Facilitating Sustainable Career Development in Fragility: A Psycho-Linguistic Intervention for Employability of Individuals with Fragile Literacy Skills

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for the opportunity to read your paper. Further exploration of the effect of a psycho-linguistic intervention on sustainable career development in fragility is quite valuable. However, when reading your paper I encountered several possibilities for improvement:

1. In the introduction section, please highlight research gaps by giving examines what has already been examined and what remains examined; What are the differences between existing and previous studies?

2. Sustainable career development should be more clearly defined.  What are the characteristics of sustainable career development and how has it been measured in previous studies? Then, how is it measured in this study and why?

3. DD and L2 though may face the same problem: fragile literacy skills. However， there may be marked differences in the causes of formation and consequences, e.g. L2 may be temporary？ It is suggested that the authors explain more clearly the reasons for choosing these two groups for the study.

4. The statistical analysis tools used in the study should be listed in the manuscript.

5. In the results section, it is recommended that the authors add tables to present the results more clearly.

6. It is suggested that the authors could add a comparative analysis between the DD and the L2 groups with the psycho-linguistic intervention. This may increase the value of the study and help to understand differences in intervention outcomes across groups.

7. It is suggested that the discussion section be more structured, with conclusions and discussion addressed separately.

8. Practical implications of the study and research limitations can be considered for discussion in a separate section.

9. The discussion of practice insights is too general, and the authors are expected to make targeted suggestions based on the study's findings.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for having given us the opportunity to send you a revised version of our article. We are grateful for the constructive observations on the paper, including all the revisions suggested by the five reviewers.

We revised the manuscript following all the suggestions and comments proposed by you and the rest of the reviewers.

For all the reviewers’ comments, we provided answers point-by-point to explain our actions in the text. Please, refer to the following section “Response to Reviewers”. Beyond the summary of our responses, edits in article text are highlighted in yellow for your convenience.

Thank you for your support and the other reviewers’ efforts, which we believe substantially improved the paper.

Best wishes,

The Author(s)

Authors’ Response to Reviewers’ Comments

Reviewer 1

Thank you for the opportunity to read your paper. Further exploration of the effect of a psycho-linguistic intervention on sustainable career development in fragility is quite valuable. However, when reading your paper I encountered several possibilities for improvement:

Authors’ Response: Thank you for your appreciation and your thoughtful review. We addressed each point you mentioned. We think that your points in addition to others’ reviewers points have substantially improve out manuscript.

1. In the introduction section, please highlight research gaps by giving examines what has already been examined and what remains examined; What are the differences between existing and previous studies?

Authors’ Response: Thank you for Point 1. Existing literature lacks the presence of integrative approaches to support fragile individuals. That is, the literature tends to focus on psychological aspects or linguistic aspects. Our brief research report provides follows this gap and provide evidence of the effectiveness of using an integrated framework in which we combine both linguistic and psychological interventions. We added this gap in the introduction as follows:

“In the literature, there is only a limited number of research on how to facilitate individuals with fragile literacy skills in their career development and particularly on how to sustain their level of employability. For example, existing research tend to limit the focus on the promotion of specific psychological skills or the promotion of linguistic skills [5-8].

Considering the umbrella of sustainable career development, there is an imperative for addressing the topic of employability of fragile individuals and realize initial attempts to inform how to sustain these individuals via training interventions [7–10].”

2. Sustainable career development should be more clearly defined. What are the characteristics of sustainable career development and how has it been measured in previous studies? Then, how is it measured in this study and why?

Authors’ Response: The notion of sustainable career development is quite abstract, and it is better to consider it as an umbrella term given the extant research. We thank Reviewer 1 for this suggestion as potential readers might appear confuse. We made the following amendments in order to facilitate the understanding of the term “sustainable career development”. We believe that this amendment can be sufficient while it also remain as a general framework that doesn’t increase the number of words of our brief research report:

“Following this broad definition of employability, it should not surprise how employability had become a relevant topic for sustainable career development and especially in respect to specific populations, e.g., individuals with fragile literacy skills. Sustainable career development is an umbrella term that reminds to the multiple challenges of contemporary society [5]. It recalls aspects of the current labor market and how individuals with specific needs can obtain a job and maintain their careers.”

3. DD and L2 though may face the same problem: fragile literacy skills. However， there may be marked differences in the causes of formation and consequences, e.g. L2 may be temporary？ It is suggested that the authors explain more clearly the reasons for choosing these two groups for the study.

Authors’ Response: We appreciate point 3. We agree that there are marked differences in the causes of formation and consequences of their respective fragilities in L2 and DD. We explained why we addressed these populations in the introduction by reporting evidence of the amount of such populations. Following point 1 by Reviewer 1, we also added in this part that there is a lack of initiatives to support such populations despite their growth. Please, refer to our amendments in the text and in the following extract:

“For example, in Italy only 65.2% of DD individuals have an occupation among which the 19% is represented by 19-25 years population. This is the same for L2 individuals who may find difficulties in verbal and written communication, addressing cultural barriers and adaptation to the labor context. In the Italian context, this reflects in the 61.4% of migrants with an occupation (both formal and non-formal employment). Despite this contextual condition, the literature has still a lack of understanding on how to sustain such populations in their career development.”

4. The statistical analysis tools used in the study should be listed in the manuscript.

Authors’ Response: Thanks for your suggestion, we added the statistical tool used to run the analysis in section 3.2 as follows: “To run the analysis, we used SPSS v. 22.”

5. In the results section, it is recommended that the authors add tables to present the results more clearly.

Authors’ Response: Thanks for your suggestion. It was our intention to include tables yet we followed journal indications for short report and decided to not include them because of the number of words and space limitations. For this reason, we did not include tables of our results.

6. It is suggested that the authors could add a comparative analysis between the DD and the L2 groups with the psycho-linguistic intervention. This may increase the value of the study and help to understand differences in intervention outcomes across groups.

Authors’ Response: We agree with point 6 as a comparison between DD and L2 groups could foster the impact of our results. After careful consideration of your suggestion within our research team, we decided to not report this analysis as the linguistic intervention that L2 and DD received are different. The only thing they have in common is the psychological intervention. This implies that such a comparison between the two groups cannot add more to our results since we are comparing two interventions that do not completely overlap. We feel that we cannot speculate on such a comparison and we have to limit to within comparisons of the two groups, DD and L2.

7. It is suggested that the discussion section be more structured, with conclusions and discussion addressed separately.

Authors’ response: Thanks for your suggestion which reminds to the suggestions by Reviewer 4 and 5 and your points 8 and 9. We structured the discussion by creating

1. an opening paragraph in which we report the main result of our study.
2. a sub-section on our theoretical contribution “4.1 Theoretical contribution”.
3. a sub-section on limitations and future directions, i.e., 4.2 Limitations and future directions.
4. a separate closing sections “5. Conclusion”.

We remind to our manuscript for a full reading of the revised discussion.

8. Practical implications of the study and research limitations can be considered for discussion in a separate section. 9. The discussion of practice insights is too general, and the authors are expected to make targeted suggestions based on the study's findings.

Authors’ Response: Thanks for your suggestions at Point 8 and 9. Following point 7 and Reviewer 4 and 5 suggestions, we revised this section accordingly. However, we limited our edits due to the number of words allowed for the specific type of manuscript, namely Brief Research Report. We remind to the manuscript and the following extract to read our revisions:

“Despite the sample size and distribution of the two populations, these results sug-gest that initiatives such as interdisciplinary intervention may be effective in support-ing a number of personal resources that are important in enabling adults and young adults with low literacy skills to enter in the labor market and better adapt in the workplace [6,7,12–14]. Strengthening such resources can enable an improvement in real and perceived levels of employability. Therefore, while acknowledging the meth-odological limitations given by the sample, the results of this study is a first attempt in demonstrating that interventions aimed at strengthening psychological resources, in particular each person's psychological capital, could bring about significant improve-ments in those individuals disadvantaged in the workplace, for example, by increasing self-confidence, self-control, proactivity and stress management even when faced with work demands that require reading and writing skills and induce personal discomfort. Future research and practice can consider these initial results for interventions aimed at facilitating sustainable career development of fragile individuals.”

Reviewer 2

The article is very interesting. The paper is richly supported by a literature review, regardless of the fact that it is characterized as a short report. The cited literature covers a wide time range, and is "fresh, i.e. from recent years, but also from previous decades. This indicates that the theorethical overview is relevant. Research results can be useful to all practitioners and researchers who have this matter in focus. The paper is well-conceived and does not contain conclusions, but according to the journal's instructions, the conclusion is not a mandatory section.

The mentioned references are listed correctly, expect for reference number 5, which is incomplete. Reference number 32 is written in all caps and should be corrected. Reference number 25  seems incomplete, possibly missing pagination. In any case, this reference ends with a semicolon, instead of a period, like all the others. In the integral text, there is a lack of spacing in many places where there is a reference number, i.e. a square bracket, for example[3], but it should be [3].

Author’s Response to Reviewer 2

We thank you very much for your positive consideration of our work. We are also grateful for pointing out our incomplete references. Please, see below our edits:

1. We edited reference n. 5 as follows: Waterhouse, P., McHardy J. Three generations: Exploring approaches to workplace literacy and numeracy. 2012.
2. We corrected reference n. 32.
3. We revised reverence n. 25 as follows: Burt, M.; Peyton Kreeft, J.; Adams, R. Reading and Adult English Language Learners A Review of the Research; National Center for ESL Literacy Education (NCLE), 2003, 1-58.
4. We added spaces before reference number.

Reviewer 3

Considering that this is a short report, I recommend it for publication 1. In the present report, the authors show an integrated flexible intervention to promote the employability of individuals with fragile literacy skills ( i.e., second-language learners (L2), and individuals with developmental dyslexia (DD).), which combines both the promotion of linguistic skills and psychological resources. 2. The topic addressed is relevant. It can contribute to increasing the employability of fragile individuals. 3. The research presents the situation in a specific time and place, in this context it may be a new perspective on the problem. 4. In my opinion, the research methodology used is correct, it follows the adopted purpose of the report. A limitation of the research may be the small number of respondents. 5. The presented conclusions of the research are consistent and relate to the set research objective. 6. The literature cited is abundant, although only about 43% are items from the last 5 years. Some items in the bibliography need to be supplemented or the format standardized (e.g., 5, 6, 7, 9, etc.).

Author’s Response to Reviewer 3

We thank you very much for your positive consideration of our work. We are also grateful for pointing out our incomplete references. Please, see below our edits:

5. Waterhouse, P., McHardy J. Three generations: Exploring approaches to workplace literacy and numeracy. 2012.
6. Macey, E. Employers’ Views on Youth Literacy and Employability. National Industry Trust. 2013, 1–13.
7. Iles, P.; Iles, P. Sustainable High‐potential Career Development- a Resource‐based. Career Development International. 1997, 347–353.
8. Santisi, G.; Lodi, E.; Magnano, P.; Zarbo, R.; Zammitti, A. Relationship between Psychological Capital and Quality of Life: The Role of Courage. Sustain. 2020, 12.

 

Reviewer 4

The study is intriguing and adds new cognitive values; however, the following elements require improvement:

Authors’ Response: Thank you for your appreciation and your thoughtful review. We addressed each point you mentioned. We think that your points in addition to others’ reviewers points have substantially improve out manuscript.

1. In the "Introduction" and "Abstract," the research objectives need to be clearly and precisely defined.

Authors’ Response: Thank you for your suggestion to make our objectives more precise in both the abstract and the introduction section. We followed your points and we added the following sentence to the abstract to make clear that our objective is to report and test the effectiveness of a training intervention to promote employability of L2 and DD individuals.

“Considering sustainable career development as the umbrella of practices facilitating individuals flourishing, we aim to present an integrated flexible intervention to promote the employability of individuals with fragile literacy skills (DD and L2) which combines both the promotion of linguistic skills and psychological resources. Using an experimental research design, we tested our training intervention on language skills (reading and writing) coupled with a psychological training enhancing psychological resources and psychological capital.”

We did the same also in the introduction, as follows:

“In the present brief report, we aim to present and test the effectiveness of an inte-grated flexible intervention to promote the employability of individuals with fragile literacy skills (DD and L2) which combines both the promotion of linguistic skills and psychological resources.”

Moreover, you point recalls the first by Reviewer 5. Following Reviewer 5 suggestion, we included the following sentence at the end of the introduction: “In this section, we report the results of our study meant to test the effectiveness of integrated flexible intervention to promote the employability of individuals with fragile literacy skills (DD and L2).”

2. The discussed research findings must be more extensively contextualized within the existing body of scientific literature in this field.

Authors’ Response: We want to thank you again as this comment helped use to substantially improve our manuscript. We created a separate sub-section on our contribution to the literature, namely “4.1 Theoretical contribution” in which we commented all our results by considering them in comparison with the existing literature. Due to space limitations of a brief research report, we limited to a short discussion but we feel that it should be enough given our results. We do not report all the extracts and we remind to our revised manuscript.

3. In the "Discussion" chapter, a clear demonstration is necessary to establish that the stated research objectives have been achieved. 4. A summarizing chapter should be added to present the key conclusions.

Authors’ Response: Thanks for your points 3 and 4 which have suggestions that also reminds to point 7 by Reviewer 1. We added an opening paragraph to the discussion in which we state our objectives and the contribution of our study, see the following extracts:

“In both the DD and L2 group, we found that the control group’s total psychological capital and employability levels already showed high levels for both dimensions. This suggest that the results of the comparison should be taken with caution and, at the same time, not be assumed to invalidate the intervention, given the significance found at time 1 and 2 in the experimental sample. Furthermore, in both the L2 sample and the DD sample, the number of participants in the experimental and control group are unbalanced, resulting in a higher participation in the control group and thus indicating a potential effect of the sample size. In parallel, our study is limited by the total number of participants which is not representative.”

We also added a closing section to report the key conclusions as follows:

“5. Conclusion

The present study follows the vast supporting literature that contributes to un-derstand sustainable career development [5,8–10]. It did so by addressing the promo-tion of employability in populations characterized by fragile literacy skills, i.e., young adult subjects suffering from DD and subjects who, due to their migratory background, have learned Italian as a second language (L2) in a migrant context and with low lit-eracy. Linguistic competence, literacy and comprehension of texts constitute areas of fragility for these populations and can lead to a disadvantage when entering in the la-bor market. Furthermore, these difficulties can also have implications on the individu-al dimension, i.e., translate into a perception of oneself as an individual with charac-teristics that are unsuitable for the workplace and, consequently, negatively affect overall employability levels. This study can help advance the idea that supporting psychological resources of DD and L2 individuals can be effective in increasing their perceived and actual employability if combined with literacy interventions.”

Due to the relatively small sample size, it is imperative to explicitly indicate that the generalization of results and any potential identification of overarching principles are fraught with considerable uncertainty.

Authors’ Response: Thanks a lot, we agree with your last point and we emphasized this aspect in the new sub-section “4.2 Limitations and Future directions” (see the opening part of this section below).

“4.2. Limitations and future directions

In both the DD and L2 group, we found that the control group’s total psychologi-cal capital and employability levels already showed high levels for both dimensions. This suggest that the results of the comparison should be taken with caution and, at the same time, not be assumed to invalidate the intervention, given the significance found at time 1 and 2 in the experimental sample. Furthermore, in both the L2 sample and the DD sample, the number of participants in the experimental and control group are unbalanced, resulting in a higher participation in the control group and thus indicating a potential effect of the sample size. In parallel, our study is limited by the total number of participants which is not representative.”

Reviewer 5

Improvement proposals

1. Line 76 – “Second, we continue with the methodological approaches and present our intervention, and the experimental procedure used to evaluate its effectiveness. Authors must mention the main objective of the research.

Authors’ response: Thanks for your suggestion which reminds to Reviewer 4 points to make our objectives clear. We revised the introduction and added the following sentence to complement the sentence that you reported: “In this section, we report the results of our study meant to test the effectiveness of integrated flexible intervention to promote the employability of individuals with fragile literacy skills (DD and L2).”

2. Line 168 – “We created two groups for each of the fragile individuals’ samples, i.e., group and a DD, with a further internal division into experimental and control groups. The authors must describe how they selected the intervention groups, as well as the basis for the sample. 3. Line 184 – “The L2 subjects were recruited through local social promotion networks operating for the literacy of the immigrant population. Authors must mention which social networks and in which time period. 4. Line 192 – “…order to recruit a young population of individuals at their initial experience of the labor market.”

Authors’ response: Thank you for your Points 2, 3 and 4. We revised our manuscript following all of your suggestions. Notably, we specified how the recruitment process worked in addition to providing details on the time period of our study as reported in the following extract of our manuscript. Thank you very much for your prompt. We believe we have been able to substantially improve the quality of our manuscript:

“The procedure of our study lasted one year (from June 2022 to June 2023) and comprises recruitment and training interventions. Both individuals were randomly assigned to the experimental or the control group. With respect to the recruitment stage, we followed different recruitment procedures for L2 and DD. The L2 subjects were re-cruited through local social promotion networks operating for the literacy of the im-migrant population. In these terms, in parallel with the literacy activities, L2 subjects were offered the opportunity to participate in an individual psychosocial skills promotion course, on a voluntary basis. For the control group, on the other hand, they were asked to complete questionnaires during the lessons with the support of the research-ers involved, before and after one month apart.

DD individuals were recruited through the use of advertisements disseminated on the university campus, via social networks (e.g., Facebook page of the Authors’ Department) and via a snow-ball approach.”

5. Line 358 – „Ultimately, the enhancement of psychological resources could lead to an increase in the employability of these population populations and, at the same time, foster their full appreciation and inclusion. Authors must demonstrate, with concrete examples.

Authors’ Response: Thanks for your suggestion of Point 5 which is also related to points 8 and 9 by Reviewer 1 and point 4 by Reviewer 4. To reduce the number of words, we revised this section and decided re-write this sentence as follows:

“Despite the sample size and distribution of the two populations, these results suggest that initiatives such as interdisciplinary intervention may be effective in supporting a number of personal resources that are important in enabling adults and young adults with low literacy skills to enter in the labor market and better adapt in the workplace [6,7,12–14]. Strengthening such resources can enable an improvement in real and perceived levels of employability. Therefore, while acknowledging the methodological limitations given by the sample, the results of this study is a first attempt in demonstrating that interventions aimed at strengthening psychological resources, in particular each person's psychological capital, could bring about significant improvements in those individuals disadvantaged in the workplace, for example, by increasing self-confidence, self-control, proactivity and stress management even when faced with work demands that require reading and writing skills and induce personal discomfort. Future research and practice can consider these initial results for interventions aimed at facilitating sustainable career development of fragile individuals.”

6. Authors must describe the limitations of this study.

Authors’ Response: Thanks for your point 6 which reminds to point 5 of Reviewer 4 and points 7-9 by Reviewer 1. We revised the entire discussion, and we reported the limitations of our study in specific sub-section as follows:

“4.2. Limitations and future directions

In both the DD and L2 group, we found that the control group’s total psychological capital and employability levels already showed high levels for both dimensions. This suggest that the results of the comparison should be taken with caution and, at the same time, not be assumed to invalidate the intervention, given the significance found at time 1 and 2 in the experimental sample. Furthermore, in both the L2 sample and the DD sample, the number of participants in the experimental and control group are unbalanced, resulting in a higher participation in the control group and thus indicating a potential effect of the sample size. In parallel, our study is limited by the total number of participants which is not representative. …”

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article is very interesting. The paper is richly supported by a literature review, regardless of the fact that it is characterized as a short report. The cited literature covers a wide time range, and is "fresh, i.e. from recent years, but also from previous decades. This indicates that the theorethical overview is relevant. Research results can be useful to all practitioners and researchers who have this matter in focus. The paper is well-conceived and does not contain conclusions, but according to the journal's instructions, the conclusion is not a mandatory section. The mentioned references are listed correctly, expect for reference number 5, which is incomplete. Reference number 32 is written in all caps and should be corrected. Reference number 25  seems incomplete, possibly missing pagination. In any case, this reference ends with a semicolon, instead of a period, like all the others. In the integral text, there is a lack of spacing in many places where there is a reference number, i.e. a square bracket, for example[3], but it should be [3].

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for having given us the opportunity to send you a revised version of our article. We are grateful for the constructive observations on the paper, including all the revisions suggested by the five reviewers.

We revised the manuscript following all the suggestions and comments proposed by you and the rest of the reviewers.

For all the reviewers’ comments, we provided answers point-by-point to explain our actions in the text. Please, refer to the following section “Response to Reviewers”. Beyond the summary of our responses, edits in article text are highlighted in yellow for your convenience.

Thank you for your support and the other reviewers’ efforts, which we believe substantially improved the paper.

Best wishes,

The Author(s)

Authors’ Response to Reviewers’ Comments

Reviewer 1

Thank you for the opportunity to read your paper. Further exploration of the effect of a psycho-linguistic intervention on sustainable career development in fragility is quite valuable. However, when reading your paper I encountered several possibilities for improvement:

Authors’ Response: Thank you for your appreciation and your thoughtful review. We addressed each point you mentioned. We think that your points in addition to others’ reviewers points have substantially improve out manuscript.

1. In the introduction section, please highlight research gaps by giving examines what has already been examined and what remains examined; What are the differences between existing and previous studies?

Authors’ Response: Thank you for Point 1. Existing literature lacks the presence of integrative approaches to support fragile individuals. That is, the literature tends to focus on psychological aspects or linguistic aspects. Our brief research report provides follows this gap and provide evidence of the effectiveness of using an integrated framework in which we combine both linguistic and psychological interventions. We added this gap in the introduction as follows:

“In the literature, there is only a limited number of research on how to facilitate individuals with fragile literacy skills in their career development and particularly on how to sustain their level of employability. For example, existing research tend to limit the focus on the promotion of specific psychological skills or the promotion of linguistic skills [5-8].

Considering the umbrella of sustainable career development, there is an imperative for addressing the topic of employability of fragile individuals and realize initial attempts to inform how to sustain these individuals via training interventions [7–10].”

2. Sustainable career development should be more clearly defined. What are the characteristics of sustainable career development and how has it been measured in previous studies? Then, how is it measured in this study and why?

Authors’ Response: The notion of sustainable career development is quite abstract, and it is better to consider it as an umbrella term given the extant research. We thank Reviewer 1 for this suggestion as potential readers might appear confuse. We made the following amendments in order to facilitate the understanding of the term “sustainable career development”. We believe that this amendment can be sufficient while it also remain as a general framework that doesn’t increase the number of words of our brief research report:

“Following this broad definition of employability, it should not surprise how employability had become a relevant topic for sustainable career development and especially in respect to specific populations, e.g., individuals with fragile literacy skills. Sustainable career development is an umbrella term that reminds to the multiple challenges of contemporary society [5]. It recalls aspects of the current labor market and how individuals with specific needs can obtain a job and maintain their careers.”

3. DD and L2 though may face the same problem: fragile literacy skills. However， there may be marked differences in the causes of formation and consequences, e.g. L2 may be temporary？ It is suggested that the authors explain more clearly the reasons for choosing these two groups for the study.

Authors’ Response: We appreciate point 3. We agree that there are marked differences in the causes of formation and consequences of their respective fragilities in L2 and DD. We explained why we addressed these populations in the introduction by reporting evidence of the amount of such populations. Following point 1 by Reviewer 1, we also added in this part that there is a lack of initiatives to support such populations despite their growth. Please, refer to our amendments in the text and in the following extract:

“For example, in Italy only 65.2% of DD individuals have an occupation among which the 19% is represented by 19-25 years population. This is the same for L2 individuals who may find difficulties in verbal and written communication, addressing cultural barriers and adaptation to the labor context. In the Italian context, this reflects in the 61.4% of migrants with an occupation (both formal and non-formal employment). Despite this contextual condition, the literature has still a lack of understanding on how to sustain such populations in their career development.”

