Fair Play in Physical Education and Beyond

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

First of all, this paper is significantly improved in response to the feedback. In particular, it reads much better and the quality of expression has much improved. 

However, there is still a fundamental issue with relevance to the journal, which can be further improved. While reference is now made to sustainability, this can still be much more explicit. On page 3, you make mention of 'the sustainability of the subject', but it is actually about more than that, which does not get explained until page 9: 'the sustainability of the sound development of young people'. I presume that 'sound' refers here to a moral code that includes 'generally accepted ethical norms'. This 'sustainability of the sound development of young people' should be what your paper should be framed by. This means that it should be more explicitly set up around this idea in your introduction, and the discussion should be framed around it as well. especially in the introduction, there is enough room to do so, as there is no real need for the added examples on page 2.

If the authors can re-frame the paper in this way, it will be an interesting paper with relevance for the target audience of the journal.  

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for the modifications/enhancement you have done to the text

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors have done a good job of responding to the reviewer comments. The paper now reads much better and the revised title for the paper is much improved.

Whilst the authors may have felt deflated after the first round of reviews, I think the resulting paper is now much stronger and is suitable for publication.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The abstract needs to be re-written. Details of the demographics of the study groups (numbers, genders and ages) do not need to be in the abstract. These occur appropriately in the methods section rom page 4 onwards.

The opening section about games in ancient Greece seems a little anecdotal and does not appropriately introduce the meat of the paper.  I would suggest that the introduction is re-written. Whilst the expression ‘fair play’ may sound quite British, I am not sure the authors can claim that the concept is British. I think that ‘generally accepted ethical norms’ [p.2] that are found elsewhere is the same concept with a different label.

The introduction needs to be shortened and updated. For example, the expulsion of Russia from international athletics by WADA, the removal of Lance Armstrong’s name as a winner of the Tour de France, or the suspension of Steve Smith from international cricket for ball-tampering provide more contemporary examples of individual or state-sponsored cheating in sport. Perhaps these examples could be used in the introduction instead of a general comment about the origins of the Olympics?

In places, the authors use the phrase “post-primary education”. On page 7, you talk about secondary education. I think this is the same thing. Secondary education is a better term.

The current title is a little clunky. Perhaps a more snappy title would be, “Olympic education: fair play in PE and beyond”.

The discussion should be a discussion of the data. You have included discussions of the results of other studies at this point. Where you do this you need to flag it up for the reader. Use sub-titles to show where you are discussing the results presented in this study [line 301], and where you are making comparisons with other studies [line 373]. Just make the structure of the section clearer and more explicit.

In the conclusions, do not start a section with “It is therefore important”. You need to make a statement before you use ‘therefore’. There are also some very general comments in the conclusion that need to have more focus and more precise language, e.g. “an improvement in the effectiveness of the process of upbringing”. This introduces too many ideas that have not been adequately defined. Conclusions need to focus on what can be drawn from the data, or explicitly related to the underpinning literature.

We need some clear suggestions here for implications to practice.

What would be interesting and would widen the impact of this work to consider possible spill-overs from PE into other areas of the curriculum. How does the ideals of fair play influence things like cheating in examinations and plagiarism in coursework. This would vastly increase interest in this work, if the authors considered PE as simply a case study in the development of a more general principle.

The quantitative data could be enhanced and supplemented with some qualitative data - the voices of the participants (students and teachers) about what they think and why.

The authors need to check through the references to sort out minor inconsistencies in format (e.g. refs 18 and 30 – possibly others.

Reviewer 2 Report

Introduction

The manuscript presents a great introduction to the concept of fair play from the historical point of view. Once the morality has been differentiated from the rules, the authors can improve it, speaking of the differences between cheating and deception (e.g., Palou, P., Ponseti, F.X., Cruz, J., Vidal, J., Cantallops, J, Borrás, P. y Garcia-Mas, A. (2013) Acceptance of Gamemanship and Cheating in Young Competitive Athletes in relation to the Perceived Motivational Climate of Parents and    Perceptual and Motor Skills, 117, 1-14). The authors cite a “Fair Play for Kids” project, but currently there are many more up-to-date examples that even incorporate empirical and / or experimental studies about the impact of the training of sports agents (such as coaches) on behaviors and prosocial attitudes of young athletes. E.g., PsyTool, an Erasmus+ Project, from which the following publications are derived: Cruz, J., Ponseti, F.X., Sampaio, M., Garcia-Mas, A., Núñez, A., Ponseti, F. X., Lara, M. , Gamito, J.M., Marqués, A., Viñas. J., Borrueco, M., Carvalho, L.M. and García-Mas, A. (2017). Effect of a Psychological training on football grassroot coaches upon young player’s fairplay and disposition to cheat. Revista de Psicología del Deporte/Journal of Sport Psychology, 27(Suppl. 3), 24-30. García-Mas, A., Rosado, A., Serpa, S., Marcolino, P. and Villalonga, T. (2017). Content Analysis of the Agents of Change ”Disposition to Change” after attending the Psytool Program. Revista de Psicología del Deporte/Journal of Sport Psychology, 27(Suppl. 3), 31-36. AUTORES: Mallia, L., Chirica, A., Galli, F., Zelli, A., Jaenes, J.C., Garcia-Mas, A. and Lucidi, F. (2017). The role of achievement goals and moral disengagement in explaining moral attitudes and behaviours in sport. Revista de Psicología del Deporte/Journal of Sport Psychology, 27(Suppl. 3), 66-69. The authors do not introduce the “negative” part directly, only by “absence” of fair play (eg, in one of the previous publications, there is the concept of moral disengagement, which can lead to the appearance of antisocial behaviors such as bullying or doping). Therefore, they should provide lectors a minimum view of the "dark side" of athletes, that is, "antisocial" behaviors or attittudes per se, not only due to fair play defects.. Although it is a matter exclusively of responsibility of the Editors' decisions, the geographical location of the study, without carrying out a correct social and cultural contextualization (or inserted in a cross-cultural study), should not stand out so much.

