Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for investigating this topic and trying to link the institutional context to individual digital competency. You have discovered some nuanced findings that will add to the knowledge in the area and that there is not always a direct correlation between perceptions institutional leadership and individual perceptions of competence.

I think the title should be reviewed to reflect the study because although SELFIE is the tool used to carryout the research it is meaningless to the readers until they read the article and it may put them off doing that.

In the abstract the authors need to spell out the SELFIE acronyms and explain what the tools are. This acronym on lines 154-155 needs to be introduced earlier in introduction and in abstract. The authors also need to very briefly explain the progressive competence scale, A1 and B1 …as they will not be meaningful to readers of the abstract.

There needs to be a careful consideration of how the term digital maturity is used throughout the article. The authors need to establish what digital maturity means and how does it relate to proficiency? This will help them be clear about what the questionnaires are actually finding out.

In the research questions line 109-112 talk about competence which are is fine. However, This discussion on line 127- 134 about terminology needs to be at the beginning of the article . I think there needs to be a clear distinction between digital maturity which describes the institutional culture (digital maturity refers to an organization's ability to effectively leverage digital technologies and integrate them into its operations, culture, and strategy to create sustainable value and competitive advantage) and competence which is at the individual level and the research questions really focus on competence. If people are not competent are do not feel competent then this could suggest the digital maturity of the institution is not high, but it might also to do with other factors about the workforce (this needs to be kept in mind).

It would be helpful to describe the Bulgarian education context  (is there support from government on digital infrastructure for example)  and how the 30 institutions are representative of that context. We need more discussion on the sample of schools, representative of the Bulgarian educational context in introduction. And also about the characteristics of foreign language teachers and why it is

Line 163, As I have said before,  here it should be the digital competency of teachers and the maturity of the institution.  Digital competence not digital maturity – line 225-226.

When thinking about dada collection, comment on significance and representativeness of the samples, they were under 100? Line 201-203. If possible say how many potential foreign language teachers were there in the 30 institutions, were they equally distributed? What was the response rate as a percentage? What is it about foreign language teachers that makes them an important group to distinguish from other teachers? Is it helpful to compare this group with other kinds of teachers?

In the results section, 3.1 the list of categories in the table  are not statements, so it is impossible to know what the respondents are agreeing to. For example the statement could be “There is a developed technological  infrastructure” or  it say, “There is a limited Technological Infrastructure”. So it would be better to turn them into statements that the respondent could agree with. I would check the other tables for this.

Line 371-380. This questionnaire seems to ascertain if the tutors do these tasks but it does not evaluate how well they do them. This may be a limitation of the study as it does not capture deep reflection from the tutors.

Also, what the tool doesn’t determine is whether or not the infra-structure is the same in all 30 institutions or whether it is uneven.  (line 591)

Would it be better for the reader to be reminded of the categories of newcomer etc at line 461 when the Professional engagement is introduced?

Lines 698-700 clearly show the relationship between the digital maturity of the institution level and the digital competence of individuals. Ensure this clarity is throughout the article.

Limitations - There needs to be a section that reflects on the limitations of the method. I have already suggested that it does not capture in-depth reflection on digital skills, nor does it indicate how findings are distributed across institutions. It doesn’t explore how other social influences, such as previous learning, social class, gender may influence the results. In other words the link between an institutional maturity and individual competence is assumed to have a direct relationship when there may be other factors that complicate that influence.  The data is based on perception and are teachers the best people to measure their own competence?  

Author Response

Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for the opportunity to review the paper regarding, “Exploring Digital Maturity in Foreign Language Education…”.

Overall, this paper is excellent! All aspects of the study appear to be incredibly well organized, and the results are highly relevant to the fields of instructional technology and language pedagogy.  I would be remiss not to call particular attention to the depth and clarity of the data collected, and how it was precisely presented throughout section 3.  The literature and discussion are incredibly well written, with a professional tone that is accessible to a variety of stakeholders.

I have just a few suggestions of minor reworking that you may want to consider:

Abstract

When you first introduce readers to your findings (in the abstract), you indicate that three areas of improvement have been revealed from the results of this study.  However, as a reader, I am unable to isolate which three are referred to, because I see two sets of combined topics (empowering learners/personalizing the process and assessment/facilitation of learners’ digital competence).  Given that this is one of your distinct points so early in the paper, I would consider reframing those to distinctly clarify the “three” or simply removing the reference to “three”.

Introduction

Although the concept of digital maturity is well defined at the end of the section, moving this, or even adding a brief explanation, at the very beginning would help provide context as we are introduced to the study.

Throughout

Your study is largely premised upon “foreign language” teachers in general, but if I understand correctly, all of the participants were teaching English (albeit as a foreign language in their context).  This leaves me wondering if this was purposeful or coincidental and/or if the results could have been different across different languages in different settings. Perhaps I missed this if it was alluded to, but it may be worth reiterating in the conclusions.

Finally, as someone who was not previously familiar with these assessments, I am wondering if there is are resources available, such as appendices, or snippets that can help us visualize the recommended “levels” of proficiency (such as A1, B1). 

Again, I commend you for your important work in this area!

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This article investigates foreign language teachers’ perceptions of (a) their schools’ digital maturity and (b) their own digital competence by administering two EU-aligned instruments (SELFIE and SELFIE for TEACHERS) to secondary-school teachers in Bulgaria. Overall, the paper is solid, and I recommend only some minor revisions to enhance a few aspects:

1. The authors should discuss the drop-off between the two questionnaires. Even a brief note in the discussion or conclusion about potential differences between the 73 vs. 45 respondents (and why some teachers might not have completed the second survey) would show the authors’ awareness of sample bias. They might reassure readers that despite the smaller second sample, the insights remain valid, or note if any groups (by age, experience) were less represented in stage two. This adds transparency and credibility.
2. Also, it would strengthen the paper to explicitly acknowledge that, due to anonymity, individual responses couldn’t be linked across the two instruments.
3. Given that this is about foreign language education, the authors might consider briefly connecting their findings back to language pedagogy. For example, when discussing the gap in “empowering learners” or personalized learning, they could mention how this might affect foreign language acquisition (e.g. the ability to tailor digital content to different proficiency levels or learning styles). This would help reinforce the relevance of digital maturity specifically for language teachers. It’s a minor point since the paper’s focus is rightly on digital competence broadly, but one or two sentences could remind readers why these digital skills matter for language teaching effectiveness (many of those reasons were mentioned in the intro, such as access to authentic materials).
4. In the conclusion, the authors correctly call for more research using interviews and classroom observations. To strengthen this suggestion, they could be a bit more specific: For example, what kinds of questions might interviews explore? 

I look forward to seeing this article published.

Author Response

Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I have looked at the manuscript and the cover letter showing the changes. I believe all my points have been attended to. I think the tables have very much improved by the statements that have been supplied by the authors.

The distinction between competence and maturity is now much clearer and has been attended to throughout the document. 

There is now a good section limitations of the study.