Motivation and Performance of Students in School Physical Education in Which Mobile Applications Are Used
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article is on an interesting topic; however, I still didn't get how the mobile applications in these settings have been used and tested for physical education and how this study differs from those previously published. Perhaps I missed something.
Which cluster of groups used the mobile applications to assist in physical education?
The authors state that the study/experiment was conducted two years ago, from March to May 2019; what has changed since then?
There are no recent studies mentioned. Most cited articles are before 2019 and older. The authors should update the literature review and the discussions accordingly.
The results are difficult to generalize as well due to a limited number of samples.
Other minor corrections:
- line 84: "According to Arigo et al [8]", full stop after al. is missing
- line 95, space between text and ref. "Villasana et al.[10] "
- line 99, remove enter before 13-16
- line 100, "Palička et. al [11]"
- line 114, "Mirzajani et. al [13] "
- line 137, "Yerrakalva et. al. [17] "
- line 146 and 400, "incl. " please write in full
- line 152, remove comman, "out by, Maněnová"
Author Response
Thank you very much for your comments and suggestions for improvement. Please, find below our responses.
1. The article is on an interesting topic; however, I still didn't get how the mobile applications in these settings have been used and tested for physical education and how this study differs from those previously published. Perhaps I missed something.
Response to how the applications were used: Described within lines 287 - 293. We added one sentence to clarify that each child could work with his/her own device.
Response to how this research differs from others: We added one whole paragraph at the end of Introduction part to make it more clear (please see lines 232-242). We agree that more explicit description was needed.
2. Which cluster of groups used the mobile applications to assist in physical education?
Response: All children - i.e. all 3 clusters. We pointed it out - line 291.
3. The authors state that the study/experiment was conducted two years ago, from March to May 2019; what has changed since then?
Response: There have been for sure other studies conducted on a similar topic (one more recent one added or request - please, see reference [3]). However, to the best of our knowledge, none of them had the same attitude as our study. Thus, adding other studies would not bring any new perspective to what we were aiming with our research.
4. There are no recent studies mentioned. Most cited articles are before 2019 and older. The authors should update the literature review and the discussions accordingly.
Response: Answered within previous point.
5. The results are difficult to generalize as well due to a limited number of samples.
Response: We agree and this was not an aim of our research. We state that within lines 528 - 530.
6. Other minor corrections:
Response: Very appreciated, thank you. Corrected.
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper is interesting in terms of physical education through mobile applications. However, I have some concerns as follows.
[Target] The research target of the paper does not match the journal "Sustainability" and the special issue "Higher and Adult Education." The authors must explain how this paper relate to those topics.
[Introduction] The paper just introduce some extant papers. There are no story line or directions. Therefore, it is lack of connection between research gaps and research purpose. Why did you need to grouping? Please clarify what is the research gap through literature review.
[Research Purpose] It's better to put research purpose on the Introduction part.
[Line 270] What is NCSS programme?
[Lines 292-297] It's unclear why 3 clusters was the optimal. You must explain more detail.
[Line 368] What is "previous research cases"? The authors should explain what are their contributions one by one.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your comments and suggestions for improvement. Please, find below our responses.
1. The research target of the paper does not match the journal "Sustainability" and the special issue "Higher and Adult Education." The authors must explain how this paper relate to those topics.
Response: New paragraph was added to make the connection with Sustainability and the special issue topic. It is about setting the right path for healthy lifestyle to which physical activity undoubtedly belongs. Please, see lines 24-38.
2. The paper just introduce some extant papers. There are no story line or directions. Therefore, it is lack of connection between research gaps and research purpose. Why did you need to grouping? Please clarify what is the research gap through literature review.
Response: In our opinion, we pointed out the most important issues relating to understanding why the research is important and what is needed to take into account while talking about this topic. The storyline is there, however, we hope we made it more explicit adding the beginning and also summary at the end of Introduction part.
3. It's better to put research purpose on the Introduction part.
Response: Added. Please, see lines 232 - 242.
4. What is NCSS programme?
Response: Statistical programme for analysis within which the clusters were tested and calculated. Even though we believe, it is already clear from the context, it was more stressed within the text. Please, see line 347.
5. It's unclear why 3 clusters was the optimal. You must explain more detail.
Response: It was explained within lines 353-355 and also 380 - 383. To provide the evidence we also added lines 356 - 358.
6. What is "previous research cases"? The authors should explain what are their contributions one by one.
Response: By "previous research cases" was meant "studies that we mentioned earlier". We paraphrased them. Please, see line 458.
Moreover, thank you for evaluating the English language but within this point we can't agree. Translation was performed by a certified professional translator.
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper is interesting, exploring a traditional subject in the context of modernity. The authors succeed in a consistent analysis of the literature, despite its relatively small size and diversity.
However, the topic is quite vaguely associated with sustainability. Of course, only if we want to consider that sustainability, as a general concept, would include the concerns for a healthy life through physical exercises, adapting technology and involving young people in these activities, etc. Thus, we will have to accept, however, a dilution of the concept and a "universalization" of the hypostases of "sustainability", not very useful from a scientific point of view.
