Encouraging Water Protection through Donation: Examining the Effects of Intention to Engage in Personal Water Conservation Behaviors on Donation Behaviors
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This study explored the mechanism of if personal water conservation behavioral intent impacted contributions to organizations supporting water conservation. I think the content of the article is interesting, but the full text is less of logic, and the methods are not clear. Here are some detailed comments on this article:
1. Line 10 of Abstract, I suggest that you can add more descriptions of the research area.
2. Part 2, I suggest that the author should give a technology roadmap that could illustrate the logical relationships between three research purposes, whether they presented a progressive relationship or a juxtaposition, as well as the application paths of the research methods. I think that the three parts research and purposes, especially the analysis and research on the income level, is not closely related and is lack of logic.
3. Part 3, “The research presented here is part of a larger study designed to explore public perceptions related to water conservation behaviors”, I suggest that the author briefly introduce the framework of the entire study to prove that the research content of this article is complete and effective.
4. Table 2-6, the representative meanings of β and other parameters, is not explained clearly in the text, and the meanings of the numeric size is also not explained, so I suggest the author to add more explanations.
For example, Table 5, the Probability for “$250,000 or more” and personal water conservation behavioral intent suddenly increased significantly, which lack a explanation or whether there was an error in the analysis of datas.
5. Table 2-6, what were Model 1 and Model 2 represent, and whether there was a relationship between them like a control group and a experimental group of the two models. I suggest the author give a further elaboration.
6. Part 3.4 Demographics, the data of 907 samples involved several demographic characteristics , so I‘d like to know how the author exclude the influence of other independent variables like those characteristics on the personal water conservation behavioral intent and other dependent variable，while the author only considered and gave the analysis of one characteristic of the income level.
7. Part 4 results, the author used the Binary logistic regressions to conduct the analysis of income level and the personal water conservation behavioral intent or the correlation between two other variables, which is more like an analysis based on assumptions that are known to be related. So I’d like to know how the author proved whether the correlation was existed or not before the analysis of the article. It would be more convincing that the author could give the previous and relevant literature based on, or explain the proof methods in detail.
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Author Response
Please see attached document for authors' reply to suggested revisions. We thank you for your feedback.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Reviewer comments on Water-2394794
Article: Encouraging Water Protection Through Donation: Examining the Effects of Intention to Engage in Personal Water Conservation Behaviors on Donation Behaviors
Summary of the rationale for the recommendation:
The research paper “Encouraging Water Protection Through Donation: Examining the Effects of Intention to Engage in Personal Water Conservation Behaviors on Donation Behaviors” describes a study aiming to determine if personal water conservation behavioral intent impacted contributions to organizations supporting water conservation, so effective communication strategies could be developed.
I find this topic very interesting, as it is increasingly important to address the issues of water scarcity and conservation. The work has 3 main objectives: to describe the relationships between personal water conservation behavioral intent and current donations; to determine if personal water conservation behavioral intent predicts donation; to determine if income level mediates the effect of personal water conservation behavioral intent predicting donation to a water conservation organization.
Respondents were recruited to take an online survey using non-probability opt-in sampling, and data were analyzed using frequencies, point-biserial correlations, and binary logistic regression, but original survey data and some statistical analyses are not available in the work, which makes it difficult to interpret. The data supporting reported results could be added to this work, as supplementary material, or cited, to enhance its interest. As a suggestion, the authors should also explain the rationale for the use of non-probability sampling.
The statistical methods need to be detailed and justified by the appropriate tests. It is important to add the reference to the statistical software used in the determination of the correlation coefficients and the binary logistic regression coefficients, and what were the detailed methodology followed in each case. So authors may want to add it to the work.
The reference list needs to be reviewed accordingly to the standards of Water and the layout of the paper should be replaced, as it is from the Acoustics journal.
Please read the specific comments for more information.
Specific comments for the author(s):
The layout of this paper is for the journal Acoustics, so please change it. The authors’ affiliations are missing, and also the citation and referencing guidelines of the journal are not followed.
The introduction is quite simplified, and I advise the authors to strengthen it.
Lines 37-638– Please add an appropriate citation to the text “The U.S. economy also depends on water availability as it is the highest producer of goods and services in the world.” or connect it to the next phrase.
Lines 43-44 – The authors may want to add some kind of quantification to the text “Due to its population size, the city of Atlanta in the state of Georgia is said to be taking a larger portion of freshwater from these basins which, in turn, causes adverse effects on ..”
