Bridging Theory and Practice Using Facebook: A Case Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Ms. Ref. No.: education-1638947

Title: Bridging theory and practice using Facebook: A Case Study

The study analyzes the impact of the inclusion of Facebook groups as support tools that increase student engagement and their understanding of theoretical concepts and applying them in practice. In general, I find that the study is well presented, the methodology is correct, and the discussion is valid. However, I have some doubts about the validity of the study, because in terms of engagement, young people are more into Instagram rather than Facebook recently. I recommend that a major revision is warranted. I explain my concerns in more detail below. I ask that the authors specifically address each of my comments in their response.

 

• The introduction (approximately 1500 words) cannot go back to "recent decades" and be based on 48! references since the study is not a systematic review of the literature. It is recommended that the authors rewrite the introduction, mentioning only the trends of the last 5 years, based on a reasonable number of references to studies that are exclusively on students at the higher education level. For example, the paragraph "Facebook is the most popular social network..." (line 104) has two references that are from 2009 and 2010. This type of statement makes the study less solid.
• There is no explanation in the document as to why the Facebook platform was chosen. I have not found any mention either in Scopus or in WoS to the concept of Facebook Approach (FbA), so if it is an innovation of the authors, then it should be justified with a tendency to use Facebook by young university students.
• Figure 2 shows the dates of the screenshots (February, March and September 2019).The authors should justify why an experiment carried out almost 3 years ago (and with the COVID19 crisis through) would still be valid in 2022.
• The Discussion section should be a "discussion of results" therefore no references should appear in this section, unless the authors have discussed the results with the cited authors. The references that appear in this section are from 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012; this invalidates the conclusions and renders the entire study obsolete. In this section, the authors must justify the timeliness of the results obtained with interpretations that include the circumstance that we are in a post-COVID19 reality.
• In general, the references are too outdated: almost half of the references are more than 10 years old. There is only one reference from 2020 and none from 2021 and 2022. This could be misinterpreted: either the authors wrote this manuscript two years ago or the topic of using Facebook for education is no longer effective. In any case, it is necessary that the authors replace a significant number of references with updated ones and demonstrate that the study is still valid.
• (References 3,6,7,9,13,17,18,19,32,33,35,38,39). These references are in Spanish. Readers will not be able to understand what they are about or if they are relevant, they must be replaced by other equivalents in English.
• (References 32 and 34 are the same, also references 35 and 37)
• (References 49 to 56). It is not necessary to go back to the origins of the Taguchi method invention. Readers will appreciate that the Literature Review is current to the last 10 years.
• (References 4,23,36) These references (and possibly others) are untraceable on the internet. It is strongly suggested that authors thoroughly clean references and leave only those that readers can access.
• (References 43,44,46,47,48,60,61). These references are obsolete if the authors intend to mention the relevance of the use of Facebook for their study, they should be replaced by references to recent works of less than 5 years.

Author Response

Please refer to the report notes for easy reading, however below the same information.

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Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

Ms. Ref. No.: education-1638947
Title: Bridging theory and practice using Facebook: A Case Study

The study analyzes the impact of the inclusion of Facebook groups as support tools that increase student engagement and their understanding of theoretical concepts and applying them in practice. In general, I find that the study is well presented, the methodology is correct, and the discussion is valid. However, I have some doubts about the validity of the study, because in terms of engagement, young people are more into Instagram rather than Facebook recently. I recommend that a major revision is warranted. I explain my concerns in more detail below. I ask that the authors specifically address each of my comments in their response.

Dear Reviewer 1,
We kindly appreciate your comments on this work. In the next lines we provide response to your valuable comments.

Point 1: The introduction (approximately 1500 words) cannot go back to "recent decades" and be based on 48! references since the study is not a systematic review of the literature. It is recommended that the authors rewrite the introduction, mentioning only the trends of the last 5 years, based on a reasonable number of references to studies that are exclusively on students at the higher education level. For example, the paragraph "Facebook is the most popular social network..." (line 104) has two references that are from 2009 and 2010. This type of statement makes the study less solid.

Response 1: Introduction was in its majority rewritten. We considered academic work from 2018 to date (55% 3 2021), which focus is on the Facebook use for academic purposes in higher education level.

Point 2: There is no explanation in the document as to why the Facebook platform was chosen. I have not found any mention either in Scopus or in WoS to the concept of Facebook Approach (FbA), so if it is an innovation of the authors, then it should be justified with a tendency to use Facebook by young university students.

Response 2: The use of Facebook is justified in the introduction of the paper. The concept Facebok Approach (FbA) is used by the authors to help readers notice the difference between experimental groups and control groups. To the best of our knowledge, literature does not provide a particular concept when implementing Facebook groups for educational purposes.

Point 3: Figure 2 shows the dates of the screenshots (February, March and September 2019).The authors should justify why an experiment carried out almost 3 years ago (and with the COVID19 crisis through) would still be valid in 2022.

Response 3: Figures were provided as examples of the interaction among the students and the professors in FbA sectinos; however some of the screenshots are shared in this respond corresponding to part of the study performed during 2020 and 2021.

Questioning the validity of the results obtained during the experiment reported in this manuscript (2018 - 2019) after COVID19 crisis is one thing that we have already tested. According to our data from FbA groups from years 2020 and 2021, there is no statistical difference in terms of SE nor SUTP. Data is also avaiable upon request, however this is a follow up project we are currently working on.

