Student Acceptance of E-Learning during the COVID-19 Outbreak at Engineering Universities in Spain
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Thank you for the opportunity to review your study on student acceptance of e-learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper is generally well-written and presents a mixed-methods approach to refining and applying UTAUT to an investigation of student intention to adopt the use of MS Teams during the Pandemic.
On the plus side, the development and testing of the theoretical model in SmartPLS was well executed and thoroughly documented. However, the qualitative aspects of the study seem to be underreported and used primarily to validate a model chosen a priori, rather than a means to discover issues that may lead to the selection of an appropriate theoretical framework to embed the study. This is disappointing, as in any mixed-methods sequential design where ‘quant’ follows ‘qual’, the robustness of the quantitative results hinges on the rigour and appropriateness of the underlying qualitative analysis. At the very least I would have expected to see some discussion on the appropriateness of applying the UTAUT framework (compared to other approaches) based on an analysis of the data extracted from the focus groups (not merely a vindication of UTAUT).
Another major issue I have with this paper is the conflation of MS teams with e-learning platforms in general. This platform was primarily designed as a real-time collaboration and communication tool. While it certainly can be adapted for use as an e-learning tool, it lacks the sophistication of purpose-built e-learning environments such as Moodle and Canvass. It is ‘drawing a long bow’ to generalise findings of a study based on MS Teams adoption to e-learning in general. Please reflect on the validity of your claim in the conclusion with a view to re-wording it to reflect the limitations of your study (I’d be inclined to replace e-learning with MS Teams):
“This implies that universities wishing to introduce e-learning under the current scenario should focus on creating a positive social environment around the e-learning platform, for example by using social networks, or relying on testimonies by professionals who could confirm the interest of such a platform in a future work environment. Universities should also be very attentive to proposing students with e-learning solutions that are used and valued in professional environments.”
It would also be helpful to define/list the characteristics of the e-learning tools mentioned in your study - if only to validate the selection of MS teams as a platform representative of e-learning environments in general.
Finally, you have not mentioned any limitations to your study, nor have you proposed future avenues of research. This is an important part of the conclusion and indicates a measure of self-reflection on the part of the researchers on possible areas of weakness in a study. Some limitations/future research proposals you could consider including:
· The findings of this study are limited to an exploration of MS teams adoption and may not be applicable to other e-learning platforms
· The study was conducted in two tertiary institutions in Spain and may not have validity in other national/cultural contexts
· Future research endeavours could include an exploration of the acceptance of e-learning in other national/geographic contexts using platforms other than MS Teams.
I Hope these comments are of assistance
Author Response
Answer to reviewer 1
Thank you so much for your valuable comments and recommendations. We have tried to provide an answer them and hope that they will respond to your expectations. See document attached.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The structure of the article is correct and appropriate. First, the author presents the theoretical assumptions of the work in detail, and then presents his own research methodology. The article ends with an extensive analysis of the research results, which is very well done. The article in the theoretical part begins with the presentation of the situation that found us all in 2019, which was the COVID virus pandemic. Then the author presents a theoretical presentation of models for testing the acceptance of technology. This description is clear and clear. Then, the author developed the appropriate hypotheses, which formed the basis for the analysis of the obtained research results. The author also properly presented the research sample, taking into account the following criteria: • Gender balance • Inclusion of students from different academic levels (under 153). bachelor's, master's and doctorate) • Diversified program specializations • Diversified geographical locations in Madrid. The analysis of the test results was carried out thoroughly and in detail. It must be admitted that it was carried out in accordance with the assumed research methodology. I believe that the presented research results are very important in the context of future education with the use of information and communication technologies.Author Response
We thank you for your encouraging and positive comments. Best wishes and season’s greetings.
Reviewer 3 Report
I have some suggestions for the authors to enhance their work;
The abstract is very brief; it doesn't present the main objective of the review; please make sure to rewrite the abstract so that the reader will understand your work and what it offers.
Line 8; More distils about the study participants are required ( are they undergraduate or postgraduate? And why?
Line 7; more details about the methods used
Please provide more information about the results of this study.
The introduction usually covers all research variables, going from general to more specific; you only covered the challenges in online learning!!
I would recommend the reverse triangle method when writing the introduction, starting with the general idea and ending with the primary objective of the research. That way, readers would enjoy going through your work.
There is no clarity on the research problem in the introduction section; please try to highlight the main research problem and elaborate more.
As a reader, I didn't catch the importance of the research clearly; please provide some information about it and previous research to support your claim.
I would suggest writing down the research questions and objectives.
In the literature review, start covering subheadings by the research questions; the same goes for discussing the research findings.
Line 75; 76 Figure 1. UTAUT model. Source: Venkatesh (2003). 77
The figure isn't clear at all; consider redrawing it accordingly.
Line 102
Figure 2. A theoretical model of the acceptance of MS Teams technology by university students.
Please use a more advanced and precise figure to present your theoretical model.
Line 104 - 117
Please elaborate on how did you come up with these hypotheses,
Line 206
How did you conduct the analysis? What software was used? More details are required.
Line 306 again, all figures in your paper are not apparent to the readers; consider redoing all statistics. Table 3. Analysis of the formative measurement system. Redundancy analysis by indicator. 306 SmartPLS model. Source: own elaboration.
The findings are found to be inappropriate. Please use a new heading for discussing your conclusions. Show your results in comparison to previous reach work.
The article needs significant improvements; I would like the authors to follow the suggested minor corrections for the authors to make before publication.
Author Response
Thank you so much for your valuable comments and recommendations. We have tried to provide an answer them and hope that they will respond to your expectations. Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Thank you for the opportunity to review your revised manuscript. You have addressed the concerns raised promptly and I'm glad to see that a limitations section has been included in the manuscript.
Good luck with your future endeavours.
Reviewer 3 Report
All corrections have been addressed accordingly, Well done!
