Caught in the Middle—Experiences of Student Peer Mentors in Nursing Education: A Qualitative Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript entitled “Caught in the middle- Experiences of student-peer mentors in nursing education: A qualitative study” is an article. The purpose of study was to investigate the experiences of student-peer mentors who participated in a mentoring program implemented to increase student well-being and prevent drop-out for first year Bachelor of Nursing students at a university in Norway during the Covid-19 pandemic.

In this way, the paper is aligned with the aims of the Special Issue “Reshaping Higher Education for a Post-COVID-19 World: Lessons Learned and Moving Forward”, of the Journal Education Sciences.

In general, the manuscript is well organized and presents a clear structure. The subject of the manuscript is relevant and pertinent. The research methods and procedures are clearly and sufficiently described for other researchers to replicate them. The discussion of results summarizes important observations. But, based on the overall review of the manuscript, authors should consider some issues regarding key points of the article, which could be further developed and improved in the revised version of the manuscript.

Some points for improvement:

The introduction doesn't provide sufficient background. Authors should analyse the findings and research gaps from previous researchers. It would facilitate the reader’s understanding to provide an overview of the results of the existing literature about distance learning, nursing education, Covid-19, social learning and peer mentor. So, more references, and more analysis from previous work and a good conceptualization of the constructs are needed.

Please add your research questions at the end of your introduction or combine them into your introduction. Please clarify Why this study contributes to research in the Higher Education field? What is the main contribution of this study?

The Conclusion section should answer the questions: What are the mains take-aways that the readers should keep? How can this information be useful for academics and other stakeholders? What are recommendations for future work?

Best wishes with the rewriting process.

Author Response

Thank you for valuable comments which we believe have improved the manuscript substantially. Kindly see our detailed comments below. 

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

Point 1: The introduction doesn't provide sufficient background. Authors should analyse the findings and research gaps from previous researchers. It would facilitate the reader’s understanding to provide an overview of the results of the existing literature about distance learning, nursing education, Covid-19, social learning and peer mentor. So, more references, and more analysis from previous work and a good conceptualization of the constructs are needed

 

Response 1: Thank you for this comment. We added literature on Covid-19 and its effects on students, line 31-36.

 

Point 2: Please add your research questions at the end of your introduction or combine them into your introduction. Please clarify Why this study contributes to research in the Higher Education field? What is the main contribution of this study?

 

Response 2: While we did not develop research questions, we have added aspects of particular interest after the aim of the study at the end of the introduction, line 49-50. We believe the main contribution of this study to higher education field is highlighted in the conclusion, line 404-419.

 

Point 3: The Conclusion section should answer the questions: What are the mains take-aways that the readers should keep? How can this information be useful for academics and other stakeholders? What are recommendations for future work?

 

Response3: Thank you for the comment. We have highlighted the main take-aways in the last sentence of the conclusion, line 413-419.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Reviewer comments on the manuscript

education-2238987-peer-review-v1:

Caught in the middle- Experiences of student-peer mentors in 2 nursing education: A qualitative study

This reviewer found this manuscript interesting, on average well written, and it contributes and expands the research knowledge on the many issues of peer-mentoring in nursing education. The authors refer in general to updated research. The findings are interesting and important, and raise some important issues that the authors address, and important issues that authors do not address in the discussion.

I have some suggestions for improvements of the paper.

1.    I would recommend the authors not using the presence tense, as this study is something having been performed, and therefore you should use the verb form past tense

2.    Here and there is some unnecessary grammar mistakes and some incomplete sentences. For example:

a.      Thematic analysis were instead of was..  

b.     Our findings shows, instead of show as is the plural verb form.

Please, cheque your grammar throughout the manuscript

3.    In the Introduction, I miss a clear rationale for this study:

a.      What is the educational rationale for this kind of mentoring arrangement at your university

b.     What kind of learning/pedagogical theories are this program leaning on?

c.      A review of relevant research in particular on the mentoring arrangement at your university, as there are many types of mentoring arrangements

4.    In the Method section I think the numbering is wrong and illogical. In the setting part you include participants, recruiting, sample, data collection and data analysis. These methodic issues are not subsections of “setting”.  However, talking about the “clean setting part”, this is somehow unclear. The mentoring programme or roles you refer to at your university need some more elaboration for readers and educators to actually understand what kind of peer-mentoring role do these second and third years put on. Here, the issue of payment and the follow up from the university should also be addressed.

Concerning recruiting you tried out two strategies. The lats one, on which you recruited 11 students, was by addressing the students directly on their mobile phone. Was that recruiting strategy in the original application to NSD? If not, did you get permission from NSD to use this recruitment strategy? You discuss this in the strength/limitation part of the discussion. However, the important question here is if you had permission from NSD to recruit students in this way. This should be addressed in the ethical part of the method section.

