After the Move to a New Campus—Effects on Students’ Satisfaction with the Physical and Learning Environment

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Hige quality article. Thank you for interesting time for review.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

 

Dear Colleague,

Many thanks for your time reviewing our manuscript and for your positive feedback.

Best regards,

The Authors

Reviewer 2 Report

 

Section	Recommendation
Abstract “Findings show that students were overall more satisfied with the physical environment in the new campus than in the old campus but that increased satisfaction with the learning environment from one campus to the other depended on the analysed students’ cohorts.”	Line 15-18. It is not clear what this sentence means. Please re-write for clarity.
Introduction Introductory paragraph.	Lines 25-36. I would like to commend you for undertaking inquiry into this topic. It is seemingly an under researched area, yet important for higher education institutions to consider. This first paragraph needs to be written with greater clarity, in terms of the message you are conveying and also the language that you use. For instance, in the first three sentences, we read settings ‘should’ be configured a certain way, and physical learning environments ‘should’ become an important issue. Yet there is a paucity of research in this area. Try to be clearer in the introduction of your rationale, and also craft sentences for flow (Multiple uses of ‘should’ and however’ in a short space of time is distracting). Line 61. Incorrect use of the word ‘Nevertheless’ Line 66. What do you mean by wellbeing? Rather than assuming, it is preferable to state what has actually been observed, identified, or supported in past research. Line 72. Save concluding statements to the conclusion of your paper. Take care using ‘should’, try to temper the tone. Clearly articulated hypothesis.
Materials and Methods	Line 95. Sentence beginning “Seven…” check grammar. 2.3. Learning environment. This section could be more precise. Line 112. What does the ‘lecturers did not change in a systematic way’ mean? Please rephrase.   Line 114. This is a one sentence paragraph. It is not easy to follow. Please re-write for clarity and precison.   Line 172. Descriptive statistics. You report in the procedure that there were eight time points at which measurement was taken. At which of the time points were these descriptive statistic taken? Also these statistics would be better situated in the results section.   Statistical Analyses clearly summarised.
Results	Clearly introduced and presented.
Discussion	Overall the discussion flows well and is clear. Paragraph beginning line 392. I feel you are considering the implications of your findings here. Implications of your research could be communicated stronger and clearer.

Overall, this is interesting research that is seemingly relevant to higher education institutions, in the planning for and evaluation of learning environments that are effective at supporting/promoting student learning satisfaction.

Particular strengths of this paper include the clarity and competence displayed within the results section.

Areas for improvement relate to earlier sections of this paper. The introduction could be re-worked for greater clarity, precision and flow. Try to convey your main message and rationale clearly, work on crafting concise sentences, and take care with language choices.

The implications of this research also need to be clearly articulated.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The study highlights the importance of the move to a new university campus and the satisfaction of students in different aspects, including learning. Personally, I think your work is very interesting, methodologically correct and with novel results. The effect of a new campus on student learning satisfaction seems clear, however, in the future it would be interesting to add other variables that may be influencing such satisfaction.
If I had to point out something to improve in the article it would be useful to add some updated references.
For the rest, I congratulate you for your work.

 

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 3 Comments

 

Dear Colleague,

Many thanks for your time reviewing our manuscript and for your constructive and positive feedback.

Please find below an answer to your comments. We hope to have addressed them satisfactorily.

Best regards,

The Authors

 

Comments: The study highlights the importance of the move to a new university campus and the satisfaction of students in different aspects, including learning. Personally, I think your work is very interesting, methodologically correct and with novel results. The effect of a new campus on student learning satisfaction seems clear, however, in the future it would be interesting to add other variables that may be influencing such satisfaction. If I had to point out something to improve in the article it would be useful to add some updated references.
For the rest, I congratulate you for your work.

Response 1. We agree that other variables could be influencing students’ satisfaction and it is important that future research addresses this. This has been indicated in the limitations’ section [lines 462-463]: “There are many other potentially influential factors that were not considered, such as students’ attitudes, expectations, relations to peers, and interaction with lecturers.”

Response 2. One recent reference (Berman, 2020) that was relevant for the manuscript has been cited on line 66 and added to the references list [lines 529-530]: Berman, N. A critical examination of informal learning spaces. Higher Education Research & Development 2020, 39(1), 127-140.