Probably due to the above mentioned aspects, the paper also has a rather professional content, specific to a certain didactic and sports activity, emphasizing less the critical elements, doubts and normal scientific questions, creative contradictions between different opinions and researches.
The working hypotheses and the way in which the results obtained in this research are integrated (contradict or confirm, totally or partially) in the mainstream on similar topics are not very clearly underlined.
Many thanks for the opportunity to review this paper and good luck!
Author Response
Thank you very much for your comments and suggestions for improvement. Please, find below our responses.
1. However, the topic is quite vaguely associated with sustainability. Of course, only if we want to consider that sustainability, as a general concept, would include the concerns for a healthy life through physical exercises, adapting technology and involving young people in these activities, etc. Thus, we will have to accept, however, a dilution of the concept and a "universalization" of the hypostases of "sustainability", not very useful from a scientific point of view.
Response: Thank you very much for the suggestion. We added one more paragraph which connects our topic with sustainability special issue. You may see it within lines: 24-38
2. Probably due to the above mentioned aspects, the paper also has a rather professional content, specific to a certain didactic and sports activity, emphasizing less the critical elements, doubts and normal scientific questions, creative contradictions between different opinions and researches.
Response: We tried to point out different opinions and researches within individual aspects of using digital technology during PE. Nevertheless, there has been lack of studies - better to say approaches within the similar research activities - from what we conducted. This is the reason for more "professional content".
3. The working hypotheses and the way in which the results obtained in this research are integrated (contradict or confirm, totally or partially) in the mainstream on similar topics are not very clearly underlined.
Response: The same reason. Our attitude towards research differs from those mentioned in the article. However, we did some comparisons with previous research into the extent it allows us.
Once again, thank you for your precious comments and wishes!
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
1. I understood how this paper relates to Sustainability by the revision, but relevance to higher education or adult education (i.e. the special issue) remain unclear.
2-3. I suggest the authors to explain logically why do you need to grouping young (not adult) students. The authors said the research purpose is "to find out if it is possible to identify groups of pupils" (line 214). At least, this purpose should described on the section one (Introduction). Then, I asked you to explain why your purpose (grouping students) is needed to investigate. Although the authors added the research gap as "none of them investigated the experimental group further than comparing gender and age of its participants" (lines 203-204), it is still unclear why should you find a comparison criteria other than gender and age. You should explain like this: "~~. Therefore, we need to investigate a comparison criteria in terms of XXX. The objective of this study is ~~." The expression "dive deeper" is vague. Furthermore, it's better to explain why "grouping." It might be better to take another approach more than grouping (e.g. finding some factors impacting on the comparison criteria by a method other than experiment). In addition, the Introduction section is too long and redundant. I recommend you to rearrange this section.
6. Yes, I've known you want to say "studies that we mentioned earlier" (= Introduction and so on). However, the important point of my comment is "one by one". More detail discussion is needed. For example, how cluster 1 is different with which study? Or how these findings (e.g. cluster 1,2,3) is different with which studies? If you do not explain those information, readers cannot understand the significance (the value) of the study exactly.
Author Response
Dear colleague, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions for improvement of our manuscript. We have addressed all your notes followingly:
point 1 - Higher Education special issue context: added within lines 39-41
points 2-3 - Aim and reasoning of a study in the Introduction part: 169-177; Introduction: shortened, rearranged - please see the revisions
point 6 - linkage of introduction and discussion part: added, please see revisions within the text
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Round 3
Reviewer 2 Report
The explanation "We believe that physical activity is one of the conditions for a healthy and sustainable lifestyle and higher institutions play an important part in incorporating new and effective approaches into undergraduate study programmes for pre-service teachers" is very vague. What is "higher institutions"? How do they play an important part? Which part?
I recommend the authors to resubmit the manuscript to another special issue (research topic). Finally, the contents of the manuscript (theoretical background, sample, results, discussion, etc.) is not relate to adult education.
"However, none of them investigated the experimental group further than comparing gender and age of its participants (lines171-172)." It is still unclear why should you have to investigate a group further than only compare gender and age? In general, we can find some significant results when we collect data. I cannot find a logic in lines 174-177. We, researchers need a logical explanation in academic papers. We have a purpose, then collect data, then find exact results. You only said like that "we do this, maybe we can find something."
Author Response
Dear reviewer, thank you once again for your comments and suggestions to improvement. Please, find our response below:
1. Sentence rephrased: please, see lines 39-42, plus new paragraphes added - lines 458-477.
2. Cluster analysis allows exactly what you described as "we have data, lets see if we can obtain something more". The main goal of this research was to do the comparison between experimental and control group (different article). Since the experimental group proved the higher motivation and performance of students we wanted to see if it is really the truth for everybody no matter the gender and age. For that purpose, we used cluster analysis. The result could have been that there were no significant differences among students and no groups would appear, and in this case there wouldn't be anything to report about.
