The Educational Use of WhatsApp

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is a review paper that tries to describe the educational use of WhatApp. This work is interesting and I think is significant especially in the background of the pandemic. However, I have several questions about this research:

1. My main concern about this work is its contributions and novelty. The key differences with previous reviews are not described explicitly. Although the authors show their aim in Ln 73-92, however, in Section 4, the authors mention their research conclusions are coincide with previous research at least twice (Ln 240, Ln 263-265). Also, the results shown in Section 3 are not promising because the authors only enumerate papers and very short text descriptions for each paper, thus the comparison results are not intuitive.

2. The representative papers in some research questions are not up-to-date, made it unconvincing, e.g. Section 3.4 only contains paper in 2014 & 2015.

3. Some other problems:

Figure 2 is not clear enough.

More than 1/2 references are in Spanish, which I think is not suitable for publishing in an international journal.

Appendix A mentioned in Ln 132 is missing.

Many spelling mistakes, e.g. Ln 133 One, Ln 75 them, etc.

Author Response

This is a review paper that tries to describe the educational use of WhatsApp. This work is interesting and I think is significant especially in the background of the pandemic. However, I have several questions about this research:

In first place, thanks for the comments and apologies for our level of English (it is not our mother tongue. Difficulty that we try to improve).

My main concern about this work is its contributions and novelty. The key differences with previous reviews are not described explicitly. Although the authors show their aim in Ln 73-92,

There are many studies on the use of the application specifically in a subject, but not too that study its educational use in general, so this study completes that question. The study seeks not only to know how it has been used, but also to give examples of these uses, in addition to knowing the results in relation to learning, user satisfaction and its advantages and disadvantages. All this are few studies that bring that point of view so complete.

In addition, this look is carried out from a global perspective, using international search engines and easy access, not restricting this to texts with an index such as JCR or SJR, expanding access to a greater number of practices. This offers a much more global and international look

Those questions are included in the text.

however, in Section 4, the authors mention their research conclusions are coincide with previous research at least twice (Ln 240, Ln 263-265).

Thanks for the comment. It is a mistake. The authors wanted to refer to the scoping review obtained, but it is written previous research. This point is changed.

Also, the results shown in Section 3 are not promising because the authors only enumerate papers and very short text descriptions for each paper, thus the comparison results are not intuitive.

As indicated in the text Ln. 81, the objective is to describe the educational uses given to the application and not to compare studies. As in a qualitative work that uses the interview as a resource to collect information and in the papers are included textual paragraphs of said answers, in this case it was intended to complement the information of the results (this description) with some examples, but not compare them.

The representative papers in some research questions are not up-to-date, made it unconvincing, e.g. Section 3.4 only contains paper in 2014 & 2015.

The work has reviewed texts between 2014 and 2021, so the examples are found in that time interval. However, this aspect is worked on by including a more current reference in the tables.

Some other problems:

Figure 2 is not clear enough.

It is modified and a link is included so that it can be consulted

More than 1/2 references are in Spanish, which I think is not suitable for publishing in an international journal.

The text review carried out includes 44.3% of texts in English, 44.3% in Spanish and 11.4% in Portuguese. This can influence in the number of references in the English or Spanish language. The authors consider that this aspect is not incompatible with the internationalization of the journal, but on the contrary, because these texts in Spanish belong to different countries such as Spain, Venezuela, Mexico, Cuba or Peru.

However, this aspect is worked on including more texts in English and, if the translation of the titles from Spanish to English contributes to the improvement for the publication, there would be no problem requesting it in the revision of the translation.

Appendix A mentioned in Ln 132 is missing.

Thanks for this comment and apologies. It is a mistake. This is not the annex. It is the supplementary materials. Doi is added to consult these.

Many spelling mistakes, e.g. Ln 133 One, Ln 75 them, etc.

We are sorry for the errors due to not mastering the English language with sufficient qualifications, a specialized translation will be requested.

The text of the article with the corrections is attached

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Summary

The paper presents a systematic review of the scientific literature on the educational use of the “WhatsApp” app. First, the procedures and criteria for selecting published works are determined. Next, these procedures and criteria are applied, thereby leading to the list of published works that consists the supplementary materials. Lastly, the selected published works are summarized in a descriptive and integrative manner, thereby leading to the findings and summaries of the review.

General evaluation

Overall, I find that the paper presents an interesting summary of the scientific literature on the educational use of the “WhatsApp” app. I also find that it is quite well-prepared.

I recommend minor revisions, as I have a few comments that could be addressed towards improving the presentation of the already conducted work.

Minor comments

Comment #1: Part of the summarized studies is in Spanish or in Portuguese. Perhaps, this should be somehow indicated in the provided summaries (i.e., in the “Results” section). For instance, each time that a percentage is reported, the numbers of studies in English, Spanish and Portuguese contributing to this percentage could also be reported.