Point 4: The Discussion section should be a "discussion of results" therefore no references should appear in this section, unless the authors have discussed the results with the cited authors. The references that appear in this section are from 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012; this invalidates the conclusions and renders the entire study obsolete. In this section, the authors must justify the timeliness of the results obtained with interpretations that include the circumstance that we are in a post-COVID19 reality.

Response 4: References from more than 5 years old were updated with recent results found in literature which can verify the validity of the study. The idea of citing in the discussion section is to provide a link to similar findigns in past studies as well as concluding comments. We aim that the

Taguchi methodology used accounts to minimize the impact of uncontrolled factors, including COVID19.

Point 5: In general, the references are too outdated: almost half of the references are more than 10 years old. There is only one reference from 2020 and none from 2021 and 2022. This could be misinterpreted: either the authors wrote this manuscript two years ago or the topic of using Facebook for education is no longer effective. In any case, it is necessary that the authors replace a significant number of references with updated ones and demonstrate that the study is still valid.

Response 5: References were updated to include literature from 2022, 2021 and 2020. In our opinion the new document includes the justification of the research validity.

Point 6: (References 3,6,7,9,13,17,18,19,32,33,35,38,39). These references are in Spanish. Readers will not be able to understand what they are about or if they are relevant, they must be replaced by other equivalents in English.

Response 6: References in Spanish either were deleted from this manuscript or replaced with equivalent references in English.

Point 7: (References 32 and 34 are the same, also references 35 and 37)
Response 7: References 32 and 34, which were duplicated, were deleted from this manuscript.

Point 8: (References 49 to 56). It is not necessary to go back to the origins of the Taguchi method invention. Readers will appreciate that the Literature Review is current to the last 10 years.

Response 8: The Design of Experiments section was rewritten as Section 2.1 to include the introduction and benefits of Taguchi method, as well as its use over the last 5 years in higer education settings.

Point 9: (References 4,23,36) These references (and possibly others) are untraceable on the internet. It is strongly suggested that authors thoroughly clean references and leave only those that readers can access.

Response 9: References 4, 23 and 36 were replaced by traceable references. All the other references can be accesed on the internet.

Point 10: (References 43,44,46,47,48,60,61). These references are obsolete if the authors intend to mention the relevance of the use of Facebook for their study, they should be replaced by references to recent works of less than 5 years.

Response 10: References 43 through 47 as well as 60 and 61 have been deleted from this manuscript. Reference 48 is kept because according to us specifies valid literature and future directios towards the use of Facebook in academic settings.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

It would be nice if the authors explained why they chose Facebook and not other social networks.
The authors indicate that they also studied students with a mathematical and engineering background. But engineers and mathematicians, who now widely use mathematical and special computer programs, have their own specialized social networks for discussing issues related to calculations and CAD. Has this phenomenon been studied by the authors?
Some of the figures given require that the accuracy of statistical data processing, error, and uncertainty be shown.

Author Response

Please refer to the pdf file. A copy of that document can be found below

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Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

 

Dear Reviewer 2,

We kindly appreciate your comments on this work. In the next lines we provide response to your valuable comments.

 

Point 1: It would be nice if the authors explained why they chose Facebook and not other social networks.

 

Response 1: In attention to your point and also to Reviewer 1 comments, who suggested and update on the literature review, a new version of the introduction and some changes in the methodology can be found. The selection of Facebook as social network over other networks was based on functionality. Facebook groups have certain instructive capabilities built in the same page of the platform, which promote instant discussion on a topic as well as knowledge sharing. To the best of our knowledge, other social networks lack of this functionality or require to have “friendship” between students and professor, which could go beyond privacy.

Point 2: The authors indicate that they also studied students with a mathematical and engineering background. But engineers and mathematicians, who now widely use mathematical and special computer programs, have their own specialized social networks for discussing issues related to calculations and CAD. Has this phenomenon been studied by the authors?

Response 2: Specialized software networks are quite useful to solve questions, share coding, and other functionalities related to that specific computer program. The use of social networks, such as Facebook, intends to go further the particular nieche and connect students with a wide variety of settings in real-life problems – which are not commonly found in specialized software networks. Also, in the last paragraph of the discussion section we provide some insights related to the application of this methodology. We found the more technical the course is, for example Operations Research, the less SE and reduced SUTP, which actually opens the question whether other networks different from social type could foster the constructs studied in this manuscript.

 

Point 3: Some of the figures given require that the accuracy of statistical data processing, error, and uncertainty be shown.

Response 3: For all statistical computations in this research a significance of 5% was used. There are some tests, particularly in Table 6, in which significance level was increased to 1%. The results of the statistical test account for the reliability of this research, which are standard in literature. Accuracy in the data processing accounts for no source of variability since all data answered by the students was directly saved into a data base and from there directly analyzed in the RStudio. Also, this is a study in which the same student did not participate more than once, making it not possible to evaluate accuracy of their responces across experiments. Moreover, consistent results are found throughout the different sections of the course, which suggest the strength or robustness of the process.

Sources of variability are found when coders classified each of the posts into four categories (“supply chain and logistics trends”, “supply chain and logistics state-of-the-art”, “supply chain and logistics fundamentals”, and “other”), as well as when the same coders collected data from the “seen by” feature. Reliability of coding for the categorization was 0.93, which has no impact on the results of this research. On the other hand, coding reliability for the seen by feature was 0.99, which is higher than standard in data collection.

 

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have addressed all the suggestions that we have expressed in the previous review.