Digital University: A Study of Students’ Experiences and Expectations in the Post-COVID Era

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

 

One could agree that the question of student experience in the context of remote education is worthwhile and less empirically investigated particularly in a state of uncertainty (e.g., COVID-19 pandemic). However, the paper falls short in adding much to the existing literature on the topic and poses serious questions (e.g., research design, methodology) and I cannot recommend this paper for publication as it stands. Please see below my specific/detailed comments regarding the paper:

 

The title/subtitle is not succinct. It seems that the word ‘expectations’ is confused with the word ‘experiences’. This confusion should have been addressed in the paper; i.e., it is not clear if the paper aims to explore student experiences of remote education or it aims to explore student expectations.

It is important that the author(s) include a few key findings and arguments in their abstract rather than including some results such as “The obtained results show that most students rate remote education relatively high, but there is a difference in specific questions depending on the type of classes (lectures, exercises, etc.).” For instance, it is not clear what specific aspects of remote education have been favoured.

The paper is poorly structured (e.g., it is not clear what the section of ‘Context and Network impact’ is about.). The writing style could benefit from substantial change. Several statements could benefit from academic rigour (e.g., “… you can see a clear picture of two main groups — Satisfied with Everything and Complaining About Everything.”). Several short paragraphs exist in the paper and the central statement / argument is not clear in a number of paragraphs (e.g., Gradually, questions were selected and, using the survey system existing at the Jagiellonian University, they were placed and grouped in a way that facilitates filling in the questionnaire. After the tests, an invitation to take part in the survey was sent to all students of the university.). The ways in which different literature has been synthesised is not clear either.

 The research design and methodology in the paper is problematic. For example, it says “The students and the university employees worked together to design a questionnaire”. It is not clear and transparent how authorship issue and ethical considerations have been addressed in this paper. The ethical soundness of the paper seems questionable as the paper lacks evidence of ethical approval. The ‘research questions and objectives’ raise significant ethical concerns which seems to be ignored in the paper.  

The significance of the research questions have not been properly explained and/or justified in the context of the relevant literature. E.g., what lessons can we learn from the question of “Do students of different faculties perceive remote learning in the same way?” has not been effectively justified in the paper.

The paper notes that the results of the paper “were used to create a report for the university authorities as well as recommendations for the future.” Targeting university authorities as the only beneficiary can run the risk of overlooking other beneficiaries. For example, it is not clearly noted how the research will benefit learning and teaching community. Or in what ways the findings will help other researchers addressing similar questions?

The claim of “… variability of attitudes between different groups of students, which is an aspect not widely exposed in other publications.” does not seem to be substantiated with evidence. It is also not clear what the author(s) means by “variability of attitudes between different groups of students”.

 

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your valuable comments on the text. According to your suggestion, the structure of the paper is reorganized, to improve clarity.

We changed the title and modified the abstract to better reflect the content of the article, also combined short chapters and deepened the "Research justification".

The paragraph on ethics issues (lines 175-181) is expanded to indicate that the study was conducted in a manner that did not require an ethics committee opinion. 

We've made sure that the Discussion and the Conclusions contained answers to the formulated research questions, although answers to some of them, eg "Do students of different faculties perceive remote learning in the same way?" should not be formulated as one-dimensional conclusions, which we tried to justify in the discussion.

We also resigned from including xml file containing the structure of the survey.

Reviewer 2 Report

Thanks for the opportunity to review this article.  The subject matter is interesting as are a number of the findings.  The context of the research is explained although the geographical location of the research site would be useful to know (without the reader having to search this themselves).

The literature is very brief and doesn’t outline the known findings of the plethora of studies that have appeared since the Great Online Transition (Howard et al.) necessitated by Covid-19.  I think the study needs be more grounded in what is already known about this phenomenon, so the authors can highlight more clearly how their findings align or differ to the extant literature. There are a number of key authors in this field, such as Sarah Howard, Jo Tondeur, Ronnie Scherer, Aras Bozkurt – to name a few.  There is also a huge amount of literature in the Distance Education field.

The methodology is clear – although the survey appears in the script as computer code and so not readable. The analysis techniques are sound. There is also no mention of gaining ethical approval to carry out the research, or what any ethical issues might have been.  The sample size is quite small and not particularly representative – so this should be mentioned as a limitation.

The findings are very interesting and definitely add to the field. The corelations between ailments and satisfaction is really interesting as is the authors categorisation into tiggers and eeyores, and the difference among the disciplines.  The authors do discuss some possible explanations, such as maybe a relationship with the teaching and student satisfaction. But other explanations could be that some subjects are easier to study remotely than others. For example, a lot of Science would be expected to take place in a physical lab and this might be much harder to replicate remotely.  As this seemed to be a purely quantitative study reasons can only be inferred and avenues for further research could be suggested.  For example, the differences between the males and females – is that a gender issue or is it a function of the subjects they are studying?

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

thank you for your valuable comments on the text.

According to your suggestion, we re-edited the abstract and introductory part of our article, in particular the "Research justification", to improve clarity.

We also resigned from including xml file containing the structure of the survey.

The paragraph on ethics issues (lines 175-181) is expanded to indicate that the study was conducted in a manner that did not require an ethics committee opinion. We also highlighted the limitations of the sample.

We considered the suggested extension of the paragraph containing possible explanations for the co-occurrence of variables, but in this case we decided to leave them open for discussion (lines 334-343), as we would prefer not to present unverified assumptions as conclusions.

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript provides interesting evidence on students' experience of remote education. I think that one point of strength of the paper regards the way the authors treated the analysis using a correspondence analysis which is not very frequent although it provides interesting results in exploratory studies.

Another point of strength is the way the authors present the rationale of the study which appears in a very clear format.

I don't see the reason to report the codes in the appendix. Perhaps, the authors could place it in a repository.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

thank you for the positive reception of the text.

According to your suggestion, we have omitted the attached xml file.

In addition, we re-edited the abstract and introductory part of our article to improve clarity.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

It is not convincing that the author(s) claim “the study was conducted in a manner that did not require an ethics committee opinion”. For instance, the “basic data - gender, age, field of study and year of study of the participants” were collected to identify the user groups. This is a clear example that a proper ethical review procedure should have been followed and the author should have received an ethical approval for this study before the start of the project. As part of this, the information that have been included in the lines of 175-181 could have been included in the related section of the institutional ethical approval form.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

 

The recommendations of the Council of the National Science Center regarding research involving human subjects define the scope of research requiring a positive opinion of the relevant ethics committees (https://www.ncn.gov.pl/sites/default/files/pliki/2016_zalecenia_Rady_NCN_dot_etyki_badan.pdf). Other studies, including the current ones, as indicated in the article, do not require the opinion of the research ethics committee.

 

In addition, the Ethics Committee existing at our university (https://etykabadan.komisja.uj.edu.pl/o-nas/dokumenty-uczelniane) lists studies in which the Committee's opinion is not needed. As we have consulted, the scope of our research does not imply the need for approval by the Commission.

 

The construction of the questionnaire did not allow for the identification of the respondents, and the participation in the questionnaire concerned adults and was completely voluntary. In addition, the questions asked were not sensitive or likely to disturb the well-being of the respondents.

 

Kind regards

Reviewer 2 Report

Thanks, the authors have carried out the suggested changes

Author Response

Dear Review,

Thank you for your comments!