Comment #2: Line 122 talks about “including in the title the terms established in the search”. However, instead of the terms “Education”, “educación”, “educational use” and “uso educativo”, other similar terms appear in some cases in the titles reported in the supplementary materials. Is this form of flexibility ensured by the search strings? Also, maybe line 122 should be rephrased a bit to reflect this form of flexibility.

Comment #3: Are the parentheses around “and” and “y” necessary in the search strings?

Comment #4: Figure 1 includes text in a language other than English. The English translation of this text could be provided in the figure’s caption.

Comment #5: Figure 1 is not mentioned in the manuscript.

Comment #6: Figure 2 should be provided in a readable form.

Comment #7: The manuscript refers to “Appendix Α” instead of referring to the supplementary materials.

Comment #8: Line 94 talks about a “systematic review of articles published on the subject”. Maybe the word “publications” should be used instead of the word “articles”, as conference papers, book chapters and theses (or end of studies projects) have also been used (according to lines 130-132).

Comment #9: Extensive editing is required at the moment, as there are typos throughout the manuscript that should be corrected.

Author Response

Summary

The paper presents a systematic review of the scientific literature on the educational use of the “WhatsApp” app. First, the procedures and criteria for selecting published works are determined. Next, these procedures and criteria are applied, thereby leading to the list of published works that consists the supplementary materials. Lastly, the selected published works are summarized in a descriptive and integrative manner, thereby leading to the findings and summaries of the review.

General evaluation

Overall, I find that the paper presents an interesting summary of the scientific literature on the educational use of the “WhatsApp” app. I also find that it is quite well-prepared.

I recommend minor revisions, as I have a few comments that could be addressed towards improving the presentation of the already conducted work.

Minor comments

Comment #1: Part of the summarized studies is in Spanish or in Portuguese. Perhaps, this should be somehow indicated in the provided summaries (i.e., in the “Results” section). For instance, each time that a percentage is reported, the numbers of studies in English, Spanish and Portuguese contributing to this percentage could also be reported.

This distribution is included in the sample description section. It is not developed for each result because this variable had not been included in this work, it is an observation to be included as a prospective and continuity of the study on the subject

Comment #2: Line 122 talks about “including in the title the terms established in the search”. However, instead of the terms “Education”, “educación”, “educational use” and “uso educativo”, other similar terms appear in some cases in the titles reported in the supplementary materials. Is this form of flexibility ensured by the search strings? Also, maybe line 122 should be rephrased a bit to reflect this form of flexibility.

Thanks for watching. A comment on this aspect is included in the text

Comment #3: Are the parentheses around “and” and “y” necessary in the search strings?

The parenthesis is not relevant in the search, does not change this significantly

Comment #4: Figure 1 includes text in a language other than English. The English translation of this text could be provided in the figure’s caption.

This figure is translated to English.

Comment #5: Figure 1 is not mentioned in the manuscript.

A cite about this figure is included in the text

Comment #6: Figure 2 should be provided in a readable form.

This figure is translated to English language, and it is included a Doi to facilitate the access and its reading.

Comment #7: The manuscript refers to “Appendix Α” instead of referring to the supplementary materials.

Thanks for this comment. It is modified

Comment #8: Line 94 talks about a “systematic review of articles published on the subject”. Maybe the word “publications” should be used instead of the word “articles”, as conference papers, book chapters and theses (or end of studies projects) have also been used (according to lines 130-132).

Thanks for this comment. It is changed by publications on the subject

Comment #9: Extensive editing is required at the moment, as there are typos throughout the manuscript that should be corrected.

Apologies for the level of English. Aware of our limited training in this regard, we will request a revision and translation by experts.

The text of the article with the corrections is attached

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Information technology (IT) and community software does have a learning enhancing effect on education. Most of teachers and students understand that the mobile phone will influence their daily life and the learning consequence during the learning process. This article cites a lot of literature to support and justify the use of WA in learning. Figure 2 the flow diagram is ambiguous which the content cannot be seen clearly.

Overall, the method is convincing and this paper can be accepted after the Fig. 2 is fixed.

Author Response

Information technology (IT) and community software does have a learning enhancing effect on education. Most of teachers and students understand that the mobile phone will influence their daily life and the learning consequence during the learning process. This article cites a lot of literature to support and justify the use of WA in learning. Figure 2 the flow diagram is ambiguous which the content cannot be seen clearly.

Overall, the method is convincing and this paper can be accepted after the Fig. 2 is fixed.

Thanks for the comments. Fig. 2: the content is translated to English and doi is included for easy viewing

The text of the article with the corrections is attached

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have made great efforts to improve the draft. One more question about the paper: would it need a table in Section 3.3 for consistency? And still some spell and format mistakes to be corrected.

Author Response

Thanks for the feedback. Regarding your suggestions:

would it need a table in Section 3.3 for consistency? 

A table has been incorporated into the text, as suggested

And still some spell and format mistakes to be corrected.

The text has been sent to the English editing service, however it will be revised again.