Method

Authors should justify more deeply the final design of the instrument used, how it was composed, why factors are previously extracted. They must also provide statistical values of the tool such as the “r” factorials and the Cronbach’s Alpha. Although the study has verifiable ethical approval, the inclusion of questions to minors about professed religion seems to be ethically complex.

Results

The use of Squared Ji should be decided as appropriate by the Editors, since for this reviewer, the absence of studies of differences between groups and the Effect Size (of any statistically significant differences) seems necessary, as well as a correlational analysis of the variables studied.

Discussion

As indicated in the comments to the Introduction, it would be interesting that the results obtained were critically commented on in a minimal way regarding possible antisocial behaviors. At present, it seems that the concept of fair play is multifaceted, as is the case with doping or with the concept of “clever player” (E.g., Ponseti, F. X., Cantallops, J., Vidal, J. y Garcia-Mas, A. (2017). Does cheating and gamemanship to be reconsidered regarding fair-play in grassroots sports?. Revista de Psicología del Deporte/Journal of Sport Psychology, 26(Suppl. 3), 28 -32. As could be assumed, the contextualization in Poland of the study, is not commented on either cross-culturally or with respect to other areas, so it should be outlined the #17 comments.

Reviewer 3 Report

This is potentially an interesting paper, but it is not ready for publication in its current form for two reasons: 1) the content is not linked to sustainability in any specific way, which makes it difficult to see why it's relevant to this particular journal; and 2) while the Materials and Methods, and the Results sections are good, they are not specifically linked to the Introduction (and/or literature review) and the Discussion. The latter sections are both very problematic and need a significant overhaul before they would be ready for publication; the main suggestion is that they need to be more specifically linked to the Results of your study, and to the journal's focus. The problematic sections also need significant proofreading and rewriting to improve clarity. The Discussion section currently reads more like a Literature Review, rather than a discussion of you findings (which it should be). Also, limitations of your research are currently not discussed, and your conclusions are currently not based on your research findings (and they should be). 

What follows are some more specific suggestions fro improvements:

-Line 28: "32%" - What does this percentage mean in the context of this sentence?
-Lines 29-30: "valued the influence" - 'Valuing the influence' is different from being influenced...
-Line 31: "highest scored factor" - Of what? Do you mean influence?
-Line 33: "a higher awarded score" - Influence of school? Or what exactly? 
-Lines 43-52: References?
-Lines 79-81: Very unclear what this means; rewrite this sentence.
-Line 82: "we may find" - Do we? Or do we not? What does the Dictionary actually say? 
-Line 96: "essential and effective role played by school" - Effectiveness in what sense? Can you be more specific about this?
-Line 102: "they" - Who (or what) does 'they' refer to? 
-Line 104: "on the perception" - Who's perception?
-Line 109: "critical pedagogy" - Such as? Where did this come from?
-Line 111: "or problems" - Such as?
-Line 113: "recently" - How 'recent' is this? What evidence is there for this? There are too many unsupported claims in this section.
-Line 117: "growing scale of excessive acts" - Such as?
-Line 119: "this" - What?
-Line 124: "remaining research questions" - What does this refer to? 
-Line 127: "the main support" - Support of what exactly? 
-Line 129: "the issue of Olympism" - This is not an 'issue'; do you mean a program? 
-Line 134: "properly" - As defined by whom?
-Line 136: "which seems to be minimal" - Based on...?
-Lines 144-145: "Although all of these are educational entities on the same level" - Are they!? On what level exactly?
-Line 150: "seems to be that" - According to you? This si surely a matter of opinion?
-Line 154: "development of moral competence" - So what are the criteria to measure success in this?
-Line 157: "external factors" - Such as? And why? Can you justify this? 
-Line 262: "valued" - Did they value it? Or were they most influenced by it? (There is a difference...)
-Line 277: "to form its basis" - Unclear what this means.
-Line 366: By whom?
-Line 386: "they" - Who are 'they'?
-Line 394: "therefore": Based on the results of this study? How specifically?
-Lines 399-402: This sentence does not make sense. 
-Lines 413-414: What does this mean?