The Role of Gender and Culture in Vocational Orientation in Science
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors,
The idea to adapt vocational orientation measures is a promising approach in order to address underrepresented groups for a future career in science. The results of the current study are very interesting and can help to design more target group specific vocational orientation offers. Nevertheless, the discussion and presentation of the results can be further improved.
I have some remarks and questions for the authors:
- general: How is the vocational orientation organized in XXX school? Which offers do all students get (curriculum based) and how can they inform themself individually?
- line 77-80: It is well known, that women are underrepresented in science disciplines in general. Nevertheless, the article would benefit from a more detailed analysis of women in different fields of science (e.g. medicine, biology) to gain a better understanding of the correlation between gender and science domain. Maybe some fields are even dominated by women?
- line 160-162: "Here, it had been found that [..] and activities for vocational orientation at university." Do students attend these activities on their own initiative or are they organized by schools (e.g. as field trips)? If so, vocational orientation at university should not be called "popular". Moreover, it would depend on the individual school or national curriculum if the students get the opportunity to join these activities.
- line 166-168: Please explain this hypothesis in more detail. Most of the named sources are online available, so why do students not use them already?
- 3.1.1 & 3.1.2: Please describe the samples in more detail. E.g.: Are girls with MB equally distributed in all age groups?
- line 225-226: "sources the students would like to use more in their vocational orientation". It is not clear why students do not use this sources - own laziness? no sources of this kind available? missing access to sources? own career choice is not due for a few years?
- line 320-321: please give some information about the results concerning the need for information. Same for aspirations. Up to this point it is only mentioned that the samples do not differ.
- Table 2: The effects of gender and migration background are well described. It would also be interesting to see the data for the sub-sample female AND MB, since this is the target group of this study. Which sources do especially girls with MB use / would like to use more often? (Some is already given in Fig.1)
- Table 2: The relation between the used sources and the sources students would like to use more ist not sufficiently described. For example, the high b-value for "open university day" (fem, would like to use more) might be explained by the low b-value in the sources which were used. Vice versa see source "female family member" (fem). In general, when discussing the sources students would like to use more it is important to have a closer look at the sources they already use.
- line 322-382: The sample includes a wide age range (13-19), therefore it would be necessary to analyze these findings in relation to age. Perhaps younger students used generally fewer sources than older students because their career choice is not due for several years or based on the school curriculum? Students, which need to make a career decision in close future seem to be the most interesting sub-sample. The distinction between girls/boy with/without MB is really interesting and important, but maybe not the only influence on the choice and access of vocational information. E.g. vocational orientation in school, like university visits / gir's/boy's day, occurs only in higher grades? Maybe there is also a shift in girls/boy with/without MB in the sample itself which might lead to these findings (e.g. girls with MB are mainly in lower/higher grades)? A more detailed description of the sample seems to be necessary.
- line 437-439: "Among the science students, the odds of having used the source in vocational orientation were higher regarding teachers (1.76; CI95 % 1.11, 438 2.81), fairs (4.40; CI95 % 2.26, 9.16), and Girls’/Boys’ Day (3.44; CI95 % 1.62, 8.00)." Does this indicate that vocational orientation offers by schools are most important when it comes to choosing a career in science?
- line 436-466: "Among the science students, the odds [...] were lower regarding teachers (-465 0.49; CI95 % 0.26, 0.92), and fairs (0.50; CI95 % 0.25, 0.99)." This is not surprising, since science students state that they have used this sources. An analysis of sources university students wanted to use more often needs to keep in mind which sources they actually used. Moreover, this results let assume, that university students had a sufficient vocational orientation by their teachers and fairs (which is good!). An unclear formulation of the findings can easily lead to an inadequate picture, please specify here.
- line 510-511: "Also, building contacts with the university is important for young women irrespective of their cultural background." Based on the data it is not clear, if girls would like to have more contacts with universities to decide (i) if they want to study (or become a trainee) or (ii) if they should choose a science career. Girls with MB often lack female role models at university level.
- line 527-529: "In particular, the findings from this investigation show the need for online video formats in vocational orientation in science that are adapted to young women and students with migration background." This seems to contradict the results in fig. 1 & Tab. 2. Fig. 1 shows that girls with MB would have liked to use more sources like teachers, open days university, other univ. (same for boys with MB). So the question arises, why to produce videos especially for girls, when they do not want to use them? See also line 350-351 "For students with migration background [...] The odds were lower for online videos". It seems like the authors do not want to reject their hypothesis Q1d at least to some point (it seems to be true for the sub-sample boys without MB). Nevertheless, it is very interesting that boys without MB prefer online videos AND chose more often a scientific career that the other groups. It could be assumed, that online videos may positively influence their (boys without MB) choice of a scientific career. Therefore online videos designed for girls and students with MB could also influence their career choice (assumption, can not be proven by data). The only problem is that girls & students with MG do not want to use online video platforms (see Tab. 2) - why? Are they not addressed (in terms of gender, race,...) by already existing videos? This should be discussed in more detail and substantiated by the data as far as possible.
