Virology in Schoolbooks—A Comprehensive Analysis of Austrian Biology Textbooks for Secondary School and Implications for Improvement

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I would like to congratulate the Authors on their excellent and original work on a specific theme that is relevant for a comprehensive and systematic analysis of secondary school Biology textbooks in Austria. Results and interpretation provide novel insights into the quality and significance of textbooks for students' education. Considering the global assault of COVID-19 since it was declared a global pandemic, virological knowledge education is always an essential area to advance. However, the article in its current form requires additional editing before it can be considered for publication.

1>        What is the state of biological and virological education for primary school students in Austria? Please clarify more why the authors limit their analysis to secondary school textbooks.

2>        Among the 97 books included, why were there so few books for upper secondary students? This level of students would consider their future college major or career path in greater depth. Please elaborate.

3>        The authors used five categories to assess the textbooks. If professional virologists served as textbook consultants or editors, this would be taken into account.

4>        For the knowledge of replication of viruses, if the basic mechanisms were provided, especially for the upper secondary books?

5>        The authors used the DARAHM model to validate their findings. Please expand on the description of this model and its application mechanisms.

6>        At what level should the students in the study accept the design of hands-on lessons that facilitate better content absorption?

7>        It is lack of the deep discussion to compare the virological education in the same grades to other countries worldwide.

8>        Except from the summary of tables on the transmissions pathways and prevention measurements, please provide the summary of the tables of the susceptible population for the different virus in the textbooks. For all infectious diseases, the control strategy should focus on three aspects: the source of infection, the route of transmission and the susceptible population.

9>        9> The majority of books illustrate the symptoms of diseases caused by virus infections to aid comprehension. If the authors evaluate the suitability and educational value of the visual quality and suitability without affecting the students' long-term interest in virology, given that some images of disease symptoms contain information that can be challenging to review even for some medical students in their early year of training.

10>    The authors concluded that the textbook contained insufficient images or sketches of viruses. There are currently more sets of toys or kits that illustrate the structure of various viruses. Please expand on the use of available tools to support virology education with textbooks in the classroom.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We would like to express our gratitude for helping us to make our manuscript more succinct, precise and comprehensible. We hope to have answered sufficiently to the issues raised.

With kind regards

The authors

• What is the state of biological and virological education for primary school students in Austria? Please clarify more why the authors limit their analysis to secondary school textbooks.

-> done.

• Among the 97 books included, why were there so few books for upper secondary students? This level of students would consider their future college major or career path in greater depth. Please elaborate.

-> done.

• The authors used five categories to assess the textbooks. If professional virologists served as textbook consultants or editors, this would be taken into account.

-> Usually, school books in Austria are written by teachers and/or teacher trainers, less often by scientists. We cannot exclude the possibility that some authors/editors have had special training in virology, but to our knowledge this is not the case.

• For the knowledge of replication of viruses, if the basic mechanisms were provided, especially for the upper secondary books?

-> This will depend on grade. However, even complex replication processes may be presented sequentially in a way they are understood by students, as discussed in the manuscript.

• The authors used the DARAHM model to validate their findings. Please expand on the description of this model and its application mechanisms.

-> done.

• At what level should the students in the study accept the design of hands-on lessons that facilitate better content absorption?

-> This depends very much on the experiment performed. For example, using yeast solution in an experiment in which students shake hands with and without hand washing and then press their hand on petri dishes to demonstrate the effect of hand washing in reducing pathogen load (as described in the manuscript) can already be done at a very early age; though one has to be cautious to explain that the yeast here serves as a model organism and is no virus.

• It is lack of the deep discussion to compare the virological education in the same grades to other countries worldwide.

-> We have added some references to other countries, even though it was not the aim of our work to analyse curricula worldwide, but to focus on Austria.

• Except from the summary of tables on the transmissions pathways and prevention measurements, please provide the summary of the tables of the susceptible population for the different virus in the textbooks. For all infectious diseases, the control strategy should focus on three aspects: the source of infection, the route of transmission and the susceptible population.

-> We have added the following: “67 references were found to viruses (e.g., Dengue virus) or virus groups (e.g., enteroviruses) which (potentially) infect humans.” We focused on (potentially) human pathogenic viruses, since they are of most interest to students and important for hygiene measures, and because several virus groups named have a wide host range in the animal kingdom. Thus, to name specific hosts here seemed to be of little use for students and teachers – all the more, since host range seems to increase for several viruses.

• The majority of books illustrate the symptoms of diseases caused by virus infections to aid comprehension. If the authors evaluate the suitability and educational value of the visual quality and suitability without affecting the students' long-term interest in virology, given that some images of disease symptoms contain information that can be challenging to review even for some medical students in their early year of training.

-> We have shortly commented on this aspect now.

• The authors concluded that the textbook contained insufficient images or sketches of viruses. There are currently more sets of toys or kits that illustrate the structure of various viruses. Please expand on the use of available tools to support virology education with textbooks in the classroom.

-> We have included references to further material.

