Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors address the topic of teaching in English in non-English-speaking contexts in the field of engineering. 

The article is well structured and balanced in its parts. The methodology is well illustrated and the statistical analyses conducted are explained and well documented. The conclusions are congruent with the results. The sample size is not particularly high and it would be advisable to apply the questionnaire to a larger group, but the indications provided by the results are nevertheless clear and of some interest.

The only remark: line 340 mentions table 4 for the one-sample t-test but the table is table 3.

Author Response

Attached here with all thanks!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors, 

I very much enjoyed reading your article. It provides very interesting insights into teaching set-ups and arrangements that sound great on the theoretical level but sometimes fail in practice, which is why I consider your research effort to understand the underlying mechanisms very valuable and relevant. 

However, I do have some major reservations about some aspects of your paper. I will mention them in the chronological order, following the structure of your paper.

1. In your theoretical background you argue that EMI has institutional/structural and student-related advantages. I feel like you mostly focus on the institutional role of EMI and neglect the potential benefits on the student-instructor level. What I mean here is not only intercultural competence gained through communication but also improved learning skills and cultural knowledge developed through being exposed to materials created in a different language/from a different cultural point of view. Do Coyle's 4C framework would be the starting point in the literature. It primarily refers to CLIL but the similarities between EMI and CLIL are hard to overlook. I find it difficult not to take these aspects into consideration, mostly because you are interested in the perception of EMI benefits.

I would also find it beneficial if your theoretical background focused on the variables of interest in a more stringent way, i.e. if you are interested in intrinsic motivation of EMI instructors, provide a clear overview of the factors that it seems to be mediated by. If I understand your text correctly, these are the teachers' own language skills, time investment, perceived value, perceived effectiveness, interest in teaching content rather than language.The information is there, but it seems to be scattered all over the section. I am also not sure how you operationalize affordances - a concept that appears in the research question but does not seem to surface in the data analysis. 

2. I have quite a few methodological reservations with respect to how you have constructed your questionnaire. Although Ryan's Intrinsic Motivation Inventory explicitly says that items related to enjoyment are the only direct measure of intrinsic motivation, the concept itself is more complex. I would suggest you say that you measure just that aspect directly. Also, you use very few items. Please explain why you think that this is methodologically acceptable and to what extent the results obtained for these items would be reliable. Same goes for the other variables. How do you justify cutting down the number of items? This is a major issue. Is there any precedence for working with this few items?

3. A relatively minor thing: The results on the benefits of teaching EMI are confounding because your items include two points of reference: the teachers and the students. It makes sense that the more teaching I do, the more practice I get as a lecturer and my skills improve even if my students are left behind. You throw that into one bag in the presentation of your results.

4. Concepts like anxiety and motivation can be situational. Is the anxiety that your instructors feel the same every time they teach or does it come and go? Are the answers they gave you "average" feelings across the course they taught or do they refer to one session? At this point it seems that you are trying to gain a relatively static picture of processes that are highly dynamic and situational. A way out would be to describe the context of the questions more - what did the participants think they referred to? Also, you need to explain the questionnaire scale somewhere (I think you may have forgotten to, or I have overlooked it).

Author Response

Attached here with all thanks!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors, thank you for the opportunity to read your manuscript "investigating engineering instructor characteristics associated with English Medium Instruction and their influence on intrinsic motivation, it is very interesting, I will make some opportunities for improvement that may be useful for it to be considered.

 

As for the introduction, the same is very brief and simple information of the problem should provide optimal information to the reader, expand it with arguments.

 

The literature review is a bit far from the criteria of the Journal (Sustainability), as English medium instruction and its influence on intrinsic motivation explains sustainability, it could be handled through an educational quality SDG-4 please review this research. 

 

Jiménez-Bucarey, C.; Acevedo-Duque, Á.; Müller-Pérez, S.; Aguilar-Gallardo, L.; Mora-Moscoso, M.; Vargas, E.C. Student's Satisfaction of the Quality of Online Learning in Higher Education: An Empirical Study. Sustainability 2021, 13, 11960. https://doi.org/10.3390/su132111960

 

Acevedo-Duque, Á.; Prado-Sabido, T.; García-Salirrosas, E.E.; Fernández Mantilla, M.M.; Vera Calmet, V.G.; Valle Palomino, N.; Aguilar Armas, H.M. Postgraduate Trends in the Training of Human Talent for Sustainable Development. Sustainability 2022, 14, 14356. https://doi.org/10.3390/su142114356

 

Wu, J., Guo, S., Huang, H., Liu, W., & Xiang, Y. (2018). Information and communications technologies for sustainable development goals: state-of-the-art, needs and perspectives. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 20(3), 2389-2406.

 

As for the methodology, it should be better explained, it is also advisable to shorten the paragraphs is very tiring for the reader to read very long paragraphs (Consider throughout the manuscript). 

As for the results, they are very interesting and evidence information that could generate new knowledge to the gap that is targeted.

 

It is considered relevant to improve the discussion.

 

Consider a section on limitations and future research. 

 

All the best for your manuscript.

 

 

Author Response

Attached here with all thanks! 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

thank you for a revised version of your manuscript. I think a lot of the changes you have made introduce more clarity to your chosen line of argumentation. I've only noticed one thing, which is related to one of my previous comments.

What I mean here: "A relatively minor thing: The results on the benefits of teaching EMI are confounding because your items include two points of reference: the teachers and the students. It makes sense that the more teaching I do, the more practice I get as a lecturer and my skills improve even if my students are left behind. You throw that into one bag in the presentation of your results." is that you examine the views of professors but claim in the current version (line 293) that "Intrinsic motivation in the current study is domain specific and strictly refers to the students’ joy for learning English when teaching EMI courses.". You cannot test the intrinsic motivation of students by asking their teachers whether they think students feel joy. What you have tested is valuable, but it only encompasses teachers' views. 

 

 

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors greetings.

Thank you for your efforts.

Many successes.