4. The statistical analysis tools used in the study should be listed in the manuscript.

Authors’ Response: Thanks for your suggestion, we added the statistical tool used to run the analysis in section 3.2 as follows: “To run the analysis, we used SPSS v. 22.”

5. In the results section, it is recommended that the authors add tables to present the results more clearly.

Authors’ Response: Thanks for your suggestion. It was our intention to include tables yet we followed journal indications for short report and decided to not include them because of the number of words and space limitations. For this reason, we did not include tables of our results.

6. It is suggested that the authors could add a comparative analysis between the DD and the L2 groups with the psycho-linguistic intervention. This may increase the value of the study and help to understand differences in intervention outcomes across groups.

Authors’ Response: We agree with point 6 as a comparison between DD and L2 groups could foster the impact of our results. After careful consideration of your suggestion within our research team, we decided to not report this analysis as the linguistic intervention that L2 and DD received are different. The only thing they have in common is the psychological intervention. This implies that such a comparison between the two groups cannot add more to our results since we are comparing two interventions that do not completely overlap. We feel that we cannot speculate on such a comparison and we have to limit to within comparisons of the two groups, DD and L2.

7. It is suggested that the discussion section be more structured, with conclusions and discussion addressed separately.

Authors’ response: Thanks for your suggestion which reminds to the suggestions by Reviewer 4 and 5 and your points 8 and 9. We structured the discussion by creating

1. an opening paragraph in which we report the main result of our study.
2. a sub-section on our theoretical contribution “4.1 Theoretical contribution”.
3. a sub-section on limitations and future directions, i.e., 4.2 Limitations and future directions.
4. a separate closing sections “5. Conclusion”.

We remind to our manuscript for a full reading of the revised discussion.

8. Practical implications of the study and research limitations can be considered for discussion in a separate section. 9. The discussion of practice insights is too general, and the authors are expected to make targeted suggestions based on the study's findings.

Authors’ Response: Thanks for your suggestions at Point 8 and 9. Following point 7 and Reviewer 4 and 5 suggestions, we revised this section accordingly. However, we limited our edits due to the number of words allowed for the specific type of manuscript, namely Brief Research Report. We remind to the manuscript and the following extract to read our revisions:

“Despite the sample size and distribution of the two populations, these results sug-gest that initiatives such as interdisciplinary intervention may be effective in support-ing a number of personal resources that are important in enabling adults and young adults with low literacy skills to enter in the labor market and better adapt in the workplace [6,7,12–14]. Strengthening such resources can enable an improvement in real and perceived levels of employability. Therefore, while acknowledging the meth-odological limitations given by the sample, the results of this study is a first attempt in demonstrating that interventions aimed at strengthening psychological resources, in particular each person's psychological capital, could bring about significant improve-ments in those individuals disadvantaged in the workplace, for example, by increasing self-confidence, self-control, proactivity and stress management even when faced with work demands that require reading and writing skills and induce personal discomfort. Future research and practice can consider these initial results for interventions aimed at facilitating sustainable career development of fragile individuals.”

Reviewer 2

The article is very interesting. The paper is richly supported by a literature review, regardless of the fact that it is characterized as a short report. The cited literature covers a wide time range, and is "fresh, i.e. from recent years, but also from previous decades. This indicates that the theorethical overview is relevant. Research results can be useful to all practitioners and researchers who have this matter in focus. The paper is well-conceived and does not contain conclusions, but according to the journal's instructions, the conclusion is not a mandatory section.

The mentioned references are listed correctly, expect for reference number 5, which is incomplete. Reference number 32 is written in all caps and should be corrected. Reference number 25  seems incomplete, possibly missing pagination. In any case, this reference ends with a semicolon, instead of a period, like all the others. In the integral text, there is a lack of spacing in many places where there is a reference number, i.e. a square bracket, for example[3], but it should be [3].

Author’s Response to Reviewer 2

We thank you very much for your positive consideration of our work. We are also grateful for pointing out our incomplete references. Please, see below our edits:

1. We edited reference n. 5 as follows: Waterhouse, P., McHardy J. Three generations: Exploring approaches to workplace literacy and numeracy. 2012.
2. We corrected reference n. 32.
3. We revised reverence n. 25 as follows: Burt, M.; Peyton Kreeft, J.; Adams, R. Reading and Adult English Language Learners A Review of the Research; National Center for ESL Literacy Education (NCLE), 2003, 1-58.
4. We added spaces before reference number.

Reviewer 3

Considering that this is a short report, I recommend it for publication 1. In the present report, the authors show an integrated flexible intervention to promote the employability of individuals with fragile literacy skills ( i.e., second-language learners (L2), and individuals with developmental dyslexia (DD).), which combines both the promotion of linguistic skills and psychological resources. 2. The topic addressed is relevant. It can contribute to increasing the employability of fragile individuals. 3. The research presents the situation in a specific time and place, in this context it may be a new perspective on the problem. 4. In my opinion, the research methodology used is correct, it follows the adopted purpose of the report. A limitation of the research may be the small number of respondents. 5. The presented conclusions of the research are consistent and relate to the set research objective. 6. The literature cited is abundant, although only about 43% are items from the last 5 years. Some items in the bibliography need to be supplemented or the format standardized (e.g., 5, 6, 7, 9, etc.).

Author’s Response to Reviewer 3

We thank you very much for your positive consideration of our work. We are also grateful for pointing out our incomplete references. Please, see below our edits:

5. Waterhouse, P., McHardy J. Three generations: Exploring approaches to workplace literacy and numeracy. 2012.
6. Macey, E. Employers’ Views on Youth Literacy and Employability. National Industry Trust. 2013, 1–13.
7. Iles, P.; Iles, P. Sustainable High‐potential Career Development- a Resource‐based. Career Development International. 1997, 347–353.
8. Santisi, G.; Lodi, E.; Magnano, P.; Zarbo, R.; Zammitti, A. Relationship between Psychological Capital and Quality of Life: The Role of Courage. Sustain. 2020, 12.

 

Reviewer 4

The study is intriguing and adds new cognitive values; however, the following elements require improvement:

Authors’ Response: Thank you for your appreciation and your thoughtful review. We addressed each point you mentioned. We think that your points in addition to others’ reviewers points have substantially improve out manuscript.

1. In the "Introduction" and "Abstract," the research objectives need to be clearly and precisely defined.

Authors’ Response: Thank you for your suggestion to make our objectives more precise in both the abstract and the introduction section. We followed your points and we added the following sentence to the abstract to make clear that our objective is to report and test the effectiveness of a training intervention to promote employability of L2 and DD individuals.

“Considering sustainable career development as the umbrella of practices facilitating individuals flourishing, we aim to present an integrated flexible intervention to promote the employability of individuals with fragile literacy skills (DD and L2) which combines both the promotion of linguistic skills and psychological resources. Using an experimental research design, we tested our training intervention on language skills (reading and writing) coupled with a psychological training enhancing psychological resources and psychological capital.”

We did the same also in the introduction, as follows:

“In the present brief report, we aim to present and test the effectiveness of an inte-grated flexible intervention to promote the employability of individuals with fragile literacy skills (DD and L2) which combines both the promotion of linguistic skills and psychological resources.”

Moreover, you point recalls the first by Reviewer 5. Following Reviewer 5 suggestion, we included the following sentence at the end of the introduction: “In this section, we report the results of our study meant to test the effectiveness of integrated flexible intervention to promote the employability of individuals with fragile literacy skills (DD and L2).”

2. The discussed research findings must be more extensively contextualized within the existing body of scientific literature in this field.

Authors’ Response: We want to thank you again as this comment helped use to substantially improve our manuscript. We created a separate sub-section on our contribution to the literature, namely “4.1 Theoretical contribution” in which we commented all our results by considering them in comparison with the existing literature. Due to space limitations of a brief research report, we limited to a short discussion but we feel that it should be enough given our results. We do not report all the extracts and we remind to our revised manuscript.

3. In the "Discussion" chapter, a clear demonstration is necessary to establish that the stated research objectives have been achieved. 4. A summarizing chapter should be added to present the key conclusions.

Authors’ Response: Thanks for your points 3 and 4 which have suggestions that also reminds to point 7 by Reviewer 1. We added an opening paragraph to the discussion in which we state our objectives and the contribution of our study, see the following extracts:

“In both the DD and L2 group, we found that the control group’s total psychological capital and employability levels already showed high levels for both dimensions. This suggest that the results of the comparison should be taken with caution and, at the same time, not be assumed to invalidate the intervention, given the significance found at time 1 and 2 in the experimental sample. Furthermore, in both the L2 sample and the DD sample, the number of participants in the experimental and control group are unbalanced, resulting in a higher participation in the control group and thus indicating a potential effect of the sample size. In parallel, our study is limited by the total number of participants which is not representative.”

We also added a closing section to report the key conclusions as follows:

“5. Conclusion

The present study follows the vast supporting literature that contributes to un-derstand sustainable career development [5,8–10]. It did so by addressing the promo-tion of employability in populations characterized by fragile literacy skills, i.e., young adult subjects suffering from DD and subjects who, due to their migratory background, have learned Italian as a second language (L2) in a migrant context and with low lit-eracy. Linguistic competence, literacy and comprehension of texts constitute areas of fragility for these populations and can lead to a disadvantage when entering in the la-bor market. Furthermore, these difficulties can also have implications on the individu-al dimension, i.e., translate into a perception of oneself as an individual with charac-teristics that are unsuitable for the workplace and, consequently, negatively affect overall employability levels. This study can help advance the idea that supporting psychological resources of DD and L2 individuals can be effective in increasing their perceived and actual employability if combined with literacy interventions.”

Due to the relatively small sample size, it is imperative to explicitly indicate that the generalization of results and any potential identification of overarching principles are fraught with considerable uncertainty.

Authors’ Response: Thanks a lot, we agree with your last point and we emphasized this aspect in the new sub-section “4.2 Limitations and Future directions” (see the opening part of this section below).

“4.2. Limitations and future directions

In both the DD and L2 group, we found that the control group’s total psychologi-cal capital and employability levels already showed high levels for both dimensions. This suggest that the results of the comparison should be taken with caution and, at the same time, not be assumed to invalidate the intervention, given the significance found at time 1 and 2 in the experimental sample. Furthermore, in both the L2 sample and the DD sample, the number of participants in the experimental and control group are unbalanced, resulting in a higher participation in the control group and thus indicating a potential effect of the sample size. In parallel, our study is limited by the total number of participants which is not representative.”

Reviewer 5

Improvement proposals

1. Line 76 – “Second, we continue with the methodological approaches and present our intervention, and the experimental procedure used to evaluate its effectiveness. Authors must mention the main objective of the research.

Authors’ response: Thanks for your suggestion which reminds to Reviewer 4 points to make our objectives clear. We revised the introduction and added the following sentence to complement the sentence that you reported: “In this section, we report the results of our study meant to test the effectiveness of integrated flexible intervention to promote the employability of individuals with fragile literacy skills (DD and L2).”

2. Line 168 – “We created two groups for each of the fragile individuals’ samples, i.e., group and a DD, with a further internal division into experimental and control groups. The authors must describe how they selected the intervention groups, as well as the basis for the sample. 3. Line 184 – “The L2 subjects were recruited through local social promotion networks operating for the literacy of the immigrant population. Authors must mention which social networks and in which time period. 4. Line 192 – “…order to recruit a young population of individuals at their initial experience of the labor market.”

Authors’ response: Thank you for your Points 2, 3 and 4. We revised our manuscript following all of your suggestions. Notably, we specified how the recruitment process worked in addition to providing details on the time period of our study as reported in the following extract of our manuscript. Thank you very much for your prompt. We believe we have been able to substantially improve the quality of our manuscript:

“The procedure of our study lasted one year (from June 2022 to June 2023) and comprises recruitment and training interventions. Both individuals were randomly assigned to the experimental or the control group. With respect to the recruitment stage, we followed different recruitment procedures for L2 and DD. The L2 subjects were re-cruited through local social promotion networks operating for the literacy of the im-migrant population. In these terms, in parallel with the literacy activities, L2 subjects were offered the opportunity to participate in an individual psychosocial skills promotion course, on a voluntary basis. For the control group, on the other hand, they were asked to complete questionnaires during the lessons with the support of the research-ers involved, before and after one month apart.

DD individuals were recruited through the use of advertisements disseminated on the university campus, via social networks (e.g., Facebook page of the Authors’ Department) and via a snow-ball approach.”

5. Line 358 – „Ultimately, the enhancement of psychological resources could lead to an increase in the employability of these population populations and, at the same time, foster their full appreciation and inclusion. Authors must demonstrate, with concrete examples.

Authors’ Response: Thanks for your suggestion of Point 5 which is also related to points 8 and 9 by Reviewer 1 and point 4 by Reviewer 4. To reduce the number of words, we revised this section and decided re-write this sentence as follows:

“Despite the sample size and distribution of the two populations, these results suggest that initiatives such as interdisciplinary intervention may be effective in supporting a number of personal resources that are important in enabling adults and young adults with low literacy skills to enter in the labor market and better adapt in the workplace [6,7,12–14]. Strengthening such resources can enable an improvement in real and perceived levels of employability. Therefore, while acknowledging the methodological limitations given by the sample, the results of this study is a first attempt in demonstrating that interventions aimed at strengthening psychological resources, in particular each person's psychological capital, could bring about significant improvements in those individuals disadvantaged in the workplace, for example, by increasing self-confidence, self-control, proactivity and stress management even when faced with work demands that require reading and writing skills and induce personal discomfort. Future research and practice can consider these initial results for interventions aimed at facilitating sustainable career development of fragile individuals.”

6. Authors must describe the limitations of this study.

Authors’ Response: Thanks for your point 6 which reminds to point 5 of Reviewer 4 and points 7-9 by Reviewer 1. We revised the entire discussion, and we reported the limitations of our study in specific sub-section as follows:

“4.2. Limitations and future directions

In both the DD and L2 group, we found that the control group’s total psychological capital and employability levels already showed high levels for both dimensions. This suggest that the results of the comparison should be taken with caution and, at the same time, not be assumed to invalidate the intervention, given the significance found at time 1 and 2 in the experimental sample. Furthermore, in both the L2 sample and the DD sample, the number of participants in the experimental and control group are unbalanced, resulting in a higher participation in the control group and thus indicating a potential effect of the sample size. In parallel, our study is limited by the total number of participants which is not representative. …”

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Considering that this is a short report, I recommend it for publication 

1. In the present report, the authors show an integrated flexible intervention to promote the employability of individuals with fragile literacy skills ( i.e., second-language learners (L2), and individuals with developmental dyslexia (DD).), which combines both the promotion of linguistic skills and psychological resources. 2. The topic addressed is relevant. It can contribute to increasing the employability of fragile individuals. 3. The research presents the situation in a specific time and place, in this context it may be a new perspective on the problem. 4. In my opinion, the research methodology used is correct, it follows the adopted purpose of the report. A limitation of the research may be the small number of respondents. 5. The presented conclusions of the research are consistent and relate to the set research objective. 6. The literature cited is abundant, although only about 43% are items from the last 5 years. Some items in the bibliography need to be supplemented or the format standardized (e.g., 5, 6, 7, 9, etc.)

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for having given us the opportunity to send you a revised version of our article. We are grateful for the constructive observations on the paper, including all the revisions suggested by the five reviewers.

We revised the manuscript following all the suggestions and comments proposed by you and the rest of the reviewers.

For all the reviewers’ comments, we provided answers point-by-point to explain our actions in the text. Please, refer to the following section “Response to Reviewers”. Beyond the summary of our responses, edits in article text are highlighted in yellow for your convenience.

Thank you for your support and the other reviewers’ efforts, which we believe substantially improved the paper.

Best wishes,

The Author(s)

Authors’ Response to Reviewers’ Comments

Reviewer 1

Thank you for the opportunity to read your paper. Further exploration of the effect of a psycho-linguistic intervention on sustainable career development in fragility is quite valuable. However, when reading your paper I encountered several possibilities for improvement:

Authors’ Response: Thank you for your appreciation and your thoughtful review. We addressed each point you mentioned. We think that your points in addition to others’ reviewers points have substantially improve out manuscript.

1. In the introduction section, please highlight research gaps by giving examines what has already been examined and what remains examined; What are the differences between existing and previous studies?

Authors’ Response: Thank you for Point 1. Existing literature lacks the presence of integrative approaches to support fragile individuals. That is, the literature tends to focus on psychological aspects or linguistic aspects. Our brief research report provides follows this gap and provide evidence of the effectiveness of using an integrated framework in which we combine both linguistic and psychological interventions. We added this gap in the introduction as follows:

“In the literature, there is only a limited number of research on how to facilitate individuals with fragile literacy skills in their career development and particularly on how to sustain their level of employability. For example, existing research tend to limit the focus on the promotion of specific psychological skills or the promotion of linguistic skills [5-8].

Considering the umbrella of sustainable career development, there is an imperative for addressing the topic of employability of fragile individuals and realize initial attempts to inform how to sustain these individuals via training interventions [7–10].”

2. Sustainable career development should be more clearly defined. What are the characteristics of sustainable career development and how has it been measured in previous studies? Then, how is it measured in this study and why?

Authors’ Response: The notion of sustainable career development is quite abstract, and it is better to consider it as an umbrella term given the extant research. We thank Reviewer 1 for this suggestion as potential readers might appear confuse. We made the following amendments in order to facilitate the understanding of the term “sustainable career development”. We believe that this amendment can be sufficient while it also remain as a general framework that doesn’t increase the number of words of our brief research report:

“Following this broad definition of employability, it should not surprise how employability had become a relevant topic for sustainable career development and especially in respect to specific populations, e.g., individuals with fragile literacy skills. Sustainable career development is an umbrella term that reminds to the multiple challenges of contemporary society [5]. It recalls aspects of the current labor market and how individuals with specific needs can obtain a job and maintain their careers.”

3. DD and L2 though may face the same problem: fragile literacy skills. However， there may be marked differences in the causes of formation and consequences, e.g. L2 may be temporary？ It is suggested that the authors explain more clearly the reasons for choosing these two groups for the study.

Authors’ Response: We appreciate point 3. We agree that there are marked differences in the causes of formation and consequences of their respective fragilities in L2 and DD. We explained why we addressed these populations in the introduction by reporting evidence of the amount of such populations. Following point 1 by Reviewer 1, we also added in this part that there is a lack of initiatives to support such populations despite their growth. Please, refer to our amendments in the text and in the following extract:

“For example, in Italy only 65.2% of DD individuals have an occupation among which the 19% is represented by 19-25 years population. This is the same for L2 individuals who may find difficulties in verbal and written communication, addressing cultural barriers and adaptation to the labor context. In the Italian context, this reflects in the 61.4% of migrants with an occupation (both formal and non-formal employment). Despite this contextual condition, the literature has still a lack of understanding on how to sustain such populations in their career development.”

4. The statistical analysis tools used in the study should be listed in the manuscript.

Authors’ Response: Thanks for your suggestion, we added the statistical tool used to run the analysis in section 3.2 as follows: “To run the analysis, we used SPSS v. 22.”

5. In the results section, it is recommended that the authors add tables to present the results more clearly.

Authors’ Response: Thanks for your suggestion. It was our intention to include tables yet we followed journal indications for short report and decided to not include them because of the number of words and space limitations. For this reason, we did not include tables of our results.

6. It is suggested that the authors could add a comparative analysis between the DD and the L2 groups with the psycho-linguistic intervention. This may increase the value of the study and help to understand differences in intervention outcomes across groups.

Authors’ Response: We agree with point 6 as a comparison between DD and L2 groups could foster the impact of our results. After careful consideration of your suggestion within our research team, we decided to not report this analysis as the linguistic intervention that L2 and DD received are different. The only thing they have in common is the psychological intervention. This implies that such a comparison between the two groups cannot add more to our results since we are comparing two interventions that do not completely overlap. We feel that we cannot speculate on such a comparison and we have to limit to within comparisons of the two groups, DD and L2.

7. It is suggested that the discussion section be more structured, with conclusions and discussion addressed separately.

Authors’ response: Thanks for your suggestion which reminds to the suggestions by Reviewer 4 and 5 and your points 8 and 9. We structured the discussion by creating

1. an opening paragraph in which we report the main result of our study.
2. a sub-section on our theoretical contribution “4.1 Theoretical contribution”.
3. a sub-section on limitations and future directions, i.e., 4.2 Limitations and future directions.
4. a separate closing sections “5. Conclusion”.

We remind to our manuscript for a full reading of the revised discussion.

8. Practical implications of the study and research limitations can be considered for discussion in a separate section. 9. The discussion of practice insights is too general, and the authors are expected to make targeted suggestions based on the study's findings.

Authors’ Response: Thanks for your suggestions at Point 8 and 9. Following point 7 and Reviewer 4 and 5 suggestions, we revised this section accordingly. However, we limited our edits due to the number of words allowed for the specific type of manuscript, namely Brief Research Report. We remind to the manuscript and the following extract to read our revisions:

“Despite the sample size and distribution of the two populations, these results sug-gest that initiatives such as interdisciplinary intervention may be effective in support-ing a number of personal resources that are important in enabling adults and young adults with low literacy skills to enter in the labor market and better adapt in the workplace [6,7,12–14]. Strengthening such resources can enable an improvement in real and perceived levels of employability. Therefore, while acknowledging the meth-odological limitations given by the sample, the results of this study is a first attempt in demonstrating that interventions aimed at strengthening psychological resources, in particular each person's psychological capital, could bring about significant improve-ments in those individuals disadvantaged in the workplace, for example, by increasing self-confidence, self-control, proactivity and stress management even when faced with work demands that require reading and writing skills and induce personal discomfort. Future research and practice can consider these initial results for interventions aimed at facilitating sustainable career development of fragile individuals.”

Reviewer 2

The article is very interesting. The paper is richly supported by a literature review, regardless of the fact that it is characterized as a short report. The cited literature covers a wide time range, and is "fresh, i.e. from recent years, but also from previous decades. This indicates that the theorethical overview is relevant. Research results can be useful to all practitioners and researchers who have this matter in focus. The paper is well-conceived and does not contain conclusions, but according to the journal's instructions, the conclusion is not a mandatory section.

The mentioned references are listed correctly, expect for reference number 5, which is incomplete. Reference number 32 is written in all caps and should be corrected. Reference number 25  seems incomplete, possibly missing pagination. In any case, this reference ends with a semicolon, instead of a period, like all the others. In the integral text, there is a lack of spacing in many places where there is a reference number, i.e. a square bracket, for example[3], but it should be [3].

Author’s Response to Reviewer 2

We thank you very much for your positive consideration of our work. We are also grateful for pointing out our incomplete references. Please, see below our edits:

1. We edited reference n. 5 as follows: Waterhouse, P., McHardy J. Three generations: Exploring approaches to workplace literacy and numeracy. 2012.
2. We corrected reference n. 32.
3. We revised reverence n. 25 as follows: Burt, M.; Peyton Kreeft, J.; Adams, R. Reading and Adult English Language Learners A Review of the Research; National Center for ESL Literacy Education (NCLE), 2003, 1-58.
4. We added spaces before reference number.