Reviewer 2 Report

Please see the PDF file with comments in detail however some general comments are given here bellow, 

The idea of article is interesting however it need substantial changes at scientific level to go for publication

It is difficult to follow the article logically the writing need well described, need proper structuring of article, explanations and clear flow of information the connectivity of information is missing. The variables explained in results need to justify in introduction part why, and how those were selected to study based on their importance

The tables are too long need logical summaries and these tables which are now in article should be in supplementary data files

1) The article is less scientific in writing and presentation of facts

2) The authors who have gathered information/data for this research/study how and on what basses made judgments,? 

3) Methodology need more clarification of data generation and analysis?

4) Results need to restructure in more scientific manner

5) Discussion need better structure please discuss about your own findings categorically and then expand the discussion in general way, first write/discuss with logical reasoning and cite previous findings by comparing them specifically relevant to your findings and afterward generalize the information and conclude it at the end 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We would like to express our gratitude for helping us to make our manuscript more succinct, precise and comprehensible. We hope to have answered sufficiently to the issues raised.

With kind regards

The authors

• It is difficult to follow the article logically the writing need well described, need proper structuring of article, explanations and clear flow of information the connectivity of information is missing. The variables explained in results need to justify in introduction part why, and how those were selected to study based on their importance

-> We have explained in more detail why and how the individual subcategories were constructed. We also hope that our revision has improved what the reviewer found lacking in structure.

• The tables are too long need logical summaries and these tables which are now in article should be in supplementary data files

 -> Table 1 has been summarized and the original table transferred to the supplements as suggested. However, others have been left unchanged, e.g. Tab. 2. (For example, we believe that it is quite important to see in detail WHICH viruses are mentioned in the books)

• The article is less scientific in writing and presentation of facts

-> We have tried to make those parts more scientific which the reviewer found less so.

• The authors who have gathered information/data for this research/study how and on what basses made judgments,? 

-> We apologize, but we do not quite understand what is meant here. If “judgements” refers to scientific correctness analysed in the books, we have explained this now in the methods section.

• Methodology need more clarification of data generation and analysis?

-> see above.

• Results need to restructure in more scientific manner

-> We have structured our results following the logic of the coding matrix (which we have now explained). What further suggestions would the reviewer have for improving the structure?

• Discussion need better structure please discuss about your own findings categorically and then expand the discussion in general way, first write/discuss with logical reasoning and cite previous findings by comparing them specifically relevant to your findings and afterward generalize the information and conclude it at the end 

-> We have rewritten and expanded the discussion section accordingly.

-> We also tried to work at the many comments this reviewer provided in the PDF (thanks a lot for such detailed reading!). For example, we have omitted “(even health care personnel)” in the discussion, since this only applied to vaccination but may have implied that some health care personnel did not believe in the existence of viruses. However, we do not quite understand what is meant by “deference for the school system”.

Reviewer 3 Report

1. English structuring is needed. Please proofread for grammatical errors as well.

 2. The contribution part needs further clarity. 

3. In all tables, don't write it as tab.1, please write it in its full form. 

4. The discussion part requires more recent studies to endorse your research results. At some points in the discussion, I feel the authors deviated from the main theme of the manuscript. Please exclude some irrelevant lines from the discussion section.

5. The conclusion part is not strong based on your study results. Please revise. 

6. All the acronyms must be defined in the first place. I found many acronyms are used without defining them in the first place in the overall manuscript. 

7. A few references are present within the manuscript but missing in the reference section. Please revise. 

8. If possible, make some graphs to represent the data in the tables for the studies that authors have abstracted from the literature to improve the quality of the manuscript (optional).

Overall, I found a good attempt by the authors. Good luck.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We would like to express our gratitude for helping us to make our manuscript more succinct, precise and comprehensible. We hope to have answered sufficiently to the issues raised.

With kind regards

The authors

1) English structuring is needed. Please proofread for grammatical errors as well.

-> We have done our best to correct errors. If still needed, we would appreciate suggestions for improving the structure.

2) The contribution part needs further clarity. 

-> done.

3) In all tables, don't write it as tab.1, please write it in its full form.

-> done.

4) The discussion part requires more recent studies to endorse your research results. At some points in the discussion, I feel the authors deviated from the main theme of the manuscript. Please exclude some irrelevant lines from the discussion section.

-> done

5) The conclusion part is not strong based on your study results. Please revise. 

-> done

6) All the acronyms must be defined in the first place. I found many acronyms are used without defining them in the first place in the overall manuscript. 

-> We have added definitions for those acronyms which had not been defined (e.g., AIDS, PCR), but not in case of some virus names which are, in fact, representing the correct name (e.g., H1N1).

7) A few references are present within the manuscript but missing in the reference section. Please revise.

-> We have re-checked all references.

8) If possible, make some graphs to represent the data in the tables for the studies that authors have abstracted from the literature to improve the quality of the manuscript (optional).

-> Thanks for this suggestion; we have nevertheless decided against because we found the tables more informative.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The comments have been addressed thoroughly.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

once again many thanks for your very helpful suggestions to improve our manuscript.

Kind regards

The Authors

Reviewer 2 Report

Please see the PDF file with comments

Please make the response letter file in 2 columns: one column with Reviewer comments, and 2nd column with authors response, As I feel some of the comments are ignored/ not addressed in R1

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, please find our reponse in the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf