Academic Advising in Civil Engineering: Design and Evaluation of a Hybrid Model

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This article tried to propose an interesting topic as "a hybrid design and evaluation model for engineering education". But little quantitative evidence is provided for supporting the model and conclusions. We all know that coordination and consistency of academic advising policy, protocol, policy and delivery across faculties should be paramount. But only 2 figures show the survey results in this paper. The suggestions are as follows.

1.    Please define the variables, assumptions, and relationship of the proposed model by quantitative study method.
2.    Please improve the description of students' feedback for this project action.
3.    Please check the format carefully (for example as line 320).

Author Response

Please find enclosed responses to reviewer comments on our paper entitled “Academic Advising in Civil Engineering: design and evaluation of a hybrid model”. The authors would like to thank the reviewer very much for their helpful comments and remarks. They are addressed below on a point-by-point basis.

Point 1: Please define the variables, assumptions, and relationship of the proposed model by quantitative study method.

Response 1: the model of academic advising proposed here is a hybrid of the developmental and prescriptive approaches. Unlike scientific models, there are no ‘variables’ or ‘assumptions’ per se. The authors have included elements of each approach, as described widely in the literature, in the hybrid model proposed in this paper.

Point 2: Please improve the description of students' feedback for this project action.

Response 2: The authors agree that the quantitative evidence provided in the original article was limited, however ample qualitative evidence was included through the answers in focus groups and questionnaires. The authors have modified the way in which the feedback is presented, opting for a more graphical representation that we hope is more friendly to the reader. Specifically, section 3 of the paper has been modified and five new figures have been included to expand on the evaluation of student feedback.

Point 3: Please check the format carefully (for example as line 320).

Response 3: The format of the manuscript has been revised and the indentation of figures, tables and bulleted lists is now consistent throughout the article.

Reviewer 2 Report

The Manuscript entitled "Academic Advising in Civil Engineering: design and evaluation of a hybrid model" is very interesting scientific work which for sure is worth publishing. However there are some questions which should be asked with this type of work. It is hard to change the research that were performed but the problem is that the Authors have analysed unusual example of discipline which is academic advising in civil engineering. This is very specific profession which is slightly different than typical studies. 

First of all it is worth to emphasize that (arguing with line 303) it is more male profession than gender-balanced, therefore in some cases if we take practice as an example we might not have meet a woman at work. 

Secondly, even if the reviewer agreed that coffee mornings sound like a great option, the potential "gala dinner" are also a part of this work. The reason is the fact that in civil engineering there are many occasions of celebrating the success. 

And also in this model in the reviewer's opinion there is lack of practicing while it is specific field where should be put more effort on practicing.

Overall merit of the paper is very good and the idea of "master-student" learning type is really appealing. However there are some issues which might be explained why in the presented circumstances the aforementioned issues were not considered.

Author Response

Please find enclosed responses to reviewer comments on our paper entitled “Academic Advising in Civil Engineering: design and evaluation of a hybrid model”. The authors would like to thank the reviewer very much for their helpful comments and remarks. They are addressed below on a point-by-point basis.

Point 1: First of all, it is worth to emphasize that (arguing with line 303) it is more male profession than gender-balanced, therefore in some cases if we take practice as an example, we might not have met a woman at work.

Response 1: Traditionally, it is true that students in civil engineering degrees have been predominately male. Nonetheless, over the past few years, the number of female students in engineering degrees has been increasing steadily. Currently, 33.5% of our students identify as female, 65.9% as male and 0.6% as non-binary. One of the goals at our university is to work towards equality and inclusion. For that reason, we strongly felt that having a gender-balanced group was important when selecting the local class reps.

Point 2: Secondly, even if the reviewer agreed that coffee mornings sound like a great option, the potential "gala dinner" is also a part of this work. The reason is the fact that in civil engineering there are many occasions of celebrating the success.

Response 2: The authors agree that a “gala dinner” could be an option and there are similar events that are organized within the University. However, in this project, we aimed at organizing a series of low-scale, intimate and informal events where students would be comfortable talking to academic advisors, which we believe benefits the long-term relationship between advisers and advisees. Therefore, we decided to organize coffee mornings.

Point 3: And also, in this model in the reviewer's opinion there is lack of practicing while it is specific field where should be put more effort on practicing.

Response 3: In terms of developing the technical skills of an engineer, practice is certainly a needed feature of the educational process. In that sense, the School has a work placement module for Stage 4 students, which is mentioned in section 2.3.2. In addition, one of the goals of the field trip discussed in section 2.3.3 was to show the students a practical application of some of the theoretical concepts that they had discussed in their lectures. Nonetheless, the focus of the article is on the Academic Advising model, rather than on the technical aspects of the civil engineering degrees. In that sense, the academic curriculum itself falls outside of the scope of the paper. However, it is through Academic Advising that students can raise issues similar to the one mentioned by the reviewer, which in turn can lead to changes in the academic activities at the School. For instance, in one of the meetings between local class reps and Year Heads highlighted in Section 3.3, the students express their interest in expanding the number of software applications explored as part of their degree. Although covering every possible software is not possible, this remark by the students helps faculty members to identify how the modules can be modified in a way that both satisfies student concerns and the need for a balance between theoretical and practical approaches to teaching engineering.