Reviewer 3

Considering that this is a short report, I recommend it for publication 1. In the present report, the authors show an integrated flexible intervention to promote the employability of individuals with fragile literacy skills ( i.e., second-language learners (L2), and individuals with developmental dyslexia (DD).), which combines both the promotion of linguistic skills and psychological resources. 2. The topic addressed is relevant. It can contribute to increasing the employability of fragile individuals. 3. The research presents the situation in a specific time and place, in this context it may be a new perspective on the problem. 4. In my opinion, the research methodology used is correct, it follows the adopted purpose of the report. A limitation of the research may be the small number of respondents. 5. The presented conclusions of the research are consistent and relate to the set research objective. 6. The literature cited is abundant, although only about 43% are items from the last 5 years. Some items in the bibliography need to be supplemented or the format standardized (e.g., 5, 6, 7, 9, etc.).

Author’s Response to Reviewer 3

We thank you very much for your positive consideration of our work. We are also grateful for pointing out our incomplete references. Please, see below our edits:

5. Waterhouse, P., McHardy J. Three generations: Exploring approaches to workplace literacy and numeracy. 2012.
6. Macey, E. Employers’ Views on Youth Literacy and Employability. National Industry Trust. 2013, 1–13.
7. Iles, P.; Iles, P. Sustainable High‐potential Career Development- a Resource‐based. Career Development International. 1997, 347–353.
8. Santisi, G.; Lodi, E.; Magnano, P.; Zarbo, R.; Zammitti, A. Relationship between Psychological Capital and Quality of Life: The Role of Courage. Sustain. 2020, 12.

 

Reviewer 4

The study is intriguing and adds new cognitive values; however, the following elements require improvement:

Authors’ Response: Thank you for your appreciation and your thoughtful review. We addressed each point you mentioned. We think that your points in addition to others’ reviewers points have substantially improve out manuscript.

1. In the "Introduction" and "Abstract," the research objectives need to be clearly and precisely defined.

Authors’ Response: Thank you for your suggestion to make our objectives more precise in both the abstract and the introduction section. We followed your points and we added the following sentence to the abstract to make clear that our objective is to report and test the effectiveness of a training intervention to promote employability of L2 and DD individuals.

“Considering sustainable career development as the umbrella of practices facilitating individuals flourishing, we aim to present an integrated flexible intervention to promote the employability of individuals with fragile literacy skills (DD and L2) which combines both the promotion of linguistic skills and psychological resources. Using an experimental research design, we tested our training intervention on language skills (reading and writing) coupled with a psychological training enhancing psychological resources and psychological capital.”

We did the same also in the introduction, as follows:

“In the present brief report, we aim to present and test the effectiveness of an inte-grated flexible intervention to promote the employability of individuals with fragile literacy skills (DD and L2) which combines both the promotion of linguistic skills and psychological resources.”

Moreover, you point recalls the first by Reviewer 5. Following Reviewer 5 suggestion, we included the following sentence at the end of the introduction: “In this section, we report the results of our study meant to test the effectiveness of integrated flexible intervention to promote the employability of individuals with fragile literacy skills (DD and L2).”

2. The discussed research findings must be more extensively contextualized within the existing body of scientific literature in this field.

Authors’ Response: We want to thank you again as this comment helped use to substantially improve our manuscript. We created a separate sub-section on our contribution to the literature, namely “4.1 Theoretical contribution” in which we commented all our results by considering them in comparison with the existing literature. Due to space limitations of a brief research report, we limited to a short discussion but we feel that it should be enough given our results. We do not report all the extracts and we remind to our revised manuscript.

3. In the "Discussion" chapter, a clear demonstration is necessary to establish that the stated research objectives have been achieved. 4. A summarizing chapter should be added to present the key conclusions.

Authors’ Response: Thanks for your points 3 and 4 which have suggestions that also reminds to point 7 by Reviewer 1. We added an opening paragraph to the discussion in which we state our objectives and the contribution of our study, see the following extracts:

“In both the DD and L2 group, we found that the control group’s total psychological capital and employability levels already showed high levels for both dimensions. This suggest that the results of the comparison should be taken with caution and, at the same time, not be assumed to invalidate the intervention, given the significance found at time 1 and 2 in the experimental sample. Furthermore, in both the L2 sample and the DD sample, the number of participants in the experimental and control group are unbalanced, resulting in a higher participation in the control group and thus indicating a potential effect of the sample size. In parallel, our study is limited by the total number of participants which is not representative.”

We also added a closing section to report the key conclusions as follows:

“5. Conclusion

The present study follows the vast supporting literature that contributes to un-derstand sustainable career development [5,8–10]. It did so by addressing the promo-tion of employability in populations characterized by fragile literacy skills, i.e., young adult subjects suffering from DD and subjects who, due to their migratory background, have learned Italian as a second language (L2) in a migrant context and with low lit-eracy. Linguistic competence, literacy and comprehension of texts constitute areas of fragility for these populations and can lead to a disadvantage when entering in the la-bor market. Furthermore, these difficulties can also have implications on the individu-al dimension, i.e., translate into a perception of oneself as an individual with charac-teristics that are unsuitable for the workplace and, consequently, negatively affect overall employability levels. This study can help advance the idea that supporting psychological resources of DD and L2 individuals can be effective in increasing their perceived and actual employability if combined with literacy interventions.”

Due to the relatively small sample size, it is imperative to explicitly indicate that the generalization of results and any potential identification of overarching principles are fraught with considerable uncertainty.

Authors’ Response: Thanks a lot, we agree with your last point and we emphasized this aspect in the new sub-section “4.2 Limitations and Future directions” (see the opening part of this section below).

“4.2. Limitations and future directions

In both the DD and L2 group, we found that the control group’s total psychologi-cal capital and employability levels already showed high levels for both dimensions. This suggest that the results of the comparison should be taken with caution and, at the same time, not be assumed to invalidate the intervention, given the significance found at time 1 and 2 in the experimental sample. Furthermore, in both the L2 sample and the DD sample, the number of participants in the experimental and control group are unbalanced, resulting in a higher participation in the control group and thus indicating a potential effect of the sample size. In parallel, our study is limited by the total number of participants which is not representative.”

Reviewer 5

Improvement proposals

1. Line 76 – “Second, we continue with the methodological approaches and present our intervention, and the experimental procedure used to evaluate its effectiveness. Authors must mention the main objective of the research.

Authors’ response: Thanks for your suggestion which reminds to Reviewer 4 points to make our objectives clear. We revised the introduction and added the following sentence to complement the sentence that you reported: “In this section, we report the results of our study meant to test the effectiveness of integrated flexible intervention to promote the employability of individuals with fragile literacy skills (DD and L2).”

2. Line 168 – “We created two groups for each of the fragile individuals’ samples, i.e., group and a DD, with a further internal division into experimental and control groups. The authors must describe how they selected the intervention groups, as well as the basis for the sample. 3. Line 184 – “The L2 subjects were recruited through local social promotion networks operating for the literacy of the immigrant population. Authors must mention which social networks and in which time period. 4. Line 192 – “…order to recruit a young population of individuals at their initial experience of the labor market.”

Authors’ response: Thank you for your Points 2, 3 and 4. We revised our manuscript following all of your suggestions. Notably, we specified how the recruitment process worked in addition to providing details on the time period of our study as reported in the following extract of our manuscript. Thank you very much for your prompt. We believe we have been able to substantially improve the quality of our manuscript:

“The procedure of our study lasted one year (from June 2022 to June 2023) and comprises recruitment and training interventions. Both individuals were randomly assigned to the experimental or the control group. With respect to the recruitment stage, we followed different recruitment procedures for L2 and DD. The L2 subjects were re-cruited through local social promotion networks operating for the literacy of the im-migrant population. In these terms, in parallel with the literacy activities, L2 subjects were offered the opportunity to participate in an individual psychosocial skills promotion course, on a voluntary basis. For the control group, on the other hand, they were asked to complete questionnaires during the lessons with the support of the research-ers involved, before and after one month apart.

DD individuals were recruited through the use of advertisements disseminated on the university campus, via social networks (e.g., Facebook page of the Authors’ Department) and via a snow-ball approach.”

5. Line 358 – „Ultimately, the enhancement of psychological resources could lead to an increase in the employability of these population populations and, at the same time, foster their full appreciation and inclusion. Authors must demonstrate, with concrete examples.

Authors’ Response: Thanks for your suggestion of Point 5 which is also related to points 8 and 9 by Reviewer 1 and point 4 by Reviewer 4. To reduce the number of words, we revised this section and decided re-write this sentence as follows:

“Despite the sample size and distribution of the two populations, these results suggest that initiatives such as interdisciplinary intervention may be effective in supporting a number of personal resources that are important in enabling adults and young adults with low literacy skills to enter in the labor market and better adapt in the workplace [6,7,12–14]. Strengthening such resources can enable an improvement in real and perceived levels of employability. Therefore, while acknowledging the methodological limitations given by the sample, the results of this study is a first attempt in demonstrating that interventions aimed at strengthening psychological resources, in particular each person's psychological capital, could bring about significant improvements in those individuals disadvantaged in the workplace, for example, by increasing self-confidence, self-control, proactivity and stress management even when faced with work demands that require reading and writing skills and induce personal discomfort. Future research and practice can consider these initial results for interventions aimed at facilitating sustainable career development of fragile individuals.”

6. Authors must describe the limitations of this study.

Authors’ Response: Thanks for your point 6 which reminds to point 5 of Reviewer 4 and points 7-9 by Reviewer 1. We revised the entire discussion, and we reported the limitations of our study in specific sub-section as follows:

“4.2. Limitations and future directions

In both the DD and L2 group, we found that the control group’s total psychological capital and employability levels already showed high levels for both dimensions. This suggest that the results of the comparison should be taken with caution and, at the same time, not be assumed to invalidate the intervention, given the significance found at time 1 and 2 in the experimental sample. Furthermore, in both the L2 sample and the DD sample, the number of participants in the experimental and control group are unbalanced, resulting in a higher participation in the control group and thus indicating a potential effect of the sample size. In parallel, our study is limited by the total number of participants which is not representative. …”

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The study is intriguing and adds new cognitive values; however, the following elements require improvement:

1. In the "Introduction" and "Abstract," the research objectives need to be clearly and precisely defined.

2. The discussed research findings must be more extensively contextualized within the existing body of scientific literature in this field.

3. In the "Discussion" chapter, a clear demonstration is necessary to establish that the stated research objectives have been achieved.

4. A summarizing chapter should be added to present the key conclusions.

Due to the relatively small sample size, it is imperative to explicitly indicate that the generalization of results and any potential identification of overarching principles are fraught with considerable uncertainty.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for having given us the opportunity to send you a revised version of our article. We are grateful for the constructive observations on the paper, including all the revisions suggested by the five reviewers.

We revised the manuscript following all the suggestions and comments proposed by you and the rest of the reviewers.

For all the reviewers’ comments, we provided answers point-by-point to explain our actions in the text. Please, refer to the following section “Response to Reviewers”. Beyond the summary of our responses, edits in article text are highlighted in yellow for your convenience.

Thank you for your support and the other reviewers’ efforts, which we believe substantially improved the paper.

Best wishes,

The Author(s)

Authors’ Response to Reviewers’ Comments

Reviewer 1

Thank you for the opportunity to read your paper. Further exploration of the effect of a psycho-linguistic intervention on sustainable career development in fragility is quite valuable. However, when reading your paper I encountered several possibilities for improvement:

Authors’ Response: Thank you for your appreciation and your thoughtful review. We addressed each point you mentioned. We think that your points in addition to others’ reviewers points have substantially improve out manuscript.

1. In the introduction section, please highlight research gaps by giving examines what has already been examined and what remains examined; What are the differences between existing and previous studies?

Authors’ Response: Thank you for Point 1. Existing literature lacks the presence of integrative approaches to support fragile individuals. That is, the literature tends to focus on psychological aspects or linguistic aspects. Our brief research report provides follows this gap and provide evidence of the effectiveness of using an integrated framework in which we combine both linguistic and psychological interventions. We added this gap in the introduction as follows:

“In the literature, there is only a limited number of research on how to facilitate individuals with fragile literacy skills in their career development and particularly on how to sustain their level of employability. For example, existing research tend to limit the focus on the promotion of specific psychological skills or the promotion of linguistic skills [5-8].

Considering the umbrella of sustainable career development, there is an imperative for addressing the topic of employability of fragile individuals and realize initial attempts to inform how to sustain these individuals via training interventions [7–10].”

2. Sustainable career development should be more clearly defined. What are the characteristics of sustainable career development and how has it been measured in previous studies? Then, how is it measured in this study and why?

Authors’ Response: The notion of sustainable career development is quite abstract, and it is better to consider it as an umbrella term given the extant research. We thank Reviewer 1 for this suggestion as potential readers might appear confuse. We made the following amendments in order to facilitate the understanding of the term “sustainable career development”. We believe that this amendment can be sufficient while it also remain as a general framework that doesn’t increase the number of words of our brief research report:

“Following this broad definition of employability, it should not surprise how employability had become a relevant topic for sustainable career development and especially in respect to specific populations, e.g., individuals with fragile literacy skills. Sustainable career development is an umbrella term that reminds to the multiple challenges of contemporary society [5]. It recalls aspects of the current labor market and how individuals with specific needs can obtain a job and maintain their careers.”

3. DD and L2 though may face the same problem: fragile literacy skills. However， there may be marked differences in the causes of formation and consequences, e.g. L2 may be temporary？ It is suggested that the authors explain more clearly the reasons for choosing these two groups for the study.

Authors’ Response: We appreciate point 3. We agree that there are marked differences in the causes of formation and consequences of their respective fragilities in L2 and DD. We explained why we addressed these populations in the introduction by reporting evidence of the amount of such populations. Following point 1 by Reviewer 1, we also added in this part that there is a lack of initiatives to support such populations despite their growth. Please, refer to our amendments in the text and in the following extract:

“For example, in Italy only 65.2% of DD individuals have an occupation among which the 19% is represented by 19-25 years population. This is the same for L2 individuals who may find difficulties in verbal and written communication, addressing cultural barriers and adaptation to the labor context. In the Italian context, this reflects in the 61.4% of migrants with an occupation (both formal and non-formal employment). Despite this contextual condition, the literature has still a lack of understanding on how to sustain such populations in their career development.”

4. The statistical analysis tools used in the study should be listed in the manuscript.

Authors’ Response: Thanks for your suggestion, we added the statistical tool used to run the analysis in section 3.2 as follows: “To run the analysis, we used SPSS v. 22.”

5. In the results section, it is recommended that the authors add tables to present the results more clearly.

Authors’ Response: Thanks for your suggestion. It was our intention to include tables yet we followed journal indications for short report and decided to not include them because of the number of words and space limitations. For this reason, we did not include tables of our results.

6. It is suggested that the authors could add a comparative analysis between the DD and the L2 groups with the psycho-linguistic intervention. This may increase the value of the study and help to understand differences in intervention outcomes across groups.

Authors’ Response: We agree with point 6 as a comparison between DD and L2 groups could foster the impact of our results. After careful consideration of your suggestion within our research team, we decided to not report this analysis as the linguistic intervention that L2 and DD received are different. The only thing they have in common is the psychological intervention. This implies that such a comparison between the two groups cannot add more to our results since we are comparing two interventions that do not completely overlap. We feel that we cannot speculate on such a comparison and we have to limit to within comparisons of the two groups, DD and L2.

7. It is suggested that the discussion section be more structured, with conclusions and discussion addressed separately.

Authors’ response: Thanks for your suggestion which reminds to the suggestions by Reviewer 4 and 5 and your points 8 and 9. We structured the discussion by creating

1. an opening paragraph in which we report the main result of our study.
2. a sub-section on our theoretical contribution “4.1 Theoretical contribution”.
3. a sub-section on limitations and future directions, i.e., 4.2 Limitations and future directions.
4. a separate closing sections “5. Conclusion”.

We remind to our manuscript for a full reading of the revised discussion.

8. Practical implications of the study and research limitations can be considered for discussion in a separate section. 9. The discussion of practice insights is too general, and the authors are expected to make targeted suggestions based on the study's findings.

Authors’ Response: Thanks for your suggestions at Point 8 and 9. Following point 7 and Reviewer 4 and 5 suggestions, we revised this section accordingly. However, we limited our edits due to the number of words allowed for the specific type of manuscript, namely Brief Research Report. We remind to the manuscript and the following extract to read our revisions:

“Despite the sample size and distribution of the two populations, these results sug-gest that initiatives such as interdisciplinary intervention may be effective in support-ing a number of personal resources that are important in enabling adults and young adults with low literacy skills to enter in the labor market and better adapt in the workplace [6,7,12–14]. Strengthening such resources can enable an improvement in real and perceived levels of employability. Therefore, while acknowledging the meth-odological limitations given by the sample, the results of this study is a first attempt in demonstrating that interventions aimed at strengthening psychological resources, in particular each person's psychological capital, could bring about significant improve-ments in those individuals disadvantaged in the workplace, for example, by increasing self-confidence, self-control, proactivity and stress management even when faced with work demands that require reading and writing skills and induce personal discomfort. Future research and practice can consider these initial results for interventions aimed at facilitating sustainable career development of fragile individuals.”

Reviewer 2

The article is very interesting. The paper is richly supported by a literature review, regardless of the fact that it is characterized as a short report. The cited literature covers a wide time range, and is "fresh, i.e. from recent years, but also from previous decades. This indicates that the theorethical overview is relevant. Research results can be useful to all practitioners and researchers who have this matter in focus. The paper is well-conceived and does not contain conclusions, but according to the journal's instructions, the conclusion is not a mandatory section.

The mentioned references are listed correctly, expect for reference number 5, which is incomplete. Reference number 32 is written in all caps and should be corrected. Reference number 25  seems incomplete, possibly missing pagination. In any case, this reference ends with a semicolon, instead of a period, like all the others. In the integral text, there is a lack of spacing in many places where there is a reference number, i.e. a square bracket, for example[3], but it should be [3].

Author’s Response to Reviewer 2

We thank you very much for your positive consideration of our work. We are also grateful for pointing out our incomplete references. Please, see below our edits:

1. We edited reference n. 5 as follows: Waterhouse, P., McHardy J. Three generations: Exploring approaches to workplace literacy and numeracy. 2012.
2. We corrected reference n. 32.
3. We revised reverence n. 25 as follows: Burt, M.; Peyton Kreeft, J.; Adams, R. Reading and Adult English Language Learners A Review of the Research; National Center for ESL Literacy Education (NCLE), 2003, 1-58.
4. We added spaces before reference number.

Reviewer 3

Considering that this is a short report, I recommend it for publication 1. In the present report, the authors show an integrated flexible intervention to promote the employability of individuals with fragile literacy skills ( i.e., second-language learners (L2), and individuals with developmental dyslexia (DD).), which combines both the promotion of linguistic skills and psychological resources. 2. The topic addressed is relevant. It can contribute to increasing the employability of fragile individuals. 3. The research presents the situation in a specific time and place, in this context it may be a new perspective on the problem. 4. In my opinion, the research methodology used is correct, it follows the adopted purpose of the report. A limitation of the research may be the small number of respondents. 5. The presented conclusions of the research are consistent and relate to the set research objective. 6. The literature cited is abundant, although only about 43% are items from the last 5 years. Some items in the bibliography need to be supplemented or the format standardized (e.g., 5, 6, 7, 9, etc.).

Author’s Response to Reviewer 3

We thank you very much for your positive consideration of our work. We are also grateful for pointing out our incomplete references. Please, see below our edits:

5. Waterhouse, P., McHardy J. Three generations: Exploring approaches to workplace literacy and numeracy. 2012.
6. Macey, E. Employers’ Views on Youth Literacy and Employability. National Industry Trust. 2013, 1–13.
7. Iles, P.; Iles, P. Sustainable High‐potential Career Development- a Resource‐based. Career Development International. 1997, 347–353.
8. Santisi, G.; Lodi, E.; Magnano, P.; Zarbo, R.; Zammitti, A. Relationship between Psychological Capital and Quality of Life: The Role of Courage. Sustain. 2020, 12.

 

Reviewer 4

The study is intriguing and adds new cognitive values; however, the following elements require improvement:

Authors’ Response: Thank you for your appreciation and your thoughtful review. We addressed each point you mentioned. We think that your points in addition to others’ reviewers points have substantially improve out manuscript.

1. In the "Introduction" and "Abstract," the research objectives need to be clearly and precisely defined.

Authors’ Response: Thank you for your suggestion to make our objectives more precise in both the abstract and the introduction section. We followed your points and we added the following sentence to the abstract to make clear that our objective is to report and test the effectiveness of a training intervention to promote employability of L2 and DD individuals.

“Considering sustainable career development as the umbrella of practices facilitating individuals flourishing, we aim to present an integrated flexible intervention to promote the employability of individuals with fragile literacy skills (DD and L2) which combines both the promotion of linguistic skills and psychological resources. Using an experimental research design, we tested our training intervention on language skills (reading and writing) coupled with a psychological training enhancing psychological resources and psychological capital.”

We did the same also in the introduction, as follows:

“In the present brief report, we aim to present and test the effectiveness of an inte-grated flexible intervention to promote the employability of individuals with fragile literacy skills (DD and L2) which combines both the promotion of linguistic skills and psychological resources.”

Moreover, you point recalls the first by Reviewer 5. Following Reviewer 5 suggestion, we included the following sentence at the end of the introduction: “In this section, we report the results of our study meant to test the effectiveness of integrated flexible intervention to promote the employability of individuals with fragile literacy skills (DD and L2).”

2. The discussed research findings must be more extensively contextualized within the existing body of scientific literature in this field.

Authors’ Response: We want to thank you again as this comment helped use to substantially improve our manuscript. We created a separate sub-section on our contribution to the literature, namely “4.1 Theoretical contribution” in which we commented all our results by considering them in comparison with the existing literature. Due to space limitations of a brief research report, we limited to a short discussion but we feel that it should be enough given our results. We do not report all the extracts and we remind to our revised manuscript.

3. In the "Discussion" chapter, a clear demonstration is necessary to establish that the stated research objectives have been achieved. 4. A summarizing chapter should be added to present the key conclusions.

Authors’ Response: Thanks for your points 3 and 4 which have suggestions that also reminds to point 7 by Reviewer 1. We added an opening paragraph to the discussion in which we state our objectives and the contribution of our study, see the following extracts:

“In both the DD and L2 group, we found that the control group’s total psychological capital and employability levels already showed high levels for both dimensions. This suggest that the results of the comparison should be taken with caution and, at the same time, not be assumed to invalidate the intervention, given the significance found at time 1 and 2 in the experimental sample. Furthermore, in both the L2 sample and the DD sample, the number of participants in the experimental and control group are unbalanced, resulting in a higher participation in the control group and thus indicating a potential effect of the sample size. In parallel, our study is limited by the total number of participants which is not representative.”

We also added a closing section to report the key conclusions as follows:

“5. Conclusion

The present study follows the vast supporting literature that contributes to un-derstand sustainable career development [5,8–10]. It did so by addressing the promo-tion of employability in populations characterized by fragile literacy skills, i.e., young adult subjects suffering from DD and subjects who, due to their migratory background, have learned Italian as a second language (L2) in a migrant context and with low lit-eracy. Linguistic competence, literacy and comprehension of texts constitute areas of fragility for these populations and can lead to a disadvantage when entering in the la-bor market. Furthermore, these difficulties can also have implications on the individu-al dimension, i.e., translate into a perception of oneself as an individual with charac-teristics that are unsuitable for the workplace and, consequently, negatively affect overall employability levels. This study can help advance the idea that supporting psychological resources of DD and L2 individuals can be effective in increasing their perceived and actual employability if combined with literacy interventions.”

Due to the relatively small sample size, it is imperative to explicitly indicate that the generalization of results and any potential identification of overarching principles are fraught with considerable uncertainty.

Authors’ Response: Thanks a lot, we agree with your last point and we emphasized this aspect in the new sub-section “4.2 Limitations and Future directions” (see the opening part of this section below).

“4.2. Limitations and future directions

In both the DD and L2 group, we found that the control group’s total psychologi-cal capital and employability levels already showed high levels for both dimensions. This suggest that the results of the comparison should be taken with caution and, at the same time, not be assumed to invalidate the intervention, given the significance found at time 1 and 2 in the experimental sample. Furthermore, in both the L2 sample and the DD sample, the number of participants in the experimental and control group are unbalanced, resulting in a higher participation in the control group and thus indicating a potential effect of the sample size. In parallel, our study is limited by the total number of participants which is not representative.”

Reviewer 5

Improvement proposals

1. Line 76 – “Second, we continue with the methodological approaches and present our intervention, and the experimental procedure used to evaluate its effectiveness. Authors must mention the main objective of the research.

Authors’ response: Thanks for your suggestion which reminds to Reviewer 4 points to make our objectives clear. We revised the introduction and added the following sentence to complement the sentence that you reported: “In this section, we report the results of our study meant to test the effectiveness of integrated flexible intervention to promote the employability of individuals with fragile literacy skills (DD and L2).”

2. Line 168 – “We created two groups for each of the fragile individuals’ samples, i.e., group and a DD, with a further internal division into experimental and control groups. The authors must describe how they selected the intervention groups, as well as the basis for the sample. 3. Line 184 – “The L2 subjects were recruited through local social promotion networks operating for the literacy of the immigrant population. Authors must mention which social networks and in which time period. 4. Line 192 – “…order to recruit a young population of individuals at their initial experience of the labor market.”

Authors’ response: Thank you for your Points 2, 3 and 4. We revised our manuscript following all of your suggestions. Notably, we specified how the recruitment process worked in addition to providing details on the time period of our study as reported in the following extract of our manuscript. Thank you very much for your prompt. We believe we have been able to substantially improve the quality of our manuscript:

“The procedure of our study lasted one year (from June 2022 to June 2023) and comprises recruitment and training interventions. Both individuals were randomly assigned to the experimental or the control group. With respect to the recruitment stage, we followed different recruitment procedures for L2 and DD. The L2 subjects were re-cruited through local social promotion networks operating for the literacy of the im-migrant population. In these terms, in parallel with the literacy activities, L2 subjects were offered the opportunity to participate in an individual psychosocial skills promotion course, on a voluntary basis. For the control group, on the other hand, they were asked to complete questionnaires during the lessons with the support of the research-ers involved, before and after one month apart.

DD individuals were recruited through the use of advertisements disseminated on the university campus, via social networks (e.g., Facebook page of the Authors’ Department) and via a snow-ball approach.”

5. Line 358 – „Ultimately, the enhancement of psychological resources could lead to an increase in the employability of these population populations and, at the same time, foster their full appreciation and inclusion. Authors must demonstrate, with concrete examples.

Authors’ Response: Thanks for your suggestion of Point 5 which is also related to points 8 and 9 by Reviewer 1 and point 4 by Reviewer 4. To reduce the number of words, we revised this section and decided re-write this sentence as follows:

“Despite the sample size and distribution of the two populations, these results suggest that initiatives such as interdisciplinary intervention may be effective in supporting a number of personal resources that are important in enabling adults and young adults with low literacy skills to enter in the labor market and better adapt in the workplace [6,7,12–14]. Strengthening such resources can enable an improvement in real and perceived levels of employability. Therefore, while acknowledging the methodological limitations given by the sample, the results of this study is a first attempt in demonstrating that interventions aimed at strengthening psychological resources, in particular each person's psychological capital, could bring about significant improvements in those individuals disadvantaged in the workplace, for example, by increasing self-confidence, self-control, proactivity and stress management even when faced with work demands that require reading and writing skills and induce personal discomfort. Future research and practice can consider these initial results for interventions aimed at facilitating sustainable career development of fragile individuals.”

6. Authors must describe the limitations of this study.

Authors’ Response: Thanks for your point 6 which reminds to point 5 of Reviewer 4 and points 7-9 by Reviewer 1. We revised the entire discussion, and we reported the limitations of our study in specific sub-section as follows:

“4.2. Limitations and future directions

In both the DD and L2 group, we found that the control group’s total psychological capital and employability levels already showed high levels for both dimensions. This suggest that the results of the comparison should be taken with caution and, at the same time, not be assumed to invalidate the intervention, given the significance found at time 1 and 2 in the experimental sample. Furthermore, in both the L2 sample and the DD sample, the number of participants in the experimental and control group are unbalanced, resulting in a higher participation in the control group and thus indicating a potential effect of the sample size. In parallel, our study is limited by the total number of participants which is not representative. …”

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 5 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Improvement proposals

Line 76 – “Second, we continue with the methodological approaches and present our intervention, and the experimental procedure used to evaluate its effectiveness. Authors must mention the main objective of the research.

Line 168 – “We created two groups for each of the fragile individuals’ samples, i.e., group and a DD, with a further internal division into experimental and control groups. The authors must describe how they selected the intervention groups, as well as the basis for the sample.

Line 184 – “The L2 subjects were recruited through local social promotion networks operating for the literacy of the immigrant population. Authors must mention which social networks and in which time period.

Line 192 – “…order to recruit a young population of individuals at their initial experience of the labor market.”

Line 358 – „Ultimately, the enhancement of psychological resources could lead to an increase in the employability of these population populations and, at the same time, foster their full appreciation and inclusion. Authors must demonstrate, with concrete examples.

 

Authors must describe the limitations of this study.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for having given us the opportunity to send you a revised version of our article. We are grateful for the constructive observations on the paper, including all the revisions suggested by the five reviewers.

We revised the manuscript following all the suggestions and comments proposed by you and the rest of the reviewers.

For all the reviewers’ comments, we provided answers point-by-point to explain our actions in the text. Please, refer to the following section “Response to Reviewers”. Beyond the summary of our responses, edits in article text are highlighted in yellow for your convenience.

Thank you for your support and the other reviewers’ efforts, which we believe substantially improved the paper.

Best wishes,

The Author(s)

Authors’ Response to Reviewers’ Comments

Reviewer 1

Thank you for the opportunity to read your paper. Further exploration of the effect of a psycho-linguistic intervention on sustainable career development in fragility is quite valuable. However, when reading your paper I encountered several possibilities for improvement:

Authors’ Response: Thank you for your appreciation and your thoughtful review. We addressed each point you mentioned. We think that your points in addition to others’ reviewers points have substantially improve out manuscript.

1. In the introduction section, please highlight research gaps by giving examines what has already been examined and what remains examined; What are the differences between existing and previous studies?

Authors’ Response: Thank you for Point 1. Existing literature lacks the presence of integrative approaches to support fragile individuals. That is, the literature tends to focus on psychological aspects or linguistic aspects. Our brief research report provides follows this gap and provide evidence of the effectiveness of using an integrated framework in which we combine both linguistic and psychological interventions. We added this gap in the introduction as follows:

“In the literature, there is only a limited number of research on how to facilitate individuals with fragile literacy skills in their career development and particularly on how to sustain their level of employability. For example, existing research tend to limit the focus on the promotion of specific psychological skills or the promotion of linguistic skills [5-8].

Considering the umbrella of sustainable career development, there is an imperative for addressing the topic of employability of fragile individuals and realize initial attempts to inform how to sustain these individuals via training interventions [7–10].”

2. Sustainable career development should be more clearly defined. What are the characteristics of sustainable career development and how has it been measured in previous studies? Then, how is it measured in this study and why?

Authors’ Response: The notion of sustainable career development is quite abstract, and it is better to consider it as an umbrella term given the extant research. We thank Reviewer 1 for this suggestion as potential readers might appear confuse. We made the following amendments in order to facilitate the understanding of the term “sustainable career development”. We believe that this amendment can be sufficient while it also remain as a general framework that doesn’t increase the number of words of our brief research report:

“Following this broad definition of employability, it should not surprise how employability had become a relevant topic for sustainable career development and especially in respect to specific populations, e.g., individuals with fragile literacy skills. Sustainable career development is an umbrella term that reminds to the multiple challenges of contemporary society [5]. It recalls aspects of the current labor market and how individuals with specific needs can obtain a job and maintain their careers.”

3. DD and L2 though may face the same problem: fragile literacy skills. However， there may be marked differences in the causes of formation and consequences, e.g. L2 may be temporary？ It is suggested that the authors explain more clearly the reasons for choosing these two groups for the study.

Authors’ Response: We appreciate point 3. We agree that there are marked differences in the causes of formation and consequences of their respective fragilities in L2 and DD. We explained why we addressed these populations in the introduction by reporting evidence of the amount of such populations. Following point 1 by Reviewer 1, we also added in this part that there is a lack of initiatives to support such populations despite their growth. Please, refer to our amendments in the text and in the following extract:

“For example, in Italy only 65.2% of DD individuals have an occupation among which the 19% is represented by 19-25 years population. This is the same for L2 individuals who may find difficulties in verbal and written communication, addressing cultural barriers and adaptation to the labor context. In the Italian context, this reflects in the 61.4% of migrants with an occupation (both formal and non-formal employment). Despite this contextual condition, the literature has still a lack of understanding on how to sustain such populations in their career development.”

4. The statistical analysis tools used in the study should be listed in the manuscript.

Authors’ Response: Thanks for your suggestion, we added the statistical tool used to run the analysis in section 3.2 as follows: “To run the analysis, we used SPSS v. 22.”

5. In the results section, it is recommended that the authors add tables to present the results more clearly.

Authors’ Response: Thanks for your suggestion. It was our intention to include tables yet we followed journal indications for short report and decided to not include them because of the number of words and space limitations. For this reason, we did not include tables of our results.

6. It is suggested that the authors could add a comparative analysis between the DD and the L2 groups with the psycho-linguistic intervention. This may increase the value of the study and help to understand differences in intervention outcomes across groups.

Authors’ Response: We agree with point 6 as a comparison between DD and L2 groups could foster the impact of our results. After careful consideration of your suggestion within our research team, we decided to not report this analysis as the linguistic intervention that L2 and DD received are different. The only thing they have in common is the psychological intervention. This implies that such a comparison between the two groups cannot add more to our results since we are comparing two interventions that do not completely overlap. We feel that we cannot speculate on such a comparison and we have to limit to within comparisons of the two groups, DD and L2.

7. It is suggested that the discussion section be more structured, with conclusions and discussion addressed separately.

Authors’ response: Thanks for your suggestion which reminds to the suggestions by Reviewer 4 and 5 and your points 8 and 9. We structured the discussion by creating

1. an opening paragraph in which we report the main result of our study.
2. a sub-section on our theoretical contribution “4.1 Theoretical contribution”.
3. a sub-section on limitations and future directions, i.e., 4.2 Limitations and future directions.
4. a separate closing sections “5. Conclusion”.

We remind to our manuscript for a full reading of the revised discussion.

8. Practical implications of the study and research limitations can be considered for discussion in a separate section. 9. The discussion of practice insights is too general, and the authors are expected to make targeted suggestions based on the study's findings.

Authors’ Response: Thanks for your suggestions at Point 8 and 9. Following point 7 and Reviewer 4 and 5 suggestions, we revised this section accordingly. However, we limited our edits due to the number of words allowed for the specific type of manuscript, namely Brief Research Report. We remind to the manuscript and the following extract to read our revisions:

“Despite the sample size and distribution of the two populations, these results sug-gest that initiatives such as interdisciplinary intervention may be effective in support-ing a number of personal resources that are important in enabling adults and young adults with low literacy skills to enter in the labor market and better adapt in the workplace [6,7,12–14]. Strengthening such resources can enable an improvement in real and perceived levels of employability. Therefore, while acknowledging the meth-odological limitations given by the sample, the results of this study is a first attempt in demonstrating that interventions aimed at strengthening psychological resources, in particular each person's psychological capital, could bring about significant improve-ments in those individuals disadvantaged in the workplace, for example, by increasing self-confidence, self-control, proactivity and stress management even when faced with work demands that require reading and writing skills and induce personal discomfort. Future research and practice can consider these initial results for interventions aimed at facilitating sustainable career development of fragile individuals.”

