From Students’ Personal and Social Responsibility to Autonomy in Physical Education Classes

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Line 28-34- This is one sentence, possibly the authors could rephrase this, because it is quite confusing.

Line 39: Intrinsic motivation to learn science? Is this what the study is about? This is a bit confusing.

Line 43-44: “Nowadays the autonomy is being one of the main objectives of education systems.” This does make sense; however, it does not read well, please consider revising this sentence.

Line 44: capitalize “which” and clarify which type of motivation.

Line 63: change “increase” to increased.

Line 80: it seems like the goal of this study is to look at the interaction between interpersonal style and the personal and social responsibility model, I think the authors could phrase this more clearly.

Line 99: what does “by the teachers interest” mean?

Line 114: was the measure for internal consistency the Cronbach alpha? This is a bit low. Make sure to address this in limitations.

Line 153 and 176: these could be their own section with a sub-heading.

Line 176: can the authors be clear as to how much the “direct instruction program” deviated from how this instructor normally teaches?

Line 200: who rated the teachers using the TARE observation tool, and if it was more than one, what was the inter-rater reliability?

Table 1, please address the low ratings for promoting leadership and transfer.

Table 2 is the size effect for the control group supposed to be 23, 0.09, and 24

Line 269: regarding limitations, were there any measures taken to illustrate that the two groups of students were essentially similar? Socio-economic status, grade point average, fitness level, etc..?

Author Response

Line 28-34- This is one sentence, possibly the authors could rephrase this, because it is quite confusing. Done.

Line 39: Intrinsic motivation to learn science? Is this what the study is about? This is a bit confusing. Fixed.

Line 43-44: “Nowadays the autonomy is being one of the main objectives of education systems.” This does make sense; however, it does not read well, please consider revising this sentence. It has been revised and completed.

Line 44: capitalize “which” and clarify which type of motivation. It has been specified the type of motivation.

Line 63: change “increase” to increased. Done.

Line 80: it seems like the goal of this study is to look at the interaction between interpersonal style and the personal and social responsibility model, I think the authors could phrase this more clearly. Done.

Line 99: what does “by the teachers interest” mean? Teachers who were interested in the TPSR programme were assigned to the experimental group.

Line 114: was the measure for internal consistency the Cronbach alpha? This is a bit low. Make sure to address this in limitations. Done, it has been included in limitations paragraph.

Line 153 and 176: these could be their own section with a sub-heading. Done.

Line 176: can the authors be clear as to how much the “direct instruction program” deviated from how this instructor normally teaches? This is something we didn’t measure before the implementation. The teacher declared use this methodology and we understood he could be a good candidate. Then, we helped him to keep teaching in this way, encouraging to follow the session format with a three-phase framework, remaining the full control of the class and avoiding students to make decisions besides participation in the different tasks. Furthermore, teachers were also encouraged to give detailed and repeated instructions and explanations, to ask questions and offer active practice, deliver feedback and corrections, and guarantee continued practice to ensure high student success and achievement.

Line 200: who rated the teachers using the TARE observation tool, and if it was more than one, what was the inter-rater reliability? Explained.

Table 1, please address the low ratings for promoting leadership and transfer. Done.

Table 2 is the size effect for the control group supposed to be 23, 0.09, and 24. Yes, it is.

Line 269: regarding limitations, were there any measures taken to illustrate that the two groups of students were essentially similar? Socio-economic status, grade point average, fitness level, etc..? This information is included at the beginning of the section 2.1. Participants, second sentence.

Reviewer 2 Report

Interesting study and important topic as we want to support students’ autonomy and teachers’ teaching style to support it.

There is some concern about the research ethics as it was not tols which ethical committee has accepted the study and how about students’ informed consent to participate was provided.

This qusi-experimental study was not balanced with the gender distribution in experimental and control group,i.e. It was non-equivalent. I suggest that you discuss this in limitations section of the study. 

As to the analysis non-parametric test of Wilcoxon Signed Rank T test is ok, but authors did not show ecidenxe of non normality of distributions. Test statistics should be reported. In case of lower mean value in post test the effect size should have a negative sign. Reliability values are satisfactory as highest, how this affected to results?

Statistical analyses have restrictions when you compare the pre test and post test scores inside the groups. As we can see, the pre test scores are different in groups and this has a potential to affect also to development of scores in groups. iIn other  words this kind of statistical test applied here gives only a partial anwer to the research question which should be discussed.

Author Response

There is some concern about the research ethics as it was not tols which ethical committee has accepted the study and how about students’ informed consent to participate was provided.

   - It has been detailed the information about the ethical committee and it has been attached the certificate.

This qusi-experimental study was not balanced with the gender distribution in experimental and control group,i.e.

  - It was non-equivalent. I suggest that you discuss this in limitations section of the study. It has been included in the limitation paragraph.

As to the analysis non-parametric test of Wilcoxon Signed Rank T test is ok, but authors did not show ecidenxe of non normality of distributions. Test statistics should be reported.

   -Here it is the table with the evidences.

Note: * p < .05.

 In case of lower mean value in post test the effect size should have a negative sign. It has been included the negative sign in the table 2. Reliability values are satisfactory as highest, how this affected to results?

   - This is something good because the degree to which the result of a measurement is accurate. In this study, it means there has been a high degree of accurate with the variables have been measured.

Statistical analyses have restrictions when you compare the pre test and post test scores inside the groups. As we can see, the pre test scores are different in groups and this has a potential to affect also to development of scores in groups. iIn other  words this kind of statistical test applied here gives only a partial anwer to the research question which should be discussed.

  - Done.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf