Physical Activity and Sport. In my opinion, Ph.D. is used for a person who has earned the doctoral degree whereas “a doctoral student” is used if the person is still in a doctoral program.

Authors’ response: Thank you for your suggestion. The indicated changes (“Ph.D. and a doctoral student”) have been made (lines 219 and 220).

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Reviewer’ note: In 3.5, “Consequently, the data recorded between the different planned tasks in each practical session, i.e., management time (placing the equipment), rest time, etc., and which influence the levels of physical activity, were not analyzed.” What do you mean “which influence the levels of physical activity”? If there is influence, why is this not analyzed?

Authors’ response: Based on your question, the aim of the study was to analyze the external and internal load only during the execution of the learning tasks (motor involvement time). This makes it possible to know what load is involved in each type of task (lines 228 to 232). The influence of management time is proposed as a future research perspective (section “5.5. Limitations and future perspectives”).

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Reviewer’ note: You mentioned two class-groups in Abstract and in 3.2. Readers would be wondering whether there is any difference between these two groups in terms of treatment (intervention) and results. Did you divide these two groups into the experimental and contrast (control) group?

Authors’ response: Thank you for your comment. It was noted that the study was not intended to look for different intergroups (line 143). It was indicated that this was an experimental study because the learning tasks were designed and validated for this purpose (section “3.4 Instruments”).

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Reviewer’ note: In 3.1, “…this study did not aim to analyze the time that the students spent in MVPA values….” However, “total task time” is still included. I am not sure whether here is clear.

Authors’ response: In response to your comment, with this statement we want to make it clear to the reader that the study does not intend to analyze whether students devote 50% of the EF session to MVPA values.

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Reviewer’ note: In “2. Objective and Hypotheses,” some reasoning might be required to explain the hypotheses. For example, is there a conflict between Hypothesis (b) and Hypothesis (d)? Hypothesis (b) indicated that learning tasks of less than 6 minutes will result in the highest PL and HR, while (d) mentioned a duration between 6 - 10 minutes … will provoke the highest PL and HR. Can you provide some reasoning and clarification for these hypotheses?

Authors’ response: We agree with your recommendation. Therefore, a clarification has been made on hypotheses b and d (lines 129 to 121).

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Reviewer’ note: Percentages in Figure 1 are different in the left and in the right. For example, for session 1, 91.30% is in the left but 100.00% is in the right. Here might be confusing. Can you provide some explanation about the difference?

Authors’ response: Based on your question, in the notes to Figure 1, it is indicated that the percentage on the left refers to total task time, while the percentage on the right refers to the type of participation, and indicates the category most used in each variable.

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Reviewer’ note: In Figure 4 and 6, what do those numbers mean next to the dots? What is the calculation to get these numbers? It seems the figure is in a two-dimensional plane. Then, is there any meaning in the X and Y axis? In Figure 6, the Full game is 997.88 for iTL while the equality SSG is 988.66. However, although the numbers for these two are close, these two dots separate very far apart.

Authors’ response: The operation of graphs 4 and 6 was explained in lines 308 to 312. Values refer to average ranges, and distances and color refer to differences.

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Reviewer’ note: If Figure 4 and 6 are misleading, why do you not simply use a table to list or express the results?

Authors’ response: Based on your comment, we do not agree. In this type of graphs, at a glance, the lines indicate with colors the existence or not of significant differences between pairs.

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Reviewer’ note: In 5.4, “(2) increasing the time of motor performance causes the students to move less and, thus, makes the learning tasks less intense.” If there is more time for students, why do students move less?

Authors’ response: Thank you for your comment. Information has been added to clarify this practical application (line 454).

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Reviewer’ note: In “v5.5. Limitations and future perspectives,” “v” is a typo.

Authors’ response: Thank you for pointing out the typo, which has been corrected.

Reviewer 2 Report

Authors have done well job by addressing all the comments raised by the Reviewers.

Author Response

Reviewer 2’s comments

We would like to express our gratitude to reviewer 2 for the time in reviewing our manuscript again.