Reviewer 2

The article is very interesting. The paper is richly supported by a literature review, regardless of the fact that it is characterized as a short report. The cited literature covers a wide time range, and is "fresh, i.e. from recent years, but also from previous decades. This indicates that the theorethical overview is relevant. Research results can be useful to all practitioners and researchers who have this matter in focus. The paper is well-conceived and does not contain conclusions, but according to the journal's instructions, the conclusion is not a mandatory section.

The mentioned references are listed correctly, expect for reference number 5, which is incomplete. Reference number 32 is written in all caps and should be corrected. Reference number 25  seems incomplete, possibly missing pagination. In any case, this reference ends with a semicolon, instead of a period, like all the others. In the integral text, there is a lack of spacing in many places where there is a reference number, i.e. a square bracket, for example[3], but it should be [3].

Author’s Response to Reviewer 2

We thank you very much for your positive consideration of our work. We are also grateful for pointing out our incomplete references. Please, see below our edits:

1. We edited reference n. 5 as follows: Waterhouse, P., McHardy J. Three generations: Exploring approaches to workplace literacy and numeracy. 2012.
2. We corrected reference n. 32.
3. We revised reverence n. 25 as follows: Burt, M.; Peyton Kreeft, J.; Adams, R. Reading and Adult English Language Learners A Review of the Research; National Center for ESL Literacy Education (NCLE), 2003, 1-58.
4. We added spaces before reference number.

Reviewer 3

Considering that this is a short report, I recommend it for publication 1. In the present report, the authors show an integrated flexible intervention to promote the employability of individuals with fragile literacy skills ( i.e., second-language learners (L2), and individuals with developmental dyslexia (DD).), which combines both the promotion of linguistic skills and psychological resources. 2. The topic addressed is relevant. It can contribute to increasing the employability of fragile individuals. 3. The research presents the situation in a specific time and place, in this context it may be a new perspective on the problem. 4. In my opinion, the research methodology used is correct, it follows the adopted purpose of the report. A limitation of the research may be the small number of respondents. 5. The presented conclusions of the research are consistent and relate to the set research objective. 6. The literature cited is abundant, although only about 43% are items from the last 5 years. Some items in the bibliography need to be supplemented or the format standardized (e.g., 5, 6, 7, 9, etc.).

Author’s Response to Reviewer 3

We thank you very much for your positive consideration of our work. We are also grateful for pointing out our incomplete references. Please, see below our edits:

5. Waterhouse, P., McHardy J. Three generations: Exploring approaches to workplace literacy and numeracy. 2012.
6. Macey, E. Employers’ Views on Youth Literacy and Employability. National Industry Trust. 2013, 1–13.
7. Iles, P.; Iles, P. Sustainable High‐potential Career Development- a Resource‐based. Career Development International. 1997, 347–353.
8. Santisi, G.; Lodi, E.; Magnano, P.; Zarbo, R.; Zammitti, A. Relationship between Psychological Capital and Quality of Life: The Role of Courage. Sustain. 2020, 12.

 

Reviewer 4

The study is intriguing and adds new cognitive values; however, the following elements require improvement:

Authors’ Response: Thank you for your appreciation and your thoughtful review. We addressed each point you mentioned. We think that your points in addition to others’ reviewers points have substantially improve out manuscript.

1. In the "Introduction" and "Abstract," the research objectives need to be clearly and precisely defined.

Authors’ Response: Thank you for your suggestion to make our objectives more precise in both the abstract and the introduction section. We followed your points and we added the following sentence to the abstract to make clear that our objective is to report and test the effectiveness of a training intervention to promote employability of L2 and DD individuals.

“Considering sustainable career development as the umbrella of practices facilitating individuals flourishing, we aim to present an integrated flexible intervention to promote the employability of individuals with fragile literacy skills (DD and L2) which combines both the promotion of linguistic skills and psychological resources. Using an experimental research design, we tested our training intervention on language skills (reading and writing) coupled with a psychological training enhancing psychological resources and psychological capital.”

We did the same also in the introduction, as follows:

“In the present brief report, we aim to present and test the effectiveness of an inte-grated flexible intervention to promote the employability of individuals with fragile literacy skills (DD and L2) which combines both the promotion of linguistic skills and psychological resources.”

Moreover, you point recalls the first by Reviewer 5. Following Reviewer 5 suggestion, we included the following sentence at the end of the introduction: “In this section, we report the results of our study meant to test the effectiveness of integrated flexible intervention to promote the employability of individuals with fragile literacy skills (DD and L2).”

2. The discussed research findings must be more extensively contextualized within the existing body of scientific literature in this field.

Authors’ Response: We want to thank you again as this comment helped use to substantially improve our manuscript. We created a separate sub-section on our contribution to the literature, namely “4.1 Theoretical contribution” in which we commented all our results by considering them in comparison with the existing literature. Due to space limitations of a brief research report, we limited to a short discussion but we feel that it should be enough given our results. We do not report all the extracts and we remind to our revised manuscript.

3. In the "Discussion" chapter, a clear demonstration is necessary to establish that the stated research objectives have been achieved. 4. A summarizing chapter should be added to present the key conclusions.

Authors’ Response: Thanks for your points 3 and 4 which have suggestions that also reminds to point 7 by Reviewer 1. We added an opening paragraph to the discussion in which we state our objectives and the contribution of our study, see the following extracts:

“In both the DD and L2 group, we found that the control group’s total psychological capital and employability levels already showed high levels for both dimensions. This suggest that the results of the comparison should be taken with caution and, at the same time, not be assumed to invalidate the intervention, given the significance found at time 1 and 2 in the experimental sample. Furthermore, in both the L2 sample and the DD sample, the number of participants in the experimental and control group are unbalanced, resulting in a higher participation in the control group and thus indicating a potential effect of the sample size. In parallel, our study is limited by the total number of participants which is not representative.”

We also added a closing section to report the key conclusions as follows:

“5. Conclusion

The present study follows the vast supporting literature that contributes to un-derstand sustainable career development [5,8–10]. It did so by addressing the promo-tion of employability in populations characterized by fragile literacy skills, i.e., young adult subjects suffering from DD and subjects who, due to their migratory background, have learned Italian as a second language (L2) in a migrant context and with low lit-eracy. Linguistic competence, literacy and comprehension of texts constitute areas of fragility for these populations and can lead to a disadvantage when entering in the la-bor market. Furthermore, these difficulties can also have implications on the individu-al dimension, i.e., translate into a perception of oneself as an individual with charac-teristics that are unsuitable for the workplace and, consequently, negatively affect overall employability levels. This study can help advance the idea that supporting psychological resources of DD and L2 individuals can be effective in increasing their perceived and actual employability if combined with literacy interventions.”

Due to the relatively small sample size, it is imperative to explicitly indicate that the generalization of results and any potential identification of overarching principles are fraught with considerable uncertainty.

Authors’ Response: Thanks a lot, we agree with your last point and we emphasized this aspect in the new sub-section “4.2 Limitations and Future directions” (see the opening part of this section below).

“4.2. Limitations and future directions

In both the DD and L2 group, we found that the control group’s total psychologi-cal capital and employability levels already showed high levels for both dimensions. This suggest that the results of the comparison should be taken with caution and, at the same time, not be assumed to invalidate the intervention, given the significance found at time 1 and 2 in the experimental sample. Furthermore, in both the L2 sample and the DD sample, the number of participants in the experimental and control group are unbalanced, resulting in a higher participation in the control group and thus indicating a potential effect of the sample size. In parallel, our study is limited by the total number of participants which is not representative.”

Reviewer 5

Improvement proposals

1. Line 76 – “Second, we continue with the methodological approaches and present our intervention, and the experimental procedure used to evaluate its effectiveness. Authors must mention the main objective of the research.

Authors’ response: Thanks for your suggestion which reminds to Reviewer 4 points to make our objectives clear. We revised the introduction and added the following sentence to complement the sentence that you reported: “In this section, we report the results of our study meant to test the effectiveness of integrated flexible intervention to promote the employability of individuals with fragile literacy skills (DD and L2).”

2. Line 168 – “We created two groups for each of the fragile individuals’ samples, i.e., group and a DD, with a further internal division into experimental and control groups. The authors must describe how they selected the intervention groups, as well as the basis for the sample. 3. Line 184 – “The L2 subjects were recruited through local social promotion networks operating for the literacy of the immigrant population. Authors must mention which social networks and in which time period. 4. Line 192 – “…order to recruit a young population of individuals at their initial experience of the labor market.”

Authors’ response: Thank you for your Points 2, 3 and 4. We revised our manuscript following all of your suggestions. Notably, we specified how the recruitment process worked in addition to providing details on the time period of our study as reported in the following extract of our manuscript. Thank you very much for your prompt. We believe we have been able to substantially improve the quality of our manuscript:

“The procedure of our study lasted one year (from June 2022 to June 2023) and comprises recruitment and training interventions. Both individuals were randomly assigned to the experimental or the control group. With respect to the recruitment stage, we followed different recruitment procedures for L2 and DD. The L2 subjects were re-cruited through local social promotion networks operating for the literacy of the im-migrant population. In these terms, in parallel with the literacy activities, L2 subjects were offered the opportunity to participate in an individual psychosocial skills promotion course, on a voluntary basis. For the control group, on the other hand, they were asked to complete questionnaires during the lessons with the support of the research-ers involved, before and after one month apart.

DD individuals were recruited through the use of advertisements disseminated on the university campus, via social networks (e.g., Facebook page of the Authors’ Department) and via a snow-ball approach.”

5. Line 358 – „Ultimately, the enhancement of psychological resources could lead to an increase in the employability of these population populations and, at the same time, foster their full appreciation and inclusion. Authors must demonstrate, with concrete examples.

Authors’ Response: Thanks for your suggestion of Point 5 which is also related to points 8 and 9 by Reviewer 1 and point 4 by Reviewer 4. To reduce the number of words, we revised this section and decided re-write this sentence as follows:

“Despite the sample size and distribution of the two populations, these results suggest that initiatives such as interdisciplinary intervention may be effective in supporting a number of personal resources that are important in enabling adults and young adults with low literacy skills to enter in the labor market and better adapt in the workplace [6,7,12–14]. Strengthening such resources can enable an improvement in real and perceived levels of employability. Therefore, while acknowledging the methodological limitations given by the sample, the results of this study is a first attempt in demonstrating that interventions aimed at strengthening psychological resources, in particular each person's psychological capital, could bring about significant improvements in those individuals disadvantaged in the workplace, for example, by increasing self-confidence, self-control, proactivity and stress management even when faced with work demands that require reading and writing skills and induce personal discomfort. Future research and practice can consider these initial results for interventions aimed at facilitating sustainable career development of fragile individuals.”

6. Authors must describe the limitations of this study.

Authors’ Response: Thanks for your point 6 which reminds to point 5 of Reviewer 4 and points 7-9 by Reviewer 1. We revised the entire discussion, and we reported the limitations of our study in specific sub-section as follows:

“4.2. Limitations and future directions

In both the DD and L2 group, we found that the control group’s total psychological capital and employability levels already showed high levels for both dimensions. This suggest that the results of the comparison should be taken with caution and, at the same time, not be assumed to invalidate the intervention, given the significance found at time 1 and 2 in the experimental sample. Furthermore, in both the L2 sample and the DD sample, the number of participants in the experimental and control group are unbalanced, resulting in a higher participation in the control group and thus indicating a potential effect of the sample size. In parallel, our study is limited by the total number of participants which is not representative. …”

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript is much improved and could be considered for publication.

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I am satisfied with the author's revision of the paper.