Postsecondary Participants’ Beliefs About International Agricultural Issues

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Excellent study that should be published. Great work! 

Author Response

Reviewer #1

Comments and Suggestions for Authors:

Excellent study that should be published. Great work!

Response: We greatly appreciate your comments to help us improve this manuscript.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors

Thank you for the opportunity to review your article, “Postsecondary Participants’ Beliefs about International Agricultural Issues”. This document recognises the universities' challenges in preparing students to become global citizens, particularly regarding staff attitudes towards international agriculture.

After reading it carefully, I would like to provide substantial feedback and suggestions for improvement.

1.     Introduction

The introductory section would greatly benefit from a more detailed explanation. A comprehensive delineation of the current gaps in the literature, combined with a clear articulation of the research's core objectives and aims, would significantly assist readers in comprehending the trajectory of the study.

In this regard, I suggest removing Lines 111-118 from point 2-Material and Methods and including it in the introduction.

2.     Material and methods

The research instrument had three sections. The sections use a 6-point scale. In future research, I suggest in future a 5-point scale or 7-point scale with a neutral point (3- neither agree nor disagree; 5- neither agree nor disagree).

I recommend authors build and test hypotheses based on the most recently published literature.

I recommend a confirmatory factor analysis to assess the reliability of the sections and convergent validity.

3.     Discussion / Conclusions

The discussion chapter thoroughly supported the results presented in the article or referenced.

There isn’t a conclusion chapter. I suggest that you include the limitations of the work in this chapter. 

4.     References

The authors should review all the references. Some examples:

·       There are five literature sources from 2024, two from 2023 and two from 2022. The literature background appears somewhat outdated. It is not sufficient to cite newer sources alongside older ones; instead, it is necessary to rebuild the literature foundation using the latest research, at least partially from journals.

·       Some citations in the work are not mentioned in the references: De Wit & Altbach, (2021), line 301; Creswell 2005, line 121; Twenge, 2021, line 109,….

·       There are references in the work that are not mentioned in the text: de Wit, H., & Altbach, P. G. (2020). Internationalization in higher education: global trends and recommendations for its 466 future. Policy Reviews in Higher Education, 5(1), 28–46. https://doi.org/10.1080/23322969.2020.1820898 (line 466); Creswell, J. W. (2013). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches, 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA, USA: 462 Sage Publications (line 462);

·       …

 Kind Regards.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Reviewer #2

Comments and Suggestions for Authors:

Dear Authors

Thank you for the opportunity to review your article, “Postsecondary Participants’ Beliefs about International Agricultural Issues”. This document recognises the universities' challenges in preparing students to become global citizens, particularly regarding staff attitudes towards international agriculture.

Response: We greatly appreciate your comments to help us improve this manuscript. Specific comments and suggestions were addressed in the manuscript, as noted by track changes.

After reading it carefully, I would like to provide substantial feedback and suggestions for improvement.

1. Introduction

The introductory section would greatly benefit from a more detailed explanation. A comprehensive delineation of the current gaps in the literature, combined with a clear articulation of the research's core objectives and aims, would significantly assist readers in comprehending the trajectory of the study.

Response: We agree with these suggestions and have added to the literature with a section on postsecondary learning environments.

 

In this regard, I suggest removing Lines 111-118 from point 2-Material and Methods and including it in the introduction.

Response: We agree with these suggestions and made corrections in the revised version.

 

2. Material and methods

The research instrument had three sections. The sections use a 6-point scale. In future research, I suggest in future a 5-point scale or 7-point scale with a neutral point (3- neither agree nor disagree; 5- neither agree nor disagree).

I recommend authors build and test hypotheses based on the most recently published literature.

I recommend a confirmatory factor analysis to assess the reliability of the sections and convergent validity.

Response: These are excellent points. Because we were interested in replicating previous response scales, to be used for internal applications to our course materials, we included “Limitations” regarding instrument concerns and provided your suggestions to future researchers to improve the research instrument. Thank you.

 

3. Discussion / Conclusions

The discussion chapter thoroughly supported the results presented in the article or referenced.

There isn’t a conclusion chapter. I suggest that you include the limitations of the work in this chapter. 

Response: Thank you for these suggestions. We incorporated our conclusions into the discussion and added a new section for the limitations.

