Identifying Students at Risk to Academic Dropout in Higher Education
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Este trabajo presenta un tema interesante a la hora de intentar evitar la deserción académica en el contexto universitario, detectando factores de riesgo para trabajar en su prevención. Muestra una correcta estructura y algunos apartados de acuerdo con un adecuado estudio científico. El formato es adecuado así como el enfoque metodológico y los resultados presentados.
Author Response
Muchas gracias por su valoración. Nos animará a seguir investigando en esta línea de trabajo.
Reviewer 2 Report
The main aim of the paper is the identification of student profiles according to cognitive variables and learning strategies, which allow the authors to identify students at risk of academic failure, and thus develop more efficient preventive strategies for higher education. The problem of the paper is that is does not address any prevention strategies and the empirical results are not fed back into practice. Also, the most prominent theory of dropout from higher education by Tinto is not referenced to or taken into consideration. The conclusion section needs to be enlarged with preventive strategies and practical implications following the empirical results.
Recommendations:
Abstract: Please revise the first two sentences of the abstract – they are not logical and rather hard to understand.
Argumentation: Your arguments are somewhat confusing – first paragraph: overcoming inequalities, pandemic, health workforce capacity, academic failure. I don’t see how the pandemic or health workforce capacity play any role for your research question? Please write an introduction paragraph that is specific for the HE sector.
Sentence in line 76. “Emotional strategies are related to a more adaptive behaviour and resilience (González-Torres & Artuch, 2014).” Please explain this sentence, is not understandable. Emotional strategies for what? Adaptation to what?
Tinto’s theory of dropout is not taken into consideration (1975, 1987). His theory offers a substantive explanation for students’ departure from undergraduate institutions and encompasses an academic component as well as a social component.
Tinto, V. (1975). Dropout from Higher Education: A Theoretical Synthesis of Recent Research. Review of Educational Research, 45(1), 89–125.
Tinto, V. (1987). Leaving College. Rethinking the Causes and Cures of Student Attrition. The University of Chicago Press.
The results section contains many graphs and tables and comparably few text explanations. Please describe the tables further and in more detail. The three clusters should be described earlier in the results section.
English language needs major correction in the discussion section.
Discussion: Unfortunately, the paper does not present any prevention strategies or even ideas how these results can be used and interpreted by higher education institutions and therefore the aim of the paper is not achieved. The discussion should be enhanced in this direction. Overall, it is a pity that psychological explanatory factors (e.g. intelligence) overweigh the social factors which lead to dropout (e.g. barriers to learning). This balance of psychological and social factors should be elaborated in greater detail in the introduction and discussion section. Does the paper contribute more to understanding psychological factors? If so, prevention strategies should focus on the individual student (psychological counselling, anxiety control etc.). If the paper aims to contribute more to understanding social factors, the prevention strategies should consider the context factors for learning in higher education (didactic approaches, teacher support, mentoring programmes etc.).
Author Response
I appreciate the comments and suggestions that, will surely allow us to improve the final document. Attached I send you the Word with the answers to your suggestions.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
It is a pity that the references used in the arguments made in the theoretical framework are not more current. You should look for current citations and references, from the last five years. They exist and it is a pity that they are not cited.
The objectives, methodology and results are well planned.
In the discussion - conclusions, the same mistake is made again of not referring to more current research.
It is advisable to structure the conclusions in a clearer way, so that it is not difficult for the reader to understand them.
Author Response
I appreciate the comments and suggestions that, will surely allow us to improve the final document. Attached I send you the Word with the answers to your suggestions.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Dear Authors,
after carefully reading the text I encourage you to consider the following suggestions:
- Please provide the number or other information about the ethics committee approval.
- Please describe in more detail the rights of the participants in the study they were informed about.
- Please indicate whether the tests (measuring instruments) were used in the original language versions or were translated (by whom? please provide a footnote to the national version).
- Please consider giving more information, how the results of your research can be used in the academic dropout protective interventions.
- The references to the pandemic outbreak (lines 31-33) are not entirely related to the content of the text. I propose to skip it.
- In the discussion part - lines 239 and 250 - the topic of the presence of mobile phones in the classroom appears. Please justify more precisely why this topic is mentioned or consider skipping it.
- Quotation marks appear on line 240. This is probably a mistake.
Hope my suggestion will be helpful in improving your interesting, important article.
Author Response
I appreciate the comments and suggestions that, will surely allow us to improve the final document. Attached I send you the Word with the answers to your suggestions.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