Page 2 and following – There are a lot of online source citations without dates. Is it not possible to know the dates of the cited publications?
Lines 65-71 – This paragraph is confusing as there are some repetitions. The authors may want to improve it.
Lines 113-116 – The authors say, in the first sentence, that the study has been based on a framework and in the second sentence that two frameworks have been used. Please clarify it.
Lines 210-212 – Are there any other works already published related to the larger study mentioned here? The authors may want to connect this work to the larger study mentioned earlier.
Lines 219-225 – Authors should explain the rationale for the use of non-probability sampling. What was the intended group of people that the study was trying to reach? What criteria were established for this choice? In the text, the authors also say that there were quotas for gender, race, and ethnicity established a priori. Which ones and how were they chosen?
Lines 233-238 - Respondents were asked to indicate, on a five-point Likert-type scale, their level of intent for engaging in nine water conservations behaviors: (1) donate to an organization that protects water; (2) join a water conservation organization; (3) buy a specialty license plate that supports water conservation efforts; (4) only run the washing machine when it is full; (5) only run the dishwasher when it is full; (6) only water your lawn in the morning or evening; (7) reduce the number of times you water your lawn; (8) sweep patios and sidewalks instead of hosing them down; and (9) volunteer for a stream cleanup or restoration effort. The results of that survey are not referred to throughout the text, were they?
Lines 263-265 and Table 1– How do the demographics collected in the survey relate to the actual demographics of the three states? Authors may want to add these data to improve the work. Authors should also put the appropriate legend in Table 1 to be self-explanatory.
Lines 268-269 – Data were analyzed descriptively, using frequencies, and relationally, using point-biserial correlations to describe the relationships between personal water conservation behavioral intent and current donations. These results are not detailed in the work, so authors may want to add them as supplementary material to improve the work’s interest. Authors also say that “Respondents were asked to indicate how likely or unlikely they were to engage in nine water conservation behaviors. The mean was then used as a measure of their self-reported intent to engage in water conservation behaviors indicating that overall, they were likely to engage (M = 3.66, SD = 0.67).” Is this the only result obtained with the first group of questions (lines 233-238)? Authors may want to add the frequencies obtained as they are referred to as results in the data analysis section.
Lines 281-292 – Respondents were also placed into one of two different groups according to whether they responded “yes” or “no” to four statements about their current conservation behaviors, to assess their intention to donate to a water conservation organization. The authors may wish to further explain the methodologies and the statistical tests used in the statistical analysis to improve its soundness.
Table 2 and following - Authors should place an appropriate legend in Table 2 and following for them to be self-explanatory. Also, what was the value of the statistical test used to calculate p?
Line 362 – It should be the “Discussion and conclusion” section (substitute & by and). Authors may wish to detach the conclusion so they could highlight the major findings of the work.
The reference list needs to be reviewed accordingly to the standards of Water .
Author Response
Hello,
Please see attached document for authors' replies to suggested revisions. We thank you for your feedback on improving this manuscript.
Best,
Olivia
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Reviewer comments on Water-2394794R1
Article: Encouraging Water Protection Through Donation: Examining the Effects of Intention to Engage in Personal Water Conservation Behaviors on Donation Behaviors
Summary of the rationale for the recommendation:
I appreciate the work the authors have done on this revised form of the article entitled “Encouraging Water Protection Through Donation: Examining the Effects of Intention to Engage in Personal Water Conservation Behaviors on Donation Behaviors” with the reference Water-2394794R1, and the explanations they have given.
The authors have answered the reviewers’ questions and justified their choices, addressing most of the suggestions, although minor changes were made in the Introduction and in the Materials and Methods sections.
Please read the specific comments for more information.
Specific comments for the author(s):
The layout of this paper is still for the journal Acoustics, but I suppose that is going to be changed.
Tables must be viewed and interpreted without the need of information from the text, therefore each sign in the table must be explain in the legend or in the notes. In the case of table I, the only signal that is not self explanatory is F – (which I interpret as absolut frequency or N). In table II the authors could explain what is CI in the notes (CI is the 95% confidence interval of r?). In tables 3 to 6, B (or β?) is the binary logistic regression coefficient?
There are no supplementary materials, so please delete the text after Supplementary Materials: “…The following are available online at www.mdpi.com/xxx/s1, Figure S1: 613 title, Table S1: title, Video S1: title…”
Author Response
Please see attachment. Thank you for your revisions.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
