External Locus-of-Hope and Collectivist Coping in Students from Three Asian Cities
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Please see attached file for comments.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Reviewer 1
Thank you for the opportunity to review this work, which I believe to be a crucial step forward in the advancement of research contextualized within positive education, and in advancing research on the locus-of-hope construct. Below, I offer suggestions on how the current work might be improved.
Response: We thank the reviewer for this very encouraging comment.
o Pg 1, Paragraph 1: It would be helpful here to distinguish hope more clearly as either a character strength (as per strengths typologies such as the VIA) or as per Snyder’s hope theory (as goal-directed orientations and cognitions). The conceptions are not directly interchangeable, so distinguishing between how the construct is used at the start would be helpful, as would say, contrasting trait and state hope, given how some conceptions and studies have considered hope an emotion instead of a form of goal-directed cognition.
Response: We thank the reviewer for this calling attention to this important point. We revised the introductory paragraph to more carefully differentiate among the different conceptions of hope in the positive education literature (i.e., hope as emotion, as character strength, as positive goal-related cognitions), and clarify that the theoretical premise of the study is anchored in the Snyder’s cognitive theory of hope. Please see lines 29 to 36 of the revised manuscript.
o Pgs 2-3: The treatment and review of the previous literature are commendable and expansive. It is intriguing – and a possible contribution of the current paper, to determine the conditions for why external locus-of-hope leads to maladaptive outcomes. This point could be highlighted in a bit more detail, however – can these unexpected findings simply be attributed to the use of coping measures developed in Western, individualistic societies?
Response: On page 3, lines 105-108, we suggest how external locus-of-hope might bring about maladaptive outcomes.
o Pg 3: The rationale for the current work seems to rest heavily on the argument that coping is not universal across cultures, and that the external locus-of-hope and coping connection be re-examined by employing a collectivist coping measure instead. In justifying this better (and space permitting), it would be useful to present arguments here from the literature showing that coping approaches are indeed different across cultures, perhaps shaped by facets such as interdependence, social mobility/power distance, or even on the masculinity-femininity dimension.
Response: We expanded the discussion on cultural model of coping on page 3, lines 125 to 133, and in lines 139-141. In the original manuscript, we were too hasty in settling on the notion of collectivist coping; so in this revision, we provided some discussion of how culture relates to the different facets of coping [lines 125 to 128], of empirical studies that short cultural variations in these facets of coping [line 128 to 130] and refer cultural level factors that have been assumed to underlie these cultural differences [lines 131-133].
o Pgs 4-5: The measures’ psychometric properties are generally acceptable and in line with what is found in previous studies employing the locus-of-hope measure. It would, nonetheless, lend additional confidence to the psychometric stability of the measure if it were subjected to say, a confirmatory factor analysis.
Response: We reported confirmatory factor analysis results for the two scales in two paragraphs that also report on the internal consistency coefficients. Please see page 5, lines 223 to 234 and lines 245 to 253.
o Pg 5: it might help to provide a rationale for the inclusion of specific variables in each ‘block’ of the hierarchical regression analysis. Having reviewed the supplementary file, the list of intercorrelations appears to focus on focal variables, but not say, the demographic differences – so the justification for inclusion of age and sex seems unjustified here. The supplementary file also includes the intercorrelations for the Johor Bahru sample, but this is not part of the current study. I might have missed something here, but if the data were collected and some part of it was published on a different paper, then this should be made clear in the submission.
Response: We added the correlations between age, sex, and the other factors in the supplementary table, and refer to it as the bases for including age and sex in the first block of the hierarchical regression analysis (see page 6, lines 285-286). As regards the Johor Bahru sample, data were collected and analyzed. However, we noted that the scores in one of the locus-of-hope variables was negatively skewed with a very high kurtosis, which prompted us to further look at the raw data. We suspect either an error in the encoding or some issues in the translated wording of some of the items but could not determine for sure what was wrong. So we decided that the data could not be analyzed further. The data will not be published in a different paper because the data are actually unusable (not analyzable).
o Pg 6: While the analyses are performed correctly, it would help to ‘frame’ the analyses by stating, more explicitly, the hypotheses that were tested. It seems that the study intends to examine how locus-of-hope predicts collectivist coping approaches, but without clear or specific hypotheses, the study seems to be ‘exploratory,’ with the general aim of examining simple linear relationships between external-locus-of-hope and collectivist coping. Understandably, this isn’t part of the study, so I feel the study could have benefitted from examining possible interactions between locus-of-hope and collectivist coping with say, a well-being outcome. A justification for why this was not done might be stated somewhere in the justification of the study, or perhaps in the discussion.
Response: We acknowledge the exploratory nature of our study and analysis and call attention to this in different parts of the paper. Please see, page 4 lines 177 to 179, page 6 lines 276 to 280, and page 11 lines 445 to 448. However, as the reviewer makes very important suggestions, we included discussions related not only to interactions among the locus-of-hope dimensions, but on other potentially theoretically meaningful relationships among the variables. Please see page 11, lines 433 to 455.
o Pg 8: Following on the previous point, it is claimed that collectivist coping styles are ‘plausible mediators’ in explaining the locus-of-hope and well-being link. I’m wondering if adding this variable to the study would have made the study more ‘complete,’ with results that would have offered greater practical implications than the study currently has.
Response: We acknowledge the lack of clear practical implications of the study and modified our statements related to implications in the abstract and the discussion. We added some more direct statements on some possible implications (page 11, lines 465 to 469).
However, we agree about the importance of ultimately studying the link to student well-being and call attention to this in the revised discussion. In addition to the original reference to this point (page 9, lines 349 to 352), we refer and briefly discuss this as a point for future research on page 11, lines 441 to 443, lines 449 to 453.
o Pg 8: Minor point here regarding the conceptualization of religion and spirituality – the terms are not synonymous, so it would be helpful to detail its conceptualization and operationalization in a bit more detail, perhaps in the methods and measures section.
Response: We agree with the reviewer’s observation. However, the RS collectivist coping style was inductively constructed and the original studies did not provide deeper exposition on the conflation of the factors. We clarify this point on page 4, lines 152 5o 158.
o Pg 9: Provide some arguments on how the current study offers theoretical contributions owing to its use of a culture-sensitive measure of coping, i.e. collectivist coping. Such statements should be contextualized within the broader literature on cross-cultural differences in coping, well-being, or hope. If possible, a short statement or two regarding the practical implications of the study would also be warranted here.
Response: We added more discussion points related to the cultural dimensions of coping and how this relates to a more cultural view of hope. Please see the related discussion points on page 10 lines 399 to 405, and 417 to 423, and page 11 lines 424 to 432.
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
The topic of the conducted research is of utmost importance, particularly in pandemic times. So, for a better understanding of the study, I recommend the following:
1. In the INTRODUCTION section, the relevance of the study should be better emphasized. Why is the study important? Why is it useful?
2. In the MATERIALS AND METHODS section, the period when the survey was carried out should be mentioned. If the survey was carried out when the COVID-19 outbreak occurred, then probably additional external stress factors could influence students’ responses. So, I think that mentioning the period and a short description of the situational context could be beneficial to understanding and justifying the research and research results.
3. In the MATERIALS AND METHODS section, the closed or open questions included in the questionnaire should be presented, or the questionnaire should be included as an annex at the end of the article. Somehow, that section is confusing as the reader does not quite understand the way the results described in the RESULTS section had been obtained.
4. Spelling and punctuation should be checked once more.
The analysis and the topic are interesting, but the presentation of the research should be improved, as suggested above, for the study to be worth publishing in the journal.
Good luck!
Author Response
- In the INTRODUCTION section, the relevance of the study should be better emphasized. Why is the study important? Why is it useful?
Response: We added a brief statement on the possible importance of the study. Please see page 2, lines 53 to 55. To support this statement, we expanded the discussion to better clarify the important theoretical implications of the study (please see page 10, lines 399 to 405, and pages 10 to 11, lines 417 to 469).
- In the MATERIALS AND METHODS section, the period when the survey was carried out should be mentioned. If the survey was carried out when the COVID-19 outbreak occurred, then probably additional external stress factors could influence students’ responses. So, I think that mentioning the period and a short description of the situational context could be beneficial to understanding and justifying the research and research results.
Response: On page 4, lines 183 to 186, we clarify that the study was conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic.
- In the MATERIALS AND METHODS section, the closed or open questions included in the questionnaire should be presented, or the questionnaire should be included as an annex at the end of the article. Somehow, that section is confusing as the reader does not quite understand the way the results described in the RESULTS section had been obtained.
Response: We added a Supplementary Table to show all the items. We also provided more description of the data gathering process (please see page 4 line 193 to 197) and the data preparations for analysis (page 6, lines 256 to 259).
- Spelling and punctuation should be checked once more.
Response: We copyedited the revised manuscript and we corrected numerous spelling errors, punctuation errors, missing words, improperly constructed sentences. We also simplified several sentences that were too “wordy” and tried to improve the readability of several sentences and paragraphs.
The analysis and the topic are interesting, but the presentation of the research should be improved, as suggested above, for the study to be worth publishing in the journal.
Response: We thank the reviewer for this very encouraging comment.
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
The article looks fine to me. Everything is coherently and logically presented.
Good luck!
All the best,
The Reviewer
