Students’ Strategies When Dealing with Science-Based Information in Social Media—A Group Discussion Study
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Perhaps the authors can explain further the choice of Instagram posts used in this study. Why these? What is the hypothesis behind these choices?
I think that the study will be improved if the authors clearly state the research question and the corresponding hypothesis. Then answer these in the conclusion, rather than just give the reader their findings.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The study has important limitations, as the authors point out. Although they are aware of this situation, and have written it, the limitations exist and compromise the results.
Methodology: the sample is very small, the instructional material used is limited, and it was viewed outside Instagram, which completely changes the consumer experience. In addition to losing immersive consumption (concentration, speed, etc.), the absence of likes and comments changes the whole perception. Due to this situation, every conclusion loses scientific value.
Discussion: aspects not considered in the literature review emerge, such as the need to train teachers to use social media in the classroom. We don’t know if teachers don't use it because they don't know how to do it or because they don't consider it appropriate.
Furthermore, the small age difference and the low number of participants do not allow significant differences between groups to be identified, as is sometimes mentioned in the conclusions (younger vs older).
For all these reasons, the experiment described may work as a pre-test, but it seems too limited for a manuscript.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
I really appreciate this work. It has been well written and it investigates a topic that is relevant enough. After reading it, I suggest some changes:
Authors should split the introduction into two parts. In one hand, the introduction itself, with no more than 1 page. That intro should present clearly the object of study. In the other hand, the theoretical background. This is the main perceived problem of this proposal - it cannot be published without a rigorous and thorough theoretical basement. In that part you should describe more precisely the German context of social media and youth, as it is not even depicted.
Within the methodology section, what is the scope of the article? What kind of study is this? About the sample, could you please describe and justify the sample taken? Were those schools private or public? What were the particular characteristics of each school? Because those characteristics can influence results, so they should be described.
It is not clear the technique which was used in order to interpret the data. How did the authors move from data to results? Please, describe that on the methodology.
Quantification, as it appears in the line 153 and so on, should be avoided, as it can lead readers to misunderstandings. At the same time, the previous literature should be included in the results, as a contrast variable. I feel that there is a gap between results and theoretical background. And there are too many quotes taken directly from the students. Could you reinforce and improve the analytical procedure in order to make it more abstract, not so literal?
The discussion is a good section, it presents some new ideas. But after the thorough revision of the theoretical background, you can extend it with new authors and references. With some more work, this will be a nice study, that I recommend to publish.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 4 Report
Thank you for inviting me to be a reviewer of the manuscript entitled Students’ Strategies when Dealing with Science-Based Information in Social Media – a Group Discussion Study. This document is really impressive in terms of your efforts to demonstrate the power of your study.
The current study examines Students’ Strategies when Dealing with Science-Based Information in Social Media. The study focused on investigating students in a Group Discussion Study. The authors describe a qualitatively conducted study and its results.
The introductory chapters of this study present a theoretical basis based on a Literary review. This chapter is quite comprehensive and well-crafted with frequent references to professional literature and research articles and studies. Chapter 2. Materials and Methods describes the research sample of the students involved and the implementation of the qualitative survey, which was verified by one pilot interview. I rate only one pilot interview for verification as not enough. A Cohen's kappa calculation with high agreement was used to validate the rater data. The chapter is supplemented by tables, which are comprehensive. In this chapter, I would expect more emphasis on specifying research objectives, research questions and hypotheses. The third chapter describes the findings and results, which are processed in great detail and descriptively. This chapter is followed by a discussion of the results.
In the study, I see great potential for further follow-up research.
However, some passages of the study are very descriptive and lengthy. This is sometimes confusing. Therefore, I would suggest shortening and simplifying them.
This study refers to 40 scientific references, resources and publications. The references used are current and of sufficient quality, and are a suitable tereotic basis for this study.
This study represents a contribution in this area of research.
The basic ideas of the submitted manuscript are fascinating and interesting.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The added parts solved the problems, especially regarding the limitations. I propose the acceptance.
Reviewer 3 Report
In my opinion, authors have improved the article and I recommend to accept it in its current form.
