Online Peer-Tutoring for Programming Languages Based on Programming Ability and Teaching Skill

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper contributes to the actual and important questions such as digital learning, facilitation of learning, peer learning and tutoring.  Besides, some important issues of teaching informatics and particularly programming are covered.

The paper has a clear structure. All illustrative material is appropriate.

There are several specific comments on the paper:   

1.      References section should contain about 1/3 of sources within the last 5 years (since 2018). However, in the current version all sources are rather old. Therefore, this might reveal several questions. Has research been done in this area in the last few years? If no, why? If yes, why the authors have not analysed such research and ideas? The problem of online tutoring and peer tutoring is rather actual, so there surely must be some significant research in this area. If the authors feel that they can not base their research on recent sources for some reasons, this should be explained somewhere in the text of the paper.  

2.      There is no Discussion section in the paper. However, it would be useful to compare the particular research results with some other similar.   

3.      A more clear discussion of the limitations and perspectives of the study is recommended.

1.      It is not clear enough from the current text what digital platform for peer tutoring and teaching programing the authors used. Is it their own development? Or did they implemented some particular changes (and if yes, what exactly) to some existing digital platform?

Author Response

Please see the attachment. Thank you very much~

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The article describes the effects of the online peer tutoring platform for programming languages on students' learning performance and attitudes towards programming languages.

The study is interesting and is a good contribution for all those who are interested about the problems of learning programming. However, the text is somewhat confusing with too many tables and confusing description.

I don't see any difference between Introduction - 1.1. Research Background and Motivation and section 2 Literature Review.

How can we say that the show significant progress in learning using the online peer tutoring platform? Compared to what?

According to the figures presented, the tutor writes the solution to the problem?! I don't think that is the best way to help a struggling student.

Aspects to review:

Great confusion with references throughout the paper should review and standardize. Should use numbers [1].

Line 53 and others: "Kelleher and Pausch (2005)" should standardize the use of references. If you use this way, remove the year.

Line 69: change reference according to previous ones. It does not make sense to use 1995.

Figure 1: There are two Step 2, should be changed. In the text referring to figure 1 it is not clear if the tutee visualises the compilation errors! Only the Tutor?

Figures 2 and 4 are the same. Review.

Figures 3 and 5 Same. Revision.

Line 314: remove the expression "total people / 2" !!!

Table 2 and others: Should be joined, not separated on different pages.

Table 12: First column does not have the same formatting.

Author Response

Please see the attachment. Thank you very much~ 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors answered and argued all the points made. The authors improved the quality of the paper.