Point 4: Overall merit of the paper is very good and the idea of "master-student" learning type is really appealing. However, there are some issues which might be explained why in the presented circumstances the aforementioned issues were not considered.

Response 4: The authors appreciate the positive feedback from the reviewer and hopefully the issues raised have been addressed to the satisfaction of the reviewer.

Reviewer 3 Report

COMMENTS

The caption of “Figure 1” must be on the same page as the Figure.

“Figure 2. Coffee morning” shows persons. Do you have their consent?

“Figure 3. Field trip.” should be “Figure 3. Field trip: (a) ….; (b) …..” explaining them in the caption.

The authors say that “Due to COVID-19 restrictions, but others were planned originally and are intended to take place in future years. Furthermore, a virtual field trip video is in production, so that can be used for pedagogic purposes.”.

I think the authors would have also used a “virtual field trip video” and have discussed also the “Academic Advising in Civil Engineering” under COVID-19 restrictions.

Author Response

Please find enclosed responses to reviewer comments on our paper entitled “Academic Advising in Civil Engineering: design and evaluation of a hybrid model”. The authors would like to thank the reviewer very much for their helpful comments and remarks. They are addressed below on a point-by-point basis.

Point 1: The caption of “Figure 1” must be on the same page as the Figure.

Response 1: The authors have ensured that the caption of Figure 1 is on the same page as the figure in the revised version of the manuscript.

Point 2: “Figure 2. Coffee morning” shows persons. Do you have their consent?

Response 2: Yes, the picture was taken as part of a project activity and students were aware that photographs were being taken.

Point 3: “Figure 3. Field trip.” should be “Figure 3. Field trip: (a) ….; (b) …..” explaining them in the caption.

Response 3: The authors have modified the way in which Figure 3 is presented following the suggestion from the reviewer.

Point 4: The authors say that “Due to COVID-19 restrictions, but others were planned originally and are intended to take place in future years. Furthermore, a virtual field trip video is in production, so that can be used for pedagogic purposes.”. I think the authors would have also used a “virtual field trip video” and have discussed also the “Academic Advising in Civil Engineering” under COVID-19 restrictions.

Response 4: The Academic Advising project was implemented during the current academic year (September 2021 – May 2022) and therefore was influenced to some extent by the COVID-19 pandemic. The difficulty in arranging field trips was one of the main ways in which the planned activities were affected. Managers were concerned about a possible outbreak if a large group of students visited the sites. Hence, only one field trip ended up happening as part of the project; this field trip was recorded because we felt that the video could be of interest to future students. However, it is intended that over the next academic years, in-person field trips will continue occurring, i.e., the field trip video is not envisioned as a replacement for field trips. Regarding the general impact of COVID-19 in the Academic Advising project, the authors have discussed its impact on the project throughout the manuscript. 

Reviewer 4 Report

It is an article that captures the researched issues very well.

Author Response

Point 1: It is an article that captures the researched issues very well.

Response: Thank you very much for your comment and positive feedback.

Reviewer 5 Report

Dear Authors and Editor,

This article presents a hybrid model for Academic Orientation in a School of Civil Engineering. The model seeks to train teachers in Academic Guidance functions and provide them with the necessary resources. It is also intended to expand the interaction of the students to build a relationship between them and the academic advisors. The evaluation of the project is carried out through questionnaires and focus groups. They highlight very positive comments from students, who find these new lines of communication with academic staff useful and productive. Here are my suggestions:

1. Especially it should improve the general structure of the article. The 1 Introduction section contains a 1.1 Context subsection. It should contain another subsection 1.2 with the objectives of the article that, although they are reflected in the abstract, further development and clarity is needed in the final part of the introduction.
2. Also the introduction fails to provide a suitable perceptive on the novelty and importance of the study, while this information needs to be stated clearly in the text. The introduction does not incorporate the main methodological concept adopted in this manuscript. Indeed, what is new? Is it the case study?
3. It would be better to highlight major difficulties and challenges and your original achievements to overcome them in a clearer way in the abstract and introduction
4. In the final part of the introduction you need a brief summary of each section to help you better understand the content of the paper.
5. There are four 2.3.x subsections but no 2.3 section so the reader is thrown off. Please improve the structure of section 2.
6. The graphic content of section 3. Results needs improvements and application through new figures of results.
7. The discussion should summarize the manuscript's main finding(s) in the context of the broader scientific literature and address any limitations of the study or results that conflict with other published work.
8. There are no conclusions (another flaw in the structure). Conclusions should be highlighted in a clear and concise way, perhaps through bullet points.

With kind regards

Author Response

Please find the response to the comments enclosed in the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The quantitative analysis has been supplemented in this paper.

Reviewer 3 Report

The revised paper can be accepted.

Reviewer 5 Report

Dear Authors and Editor,

The authors made improvements to the manuscript accordingly to the suggestions within the review process. In my opinion the current version can be accepted for publication.

Fine document, congratulations to the authors!!

Kind regards