- limitations of the current study are not discussed
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
please find our response to your report attached.
Kind regards,
The authors
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Overall, a very interesting study and manuscript. It may be helpful to define vocational orientation and migration background in the beginning of the Introduction, for those not as familiar.
Much of what is placed in the theoretical framework section should be in the Introduction or a separate Background section. You should add more background resources to support where this study belongs in the field.
Very clear tables
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
We have made major changes to the manuscript, based on your review and those of the other reviewers. We added several more links to the literature in order to make the contribution of this article to the literature clearer. We hope the article now meets your expectations.
Kind regards,
The authors
Reviewer 3 Report
The grades from which the participants are chosen for, must be clarified and justified (i.e. why grade 8-11, which university year the grad students are chosen from).
The sources has to be defined, i.e. for female students, it is said that they rely on different sources (not mentioned formal or informal) while for male students, it is mentioned as informal.
In terms of hypothesis for research questions, it is always meaningful to start with null hypothesis. In that case, the research remains unbiased.
The results of the study is meaningfully presented, the methodology is very clearly explained. But the combination of two studies needs to be linked with enough justifications.
The discussion part is also very thoughtfully explained. Some reference to literature can make the argument stronger.
The general comments are given below.
Line 5: ‘Advocates’ is more appropriate than ‘argues’
Line 8: ‘students’ perception/opinions differed’ is more appropriate than students differed
Line 9 and Line 11: Please refer to the participants as ‘female participants/female learners or male participants/male learners’ than girls or boys
Line 12, 13, 14: it is mentioned that the second study confirms that more professional feedback would be beneficial. However it doesn’t follow up with the previous two findings because there was no mention of professional feedback. To make it more understandable, please build the link between the findings with appropriate connections in the results. (i.e. if the first study shows that more professional finding is necessary, it can follow up with the 2nd study to confirm it, so it is better if it is ‘mentioned’ in the first finding).
Line 16: sentence structuring needs to be revised to make it better understandable.
Line 20: findings ‘can not be made’, similar findings are in line with- may be more appropriate
Line 22: A reference would make the statement stronger. There are very well reputed studies on how social contexts influence career or STEM career.
Line 24: individual perception (individual and self are same in meaning here)
Line 31 and 32: does crucial mean having migration background here?
Line 38-48: Is it necessary to repeat the methodology in the introduction?
Line 60: New paragraph for new discussion point
Line 72: Evidence regarding science? Can you elaborate evidence regarding science what? science related career choice or science learning or science teaching?
Line 79 and 80: What is the purpose of adding the sentence if it’s not true? May be better way to express it would be: ‘With some exceptions’
Line 82: ‘science self-concept’ is quite a complicated term to understand. Does it mean, lower understanding of conceptual science or lower self esteem regarding science related career?
Line 83: ‘which’ influence career development? Sentence revision needed.
Line 87: Please rephrase or explain the term ‘white middle class boys’.
Line 97: Please add a sentence and specify three domains which are going to be discussed afterwards. School, out-of-school and online. It will be easier for the reader to follow. Otherwise, suddenly referring to the third domain creates confusions regarding what are the other two domains.
Line 134, 135: repetition
Line 155-159: belong to literature review
Line 160-162: This hypothesis needs a lot more clarification and justification!
Line 162: There are lots of literature available. Please use keywords for literature search as: STEM career, science related career, gender and career perceptions.
Line 274. 275: Please restructure the sentence, because in the current format the sentence leads to confusion, i.e. the reader may interpret that the values are not extremely high and that leads to redundancy.
Line 289: What value does it add to mix two sets of data and administer CFA?
Line 393: The justification is well understood. But was there any change made for better reliability?
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
thank you for the review of our article. Please find our response in the file attached.
Kind regards,
The authors
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 4 Report
Congratulations on the work you have done. The topic of scientific vocations from the gender and cultural perspectives is a really important topic, and it has been much studied in recent years. The study that is presented contributes to deepening this question.
Here are some suggestions that we hope can help improve the final paper.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for this review. Please find our response to your report in the attached file.
Kind regards,
The authors
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
The reviews were addressed and changes were made accordingly. The restructuring was well in line.
Reviewer 4 Report
Dear authors:
Congratulations on the job.
I think that with the improvements implemented in this version, the final result has increased in quality.
Best regards
