Girls4STEM: Gender Diversity in STEM for a Sustainable Future

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This study outlines the model and provides preliminary results for a program that promotes STEM participation among girls and women. The manuscript can be improved in the following ways.

1. Even if there isn't a theory of change that explicitly informed this program, it desperately needs a theory of change to support its conceptualization. It seems that social networks are prioritized in the form of mentoring and peer networks, along with informational transmission and some other elements. Adopting an appropriate theory of change that underscores the importance of such elements would provide more robustness to this program. I am not suggesting just making this up after the fact. I think it's in there already, but is implied. Please make it explicit and cite an appropriate theory of change accordingly.
2. The program model and the article should distinguish between various types of outcomes associated with this program, namely, short-term, intermediate, and long-term outcomes. If such distinctions were addressed already, I missed them and would say they need to be more prominently featured. They should figure significantly in this manuscript. The authors could state that this manuscript examines only short-term outcomes given that preliminary results are analyzed.
3. If any strategies here are modeled from evidence-based practices, that would make the design and evaluation more compelling. Did the developers of this program look to other programs or adopt proven strategies from other interventions? 

Overall, this is a sound paper, but it could use improvement in these ways. Also, a careful proofreading of the paper for English proficiency is recommended.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Review of “Girls4STEM: Gender Diversity in STEM for a Sustainable Future”

 

21 June 2020

 

This article describes a program to encourage gender diversity in STEM by connecting school-age children and their families to female STEM experts.

 

The program is interesting and the initial data collection suggests the program is worthwhile. However, the link to global sustainability is not very strong. I provide some comments that will strengthen the paper regardless of this concern.

 

I found the description of the evaluation methods confusing. It was not clear to me how the data described connected to the survey tools mentioned.

 

The language is very formal, in some cases so formal that it was hard to understand. A rewrite with more daily language would make this more readable.

 

The paragraph in lines 126-141 should have more references to back up the statements made here.

 

Reference 21 is only for engineering, and only for one institution, so comments relating to this research should take this into account. For instance, line 436 should not be STEM but just engineering.

 

Line 401 mentions Economy, so was the question open answer, or did people select from a list of choices?

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The present paper contributes to close the gender gap in STEM. The project is very complete, sustainable, properly-designed and impact of actions are evaluated. In the following, some comments, questions to authors are intended to increase the quality of the paper and/or the project's future:

 1. In the study, figure 2 shows the number percentage of students, please, include (%) in the abscises axis. In addition, it could be convenient to include the absolute number of students at any stage.

2. Figure 3, if possible, specify the audience's group: teachers, family or students.

3. Figure 4 is very important as it clearly shows the stereotypes in primary school, secondary school cycles one and two. However, despite authors indicate there is no significant differences, the figure points out relevant gender differences concerning "it is a model" and "works with computers". Could you provide more insight to this fact?. In addition, have you observed remarkable difference among students according to the stage or age? I.e., if at primary school, students' stereotypes are lower than in secondary school.

5. Figure 5 is also very interesting. It is very curious that the gender upper-level at any statement and group (familiy, teachers or themselves) is in agreement. There is not a single discipline that shows swapped results. Have you realize this point?. In addition it seems that the greatest gender difference occurs at physical education for the three groups and mathematics for themselves group. Do you consider a further discussion about physical education could be of any interest?

6. More details about questionnaires are missed in the document. Some pictures showing the stereotype test would be very interesting.

7. In order the present project could be uses as a White Paper for similar strategies, some further information should be included:

-The project's organization map: human resources for the different parts, if they are volunteers or professional staff, time spent,...

-How is the activity published to find volunteers?. Because in order to see the information at social networks, you have to previously follow that profiles.

-Budget for the activity and specify for example by a pie-chart the current funding from public calls, private sponsoring,...

8. Figure 1. It includes CEFIRE but it is defined later at line 275

9. You mention 10 schools participated in the first edition with other 10 in list. Why do you limit the number of school of 10? How many schools do you consider you could include in the project? What do you consider is the limit for the extent of the activity? I.e., if the number of volunteers, the duration of the activity...What is the highest constraint?

10. The project Girs4STEM is a very laudable initiative to promote the presence of women in STEM fields. This works on the stereotypes and make people know what STEM disciplines means. For sure, there is a really paramount work of many people to make it possible. Congratulations. One of the questions that always remain if this huge work is worthy. Readers would agree to know your personal experience, the time this project is consuming from your professional life, family life, personal time, time for care. This is very, very valuable.

11. Finally, it could be very interesting to know if people (students, teachers and family) that attend the activities are previously motivate about STEM. The final success would be to reach the non-motivated ones, the most talented people that because of having born in a non pro-STEM family has not got the same opportunities. Have you consider to measure the profile of the attendees? Have you consider to move the activity to the educational centers to promote all students could participate?

Thank you very much for your work and I hope this comments will contribute to some improvement this project.

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have done an admirable job revising the the manuscript. They have carefully attended to my revisions and those of other reviewers, even when previous comments sparingly offered corrective actions. In short, I have no objections to the manuscript in its current form. 

I do think avoiding the use of the word "this" as a stand-alone pronoun is advisable. Such a writing strategy creates an unclear antecedent and makes reading a paper more difficult. 

In short, well done!

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The changes have the paper stronger. I still have issues with the connection to sustainability. If you look at this journals "aims and scope" page, this does not fit into any of the categories.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for making the additions to strengthen the connection to sustainability.