5.    The findings are interesting, important and even alarming.

6.    The discussion of findings would benefit from providing some more information of the findings that “are in line with” your findings or “support” your findings. That would be a more interesting and transparent discussion.

 

That said, I think that some of the more “alarming findings” where young students are put in “squeeze roles”, are left with other students’ mental health or psychosocial issues, I would have expected that the authors would discuss this Moral, ethical and probably complicated legal issues that are revealed in these findings. This could also be mirrored in the conclusion, that there are challenges on multiple levels also for the educational institution putting student mentors in such demanding roles.

Author Response

Thank you for valuable comments which we believe have improved the manuscript substantially. Kindly see our detailed comments below.

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

 

Point 1: I would recommend the authors not using the presence tense, as this study is something having been performed, and therefore you should use the verb form past tense

 

Response 1: Thank you for this comment. We have revised the manuscript accordingly.

 

Point 2:   Here and there is some unnecessary grammar mistakes and some incomplete sentences. For example:

1. Thematic analysis were instead of was..  
2. Our findings shows, instead of show as is the plural verb form.

Please, cheque your grammar throughout the manuscript

 

Response 2: Thank you for this comment. We have revised the manuscript accordingly.

 

Point 3:    In the Introduction, I miss a clear rationale for this study:

1. What is the educational rationale for this kind of mentoring arrangement at your university
2. What kind of learning/pedagogical theories are this program leaning on?
3. A review of relevant research in particular on the mentoring arrangement at your university, as there are many types of mentoring arrangement

Response 3: information about the mentoring program including the rationale, have been added including the rationale and pedagogical theories have been added, line 53-75.

 

Point 4: In the Method section I think the numbering is wrong and illogical. In the setting part you include participants, recruiting, sample, data collection and data analysis. These methodic issues are not subsections of “setting”.  However, talking about the “clean setting part”, this is somehow unclear.

Response 4: Thank you for the comment. We have revised the numbering in the method section accordingly.

 

The mentoring programme or roles you refer to at your university need some more elaboration for readers and educators to actually understand what kind of peer-mentoring role do these second and third years put on. Here, the issue of payment and the follow up from the university should also be addressed.

 

Response 4:  We have added information about the mentoring programme, kindly see the revisions made line 53-75.  

 

Concerning recruiting you tried out two strategies. The lats one, on which you recruited 11 students, was by addressing the students directly on their mobile phone. Was that recruiting strategy in the original application to NSD? If not, did you get permission from NSD to use this recruitment strategy? You discuss this in the strength/limitation part of the discussion. However, the important question here is if you had permission from NSD to recruit students in this way. This should be addressed in the ethical part of the method section.

Response 4: Yes, using potential participants mobile phone number was part of the original application to NSD (now called Sikt in Norwegian). We have added additional information regarding this recruitment strategy under ethical considerations, line 145-149.

 

Point 5:  The discussion of findings would benefit from providing some more information of the findings that “are in line with” your findings or “support” your findings. That would be a more interesting and transparent discussion.

 Response 5: Thank you for this valuable comment. Some more information about how the findings of other studies support our findings have been added to the discussion, see line 349-354.

That said, I think that some of the more “alarming findings” where young students are put in “squeeze roles”, are left with other students’ mental health or psychosocial issues, I would have expected that the authors would discuss this Moral, ethical and probably complicated legal issues that are revealed in these findings. This could also be mirrored in the conclusion, that there are challenges on multiple levels also for the educational institution putting student mentors in such demanding roles.

Response 5: We have highlighted this in the discussion, line 368-371, and the conclusion, line 413-419.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The article has been improved. However, I still have two suggestions:

The introduction still does not provide enough background. The authors should analyse, with greater soundness, the findings and research gaps of previous researchers, and then discuss them with the empirical findings of the study.

Author Response

We appreciate your thoughtful feedback and have carefully considered your concerns regarding the background information in the introduction.

However, we respectfully disagree with your assessment that the introduction does not provide enough background information and believe that our current introduction effectively sets the stage for our research.

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Well done! This reviewer consider the manuscript  accepted, and ready for publication when some minor grammar issues are corrected here and there. I encourage you to carefully go through the verb form related to singular/pluralis issues.

Author Response

Thank you for taking the time to review our manuscript and providing us with your thoughtful feedback. Your comments and suggestions have been extremely helpful in improving the quality of our work.

We have corrected grammar and made other edits line 62,72,122,126,127,129,130,137,160,225,255,274,316,322,394,399,400