“When Will You Graduate?”—A Qualitative Study on Academic Procrastination Among Italian University Students
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDear Authors,
Thank you for the opportunity to review your manuscript, “When Will You Graduate? A Qualitative Study on Academic Procrastination Among Italian University Students.” The paper is engaging and well written. I offer the following suggestions to further strengthen the manuscript.
- Please include an ethics statement in the Methods section. This should specify the name of the ethics committee or institutional review board, the approval number (if applicable), and the date of approval, as well as the procedures for obtaining informed consent.
- Additional essential methodological details are needed for the focus groups. Please indicate where the focus groups took place (e.g., on campus, online), how many focus groups were conducted, the duration of each session, and how the sessions were recorded (audio vs. video). Please state who, besides participants, was present (e.g., the moderator and any note-taker/observer) and name the authors who fulfilled these roles. It would also be helpful to clarify the transcription procedures.
- Please add more detail on data analysis and coding. Specify who coded the data (names/initials and roles), whether coding was conducted independently by more than one researcher, how discrepancies were reconciled (e.g., consensus meetings), and whether any assessment of intercoder agreement was undertaken.
- The manuscript should explicitly adhere to an appropriate reporting guideline for qualitative research (e.g. COREQ or EQUATOR). Please ensure compliance and consider providing a completed checklist as supplementary material.
- Please provide more detailed participant information, covering key sociodemographic variables (e.g., age, gender) and study-related characteristics (e.g., program/discipline, year of study, enrollment status, employment alongside studies). A concise table would enhance transparency and reproducibility.
- Because this is a public health journal, the Discussion would benefit from a more explicit articulation of the health implications.
Thank you again for your careful work on this timely topic. I hope these comments are helpful in further strengthening your manuscript.
Author Response
See attached file
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThank you for the opportunity to review this paper.
It presents analysis of interviews of Italian students on the topic of procrastination.
It is an interesting study, well presented. It situates itself well within the wider literature on academic procrastination.
I found the justification of methods somewhat convincing but I was not 100% convinced by how the results were presented.
The results of the TAEC analysis are presented as brief descriptions of TAEC clusters followed by uncontextualised quotes THEN the reflexive analysis findings are presented first in a table (a version of how the TAEC elements are presented, but slightly different) with brief descriptions and uncontextualised quotes. THEN one theme is discussed in detail THEN graphic visualisations of intersections of codes are presented and described.
Your methods and methodological process are sufficiently described, but I found that the results section may have been less 'showing your working out' and more of a coherent condensed presentation of results.
I did not find that the graphic visualisations element added much to my understanding of the topic - do you consider it was a useful step?
Please consider whether you might describe the process element of your results more succinctly and give some context to your quotes.
Your study findings seem to back up the findings of other studies. Can you make a stronger case for what your study adds to the literature on the topic - what is novel about the results?
Author Response
See attached file
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
