Development of Professional Foreign Language Competence of Economics Students with MOOCs during the Pandemic

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The topic on the impact of Corona virus remains interesting. The author needs to add more detail elaborations in the methodology aspect. The theoretical dialectic aspects are required in the discussion to state the confirmation or disconfirmation of previous studies or particular theory.

The language is good, a quick re-glance of the spelling or other grammatical points might be necessary to look again.

Author Response

Thank you for your valuable feedback. In the revised manuscript, the methodological developments have been elaborated upon, and the discussion section now includes a reaffirmation of findings from previous studies.

Reviewer 2 Report

A brief summary

The article "Development of Professional Foreign Language Competence of Economics Students with MOOCs during Pandemic" aims on employing MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) to cultivate professional foreign language competence within the field of economic education. The paper is interesting, detailed and illustrated with figures and tables. It draws up a series of recommendations, such as: offering choices to students, simplifying platform navigation, extending support during challenges, and bolstering speaking abilities.

Specific comments

Ø  Ø  In the abstract, should be included that 34 students took part in the language experiment and their answers are presented as recommendations.

Ø  