Skills for a Working Future: How to Bring about Professional Success from the Educational Setting

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article addresses a subject linked to the objectives of the journal and meets the minimum criteria of the same. It is an article that addresses a current topic but here are some comments that after reading the document, its treatment can increase its quality and understanding.

- A good theoretical framework is established in accordance with the topic addressed but given the current situation and the subject matter being addressed, incorporate the impact of covid into the logic of the discourse, even if it is not addressed in the results and discussion section as the authors detail.

- On the other hand, regarding the objectives, it should be specified that this is going to be done from the perspective of documentary analysis.

- At a methodological level, the criteria for choosing and excluding the final sample of documents and the analysis procedure performed are not clear.

- In the results section, it is recommended that a study of these characteristics address both a descriptive quantitative analysis and a more detailed qualitative analysis of the ideas that are addressed in said articles at the level of objectives, results, most relevant contributions, conclusions of studies based on the skills addressed.

- In the discussion of results section, it would be important for the authors to refer to how the research objectives have been achieved based on the research carried out.

- It would also be interesting to incorporate weaknesses and strengths of the study as well as future lines.

I hope the authors can make these improvements in order to give the document robustness and quality.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We would like to express our gratitude for the time taken to review this manuscript and for the comments made, which we believe to be critical for producing rigorous and quality research. We have detailed below the changes made in the original article: “Skills for a Working Future. How to Bring about Professional Success from the Educational Setting”.

Modifications have been made in the original manuscript following the reviewers’ comments. For each modification we have written: the original comment as written by the reviewer in addition to the page and line number; and the change made in response to that comment. Changes have been made using the tool “Track changes” enabling editor and reviewers to identify modifications easily.

MODIFICATIONS

Comment 1: 

- A good theoretical framework is established in accordance with the topic addressed but given the current situation and the subject matter being addressed, incorporate the impact of covid into the logic of the discourse, even if it is not addressed in the results and discussion section as the authors detail.

Response 1.

The impact of the pandemic on the object of study is mentioned in lines 502-512.

Comment 2: 

On the other hand, regarding the objectives, it should be specified that this is going to be done from the perspective of documentary analysis.

Response 2:

Objectives have been modified (Lines 305-308):

• To identify the most in-demand skills the job market through a systematic review of the literature.
• To analyze in the literature the type of proposals elaborated by educational systems to target student upskilling and facilitate their incorporation into the occupational setting.

Comment 3: 

At a methodological level, the criteria for choosing and excluding the final sample of documents and the analysis procedure performed are not clear.

Response 3:

The selection and exclusion criteria are specified in the lines 315-335.

Comment 4: 

In the results section, it is recommended that a study of these characteristics address both a descriptive quantitative analysis and a more detailed qualitative analysis of the ideas that are addressed in said articles at the level of objectives, results, most relevant contributions, conclusions of studies based on the skills addressed.

Response 4.

In the results section, the quantitative data has been presented, although in the discussion section the results have been detailed from a more qualitative perspective to give a more exhaustive answer to the objectives set out in the research. For example, what are the most demanded skills and what do they refer to or what are the programs implemented in the educational field to develop these skills and what they consist of.

Comment 5: 

In the discussion of results section, it would be important for the authors to refer to how the research objectives have been achieved based on the research carried out.

Response 5:

The discussion has been organized in response to the two objectives addressed in the research. See changes made in section 5 (lines 384-387 and lines 427-439).

Comment 6: 

It would also be interesting to incorporate weaknesses and strengths of the study as well as future lines.

Response 6:

Have been incorporated weaknesses and strengths of the study as well as future lines (lines 518-524):

“The greatest strength of the presented paper is the in-depth bibliographic review work that has been carried out. No limitations have been found in the development of this research, beyond the aforementioned absence of research on some skills for future work. The future line of research is connected with the research project in which we are working, whose main objective is to know what skills for the future work are presented by students who are in the last stages of the educational system in Spain, more specifically in Andalusia, as well as what are the skills most demanded by employers in this context.”