 

4. References

The authors should review all the references. Some examples:

• There are five literature sources from 2024, two from 2023 and two from 2022. The literature background appears somewhat outdated. It is not sufficient to cite newer sources alongside older ones; instead, it is necessary to rebuild the literature foundation using the latest research, at least partially from journals.

Response: We added new perspectives to the literature review.

 

• Some citations in the work are not mentioned in the references: De Wit & Altbach, (2021), line 301; Creswell 2005, line 121; Twenge, 2021, line 109,….

Response: We apologize. Autocorrect changed the author’s last name from “de Wit,” to “De Wit.” The original citation was included in the reference list, immediately following Creswell (2013).

 

• There are references in the work that are not mentioned in the text: de Wit, H., & Altbach, P. G. (2020). Internationalization in higher education: global trends and recommendations for its 466 future. Policy Reviews in Higher Education, 5(1), 28–46. https://doi.org/10.1080/23322969.2020.1820898 (line 466);

Response: We acknowledge this error (caused by autocorrect) and corrected the spelling to “de Wit” in the revised version.

 

 Creswell, J. W. (2013). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches, 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA, USA: 462 Sage Publications (line 462);

Response: We acknowledge this error and apologize for listing an incorrect year for Creswell in the narrative; it has been corrected.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Overall, I find the quality of this work to be high and I only have a few notes for improvement. 

First, in the section that discusses non-response, the authors use Lindner & Wigenbach (2002) to justify their methods for controlling non-response errors. However, it is unclear if this method was used for the 82% response rate or the adjusted 45% response rate. Because it appears to be the latter, I would like to point out that Lindner & Wigenbach (2002) recommend a 50% minimum response rate. That being said, due to the need for practicality in this type of research and my fear that we could endlessly trade citations on the arguments for and against the continuum of resistance model for non-respondents, I think the addition of a statement cautioning readers about generalizability is warranted and would alleviate my concerns. 

My other main note is related to the ANOVA and t-tests used for data analysis. I want to commend the authors on keeping their analysis techniques within reasonable bounds of statistical power. However, the number of responses for the t-tests straddles the line for statistical power when looking for anything below medium effect size. I question whether additional significant differences were present, but the effect size was too small to be adequately detected. However, since a smaller effect size is associated with less substantive results, I don't think this detracts from the overall findings, but I would like to see it addressed in the discussion section.  

Again, I appreciate the high quality of the authors' work, and I look forward to the full publication of this manuscript in the near future. 

Author Response

Reviewer #3

Comments and Suggestions for Authors:

Overall, I find the quality of this work to be high and I only have a few notes for improvement. 

First, in the section that discusses non-response, the authors use Lindner & Wigenbach (2002) to justify their methods for controlling non-response errors. However, it is unclear if this method was used for the 82% response rate or the adjusted 45% response rate. Because it appears to be the latter, I would like to point out that Lindner & Wigenbach (2002) recommend a 50% minimum response rate. That being said, due to the need for practicality in this type of research and my fear that we could endlessly trade citations on the arguments for and against the continuum of resistance model for non-respondents, I think the addition of a statement cautioning readers about generalizability is warranted and would alleviate my concerns. 

Response: Thank you for these thoughtful comments. We corrected the errors by explaining more thoroughly our processes, including sample sizes.

 

My other main note is related to the ANOVA and t-tests used for data analysis. I want to commend the authors on keeping their analysis techniques within reasonable bounds of statistical power. However, the number of responses for the t-tests straddles the line for statistical power when looking for anything below medium effect size. I question whether additional significant differences were present, but the effect size was too small to be adequately detected. However, since a smaller effect size is associated with less substantive results, I don't think this detracts from the overall findings, but I would like to see it addressed in the discussion section.

Response: Yes, we agree with your assessment. Thank you! Small effect sizes imply limited practical effect of the variable tested. We included statements warranting caution in generalizing the results beyond the respondent group in several places (Methods and Limitations).

 

Again, I appreciate the high quality of the authors' work, and I look forward to the full publication of this manuscript in the near future. 

Response: Thank you for helping us improve our work. We sincerely appreciate your service to the profession.

 

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

You have resubmitted the manuscript after adressing all the comments in their revised version, clearly and objectively. 
The quality of the article has improved, which could enhance its impact.