‘Just Another Outing in a Boat’: Findings from the Evaluation of the Mixed Ability Sport Development Programme

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Thanks for giving me the opportunity in reviewing this manuscript. I think the relevance and importance of the topic is clearly stated, as new ways in developing opportunities and new contexts for people with disability sport participation should be enhanced, and the potential of mixed ability (MA) is clear. However, in my opinion, important methodological issues and details should be considered in my opinion prior to final publication:

-          It is adequate, following UNCRPD suggestions, to use always the term “person/people with disabilities”, instead of “disabled persons/people”. Please use the person first principle in all the text.

-          Line 81: “also ‘reinforce”, please check.

-          Study aim should be clearly defined, and not only because is an outcome from the  MASDP project, or because it must be tested in other sports than rugby. Please specify at the end of the introduction. Moreover, MA model was not properly described in the introduction (not enough between 100 – 117), in the way that could guide study aims and methodological tools. We suggest authors to focus in a given aspect of the MA model to define clearly study aims.

-          Multiple qualitative tools are described in the methodology as part of the study (149 – 153 lines). But, depending the case, they choose other (i.e. case studies, 157-158). It seems that authors provided a “mixed method approach” to the study. However, in our opinion, this should be directly related with study aim, as each sport/disability have different needs and every role (stakeholder, coach, athlete, etc) must be recognized in a given methodology. Authors also enumerated 6 different methodologies for a given “research activity” (lines 163 – 168), which makes impossible a research replication. For instance, how the 85 sessions from different sports were recorded and analysed? Why 85 and not 100? How many per sport? How participation was observed and analysed? Was the observation defined and validated? How was this tool sensible to a given sport? We can give this argument to any of the “research activity” indicated. We truly appreciate the effort and work done in the project, but the manuscript in my opinion is far away to fulfil the minimum requirements to become a research paper.

-          In the results section, authors indicated “core themes identified through the analysis process, namely: i) defining MA sport; ii) the impacts of MA sport; and (iii) challenges and enablers of MA sport (lines 194 – 196). This must be supported by a clearer and stronger methodological definition, as we do not know how these themes emerged from the analysis performed.

Because of the previous limitations, my revision ends at the beginning of the results.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Available in the attached document

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

I believe this paper is well written and ready for publication. I would have liked to see more quotes to support some of the findings, but not having more does not detract from the quality of readability of the paper. there is a large sample size in terms of multiple sites across different sports, which provides some strong validity to the findings. The paper was well written, particularly the introduction and methods. References were appropriate with many recent references. I recommend accepting the paper without revisions. 

Author Response

Point 1: I believe this paper is well written and ready for publication. I would have liked to see more quotes to support some of the findings, but not having more does not detract from the quality of readability of the paper. There is a large sample size in terms of multiple sites across different sports, which provides some strong validity to the findings. The paper was well-written, particularly the introduction and methods. References were appropriate with many recent references. I recommend accepting the paper without revisions. 

Response 1: Many thanks for the positive comments, we are very pleased you found the paper well-written. In response to yours and other reviewer comments, we have added more quotes and detail to unpack the earlier results sections in particular. We feel this strengthens the results and the paper as a whole so thank you for pointing this out. 

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Response 1: I thank authors effort in dealing with issues and suggestions indicated, but my opinion after this second revision is the same. I think is an informative manuscript than scientific manuscript.

Response 2: As this is an international journal, authors should use international approach (UNCRPD / ICF-WHO). Otherwise, we suggest to publish in a national-wide journal.

Response 3: Thanks: aim has been detailed, but link between dimensions / variables studied and introduction (dealing with adequate theoretical framework) and methodology (tools and instruments selected) is still missed.

Response 4:  Thanks: aim has been detailed, but link between dimensions / variables studied and introduction (dealing with adequate theoretical framework) and methodology (tools and instruments selected) is still missed.

Response 5. As it seems that MASPD is not defined yet by science, authors can refer to it, but not to use it as unique framework in a research article. Please see Jeanes et at (2018) as an example of participatory research to promote inclusion through sport clubs using DeLuca’s (2013) interdisciplinary inclusion framework, for instance. In view of this reviewer, provision of sport for people with disabilities still needs accommodation / adaptations in mainstream settings, so the new statement in lines 112-113 should be referenced or need stronger support. A second issue is that the research methodology can not be “flexible” as it should be specific per participant (participant with/without disability? Coach? Manager?) and related with study aims. Which are the “creative qualitative methods” used? In this version authors indicated a new structure in the method section, but the link between a given aim, participant, and methods are still not clear. For instance, how motivations where studied? Is the same as perceptions? Which tool was used to study attitudes towards disability / inclusion? How MASPD was presented to participants to be assessed? Detailed qualitative methodology used is not explained, data analysis provided is scarce, as coding of participants and registration units are not indicated.

Response 6: Thanks, but no answer to my questions. “Variety of methods” and “flexible approach” are still not described in detail, and, as study framework was not adequately defined. Selections was made by the fact that authors though that “was the most appropriate way to explore the diverse contexts we were looking across”.  We thank authors to include this as limitation in the manuscript, but in our opinion, this is a good step for a innovative / informative paper, but not for a research paper.

I hope my suggestions will help authors to improve their work. 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors did an excellent job addressing all of my original concerns. I have no additional comments or reservations. I look forward to seeing the published version.

Author Response

Many thanks for the positive response to our revisions, we really felt they strengthened the paper!