Reviewer 2 Report

There is a typo in line 134.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We would like to express our gratitude for the time taken to review this manuscript and for the comments made, which we believe to be critical for producing rigorous and quality research.

Reviewer 3 Report

The article deals with the skills needed for the 21st century. The literary review is excellent and is the main strength of the article. The article is ready for publication. There is only one point that needs fixing. In the graphical representations in which percentages appear, the absolute numbers must also be sorted. Sometimes the absolute numbers are very small. This indicates that the research literature has only begun in recent years to deal with the issue highlighted in the article. The sentence in lines 30-31 is not clear to me. Maybe there is a linguistic error there.

Author Response

We would like to express our gratitude for the time taken to review this manuscript and for the comments made, which we believe to be critical for producing rigorous and quality research. We have detailed below the changes made in the original article: “Skills for a Working Future. How to Bring about Professional Success from the Educational Setting”.

Modifications have been made in the original manuscript following the reviewers’ comments. For each modification we have written: the original comment as written by the reviewer in addition to the page and line number; and the change made in response to that comment. Changes have been made using the tool “Track changes” enabling editor and reviewers to identify modifications easily.

MODIFICATIONS

Comment 1: 

In the graphical representations in which percentages appear, the absolute numbers must also be sorted.

Response 1:

Figures 2, 3 and 4 have been modified to include the percentages and absolute numbers (see pages 9 and 10).

Comment 2: 

The sentence in lines 30-31 is not clear to me. Maybe there is a linguistic error there.

Response 2:

The sentence expressed in lines 30-32 has been modified to clarify its content:

• BEFORE: “Sukhodolov alludes to the concept of Industry 4.0 in reference to industrial production processes which are influenced by ongoing digitalization and automation of production processes”.
• AFTER: “Sukhodolov alludes to the concept of Industry 4.0 in reference to industrial production processes which are influenced by digitalization and automation”.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Once the new version of the manuscript has been reviewed, I consider that the authors have not taken into account my recommendations for the improvement of the manuscript.

A manuscript of these characteristics must meet minimum criteria of rigor that are not clear in the methodological framework of the manuscript.

• The selection and exclusion criteria are detailed but not justified. The authors do not clearly justify the selection and exclusion criteria of the 42 documents that make up their sample. Finally, why are some inclusion / exclusion variables used first and then others are incorporated? How is the consideration of these variables justified?
• On the other hand, I consider that the authors should have incorporated a new section in which they better define the 42 documents object of the analysis based on Tables 1 and 2 and Figures 1 and 2. From there it is recommended that the authors describe the characteristics of the 42 documents under analysis. What years are those 42 documents from? What are the topics they address? What type of document is it? . I believe that this information is not the results of the study, but rather a characterization of the study sample.
• At another point, regarding the results, they are scattered and it is important that they focus on the established categories of analysis and on the sample under study, not on the 2045 pre-selected articles. Any analysis of this type carries a quantitative and qualitative contribution and must be exposed in this section.
• The qualitative interpretation of the articles is important to appear in the results based on the categories of analysis established to support the choice and justify the interpretations that the authors defend in the discussion of results.

In general terms, I consider that the article continues to have weak aspects in the methodological section and in the presentation of results and that the authors should argue, justify and develop these two sections further.

Author Response

Dear reviewer and editor,
We would like to express our gratitude for the time taken to review this manuscript and for the comments made, which we believe to be critical for producing rigorous and quality research. We have detailed below the changes made in the original article: “Skills for a Working Future. How to Bring about Professional Success from the Educational Setting”.

Taking into account the comments and suggestions for improvement provided by the reviewer, sections 3 and 4 of the paper have been rewritten, corresponding to "Materials and Methods" and "Results" (pages 7-16).

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

To congratulate the authors on the effort made and to apply the appropriate changes in this new version of the manuscript. The article has improved in quality and presentation of methodology and results that favour quality and understanding of it.