Dependence of Socio-Emotional Competence Expression on Gender and Grade for K5–K12 Students
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The subject matter of the article is of great interest today, considering that social-emotional competences affect children's academic performance and affect their behaviour and relationships with others. The article is well structured.
In the key words, change pupil to level of study. I do not think that educational activity is a key word, there is no reference to the activities that enhance social-emotional competences in the objectives of the work.
Theoretical framework: the definition of social-emotional competence should be further elaborated, although there is no agreement as to its definition, it is convenient to cite some authors who have been criticised. In section 1.2, specify methodologies or types of activities to work on these competences.
Reference 27 in the text, change comma to and
Results, add a table in which the levels of each dimension of socioemotional competence are presented.
Author Response
Sincere appreciation for your comments and suggestions. We have tried to respond to each of your observations and correct the paper. We hope its quality has improved and it will be of interest to other researchers and those interested in the subject.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
It is a manuscript of interest to the scientific community and to researchers in the field of socioemotional competencies.
In order to improve it, it would be necessary to:
Revise the research questions and the stated objective. They are not coherent.
The stated objective is not consistent with the title of the manuscript or with the research questions.
It seems that you wish to address two aspects:
1. the construct validation and 2. the analysis of socioemotional competencies in students.
However, the introduction and the results are more focused on the analysis of socioemotional competencies.
In the methodology (section 2.1) they indicate that they made a graphical representation of the means of the subscales and it is not included in the results. This is more related to construct validation.
Revise the wording of section 2.3. Add reference indicating the desirable values of Cronbach's alpha to consider the consistency of an instrument.
Section 3.1: review coherence between subtitle and content. You indicate sociodemographic characteristics and then present results mainly according to gender.
Section 3.3: revise wording where it says: were moderately strongly, positively/// were approximately moderately.
The discussion of the results is made with new references that were not included in the introduction. The references included in the introduction are not considered for the discussion of results.
It is recommended that adjustments be made to make the manuscript more coherent.
It is recommended to include a graph or figure that summarizes the results.
Perform a plagiarism control, since coincidences with internet sources were found in two paragraphs.
Author Response
Sincere appreciation for your comments and suggestions. We have tried to respond to each of your observations and correct the paper. We hope its quality has improved and it will be of interest to other researchers and those interested in the subject.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
I do not feel comfortable giving a final recommendation without an actual example of the research tool used for the study.
The English language and style is acceptable.
The research question / SEL is relevant.
Author Response
Sincere appreciation for your comments and suggestions.
POINT 1: I do not feel comfortable giving a final recommendation without an actual example of the research tool used for the study.
The legal translation of Lithuanian version should be made in this regard.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
You have made the recommended adjustments.
Reviewer 3 Report
Revision acceptable.
