An Empirical Study on the Nature of the Verbal Responses of Humanist Chaplains

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

”An Empirical Study on the Nature of the Verbal Responses of Humanist Chaplains”

 

The topic of this article is innovative, original and, in my view, a contribution to the field of chaplaincy research. Because the draft is submitted to an international journal the case of Humanist chaplains in the Netherlands, need to be further explained. Please describe the landscape of chaplaincy in the Netherlands (How common are the different affiliations? How long have there been humanistic chaplains? Are there any overarching struggles with justifying humanistic chaplaincy?) I pose these questions because humanistic chaplains are not available in all European countries and in some countries they are contested. Also, since the article is submitted to a journal covering religious studies, the relevance of analyzing humanistic chaplains needs to be clarified.

The article needs restructuring and a more clear aim. Now the article features ‘the aim of the approach’ (page 2, row 83) but only describes the aim of the article as an attempt to get more insight (page 2, row 71). I think Roger’s approach should be front loaded to the introduction and contextualized in relation to the background of humanistic chaplains in the Netherlands (see my first comment). This is because, it seems as if Roger’s approach is more than theory, it is part of the method. Decisive for the coding of the data.

I miss a literature review. Is it so that all chaplaincy research fail to cover what chaplains actually do or is it only the humanistic chaplains?

I miss a discussion of methodology. The method used is called conversation analysis but in practice it looks like the author have performed content analysis. The links between coding the type of communication into the four categories nf, nu, da and du needs to be justified in relation to the choice to display quotes in a conversation analysis manner. (On this note. The schema on page 6 need a source reference).

Regarding the inner structure or way of writing, I do not approve of the author’s way of doing what I like to refer to as ‘hit and run’ quotes or tables. Here, ‘hit and run’ means giving a quote without discussing the content before and after. On page 8, row 299, page 9 row 334, page 10, row 375 and row 400 quotes are left without any interpretation after. This makes it really hard to be convinced of the authors analysis/interpretation.

I also do not approve of the one paragraph per subtitle, found for example on page 9.

I judge figure 2 redundant given the content of the table on page 5 (this table lacks a number).  

Finally, the abstract needs to be rephrased in order to fit the new, more analytically driven aim (comment 2).  

Author Response

Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This is a very interesting article, on an important topic. This paper is valuable to improve insight into the conversation of (humanist) chaplains. The paper is well written and the study was carried out well. The topic is interesting for the field of spiritual care in general. 

It can be improved in various ways:

1. it would be good to add some contextual explanation, for international readers: what are humanist chaplains, why do they consider Rogers' approach important and to which degree do they differ from Christian chaplains? In the discussion part, more reflection could be added as well (it is indicated that no comparisons can be made based on this research, but it is not mentioned whether similar research took place within other denominations/countries etc - and as there is some research available, it would be good to compare it).
2. In the second section, part 2.3. needs to be extensively revised. This figure will be the theoretical background for the analysis, but it is unclear what the rationale is for this scheme. First the primary attitudes are discussed, but these are not included in the figure? Why are the primary attitudes discussed here, but not included in the figure? Second, verbal responses are described in the scheme and divided into following and understanding responses, but the reader does not know if these are paradigms of Rogers or from the author itself or from Brodley? The figure also includes directive responses – but it is not explained why this is added to the framework. Also, the fact that there is a distinction between allowed and unallowed is confusing. Maybe it would be better to introduce the figure in the method section and then explain in detail what the schedule is based on: what is in the literature, what are the decisions of the author? Some transparency is missing here. It would be better to discuss in 2.3. the primary attitude of the counselor in detail and explain why this is important to know in this research. It is strongly recommended to rewrite this part of the paper, especially to explain in more detail why this scheme was chosen and on what kind of literature/decisions it is based on.
3. A reader could wonder how you know the response is allowed or unallowed. Are there some guidelines that you followed to score them ‘allowed’ or ‘unallowed’? Also, a new category of ‘a shift’ and ‘repeating words’ is introduced here, but this was not in the figure? It is discovered at random? The parameters to score something ‘allowed’ or ‘not allowed’ should be better explained to increase transparency.
4. In the discussion part, the ‘allowed directive’ answers are not mentioned in the first paragraph. It would be good to summarize all the findings in short in the first paragraph. Line 442-447: can you give an example of the impression that it does not match with the clients’ expectations? Can it be harmful? Now it is mentioned that the ‘shift and repating words’ are discovered inductive, but that was not clear in the result section. Also, it is still unclear how you discovered this.
5. Please mention the relevance of this paper for other chaplains, for research in general, ...

Author Response

Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors

Thank you for a well conducted major revision. 

In the final version, I would like to see the following changes.

Change the sentence on page 1, row 36 so that it does not look like you are referring to a research gap dating back to 1966.

Check that the paragraphs are correctly indicated (see page 5, row 215, for example).

Embed figure 2 in the text. There should be text before and after a figure like that.

Finally I believe that the manuscript would benefit from a final proofreading for flow and clarity.

Good luck

Author Response

Please see the attachement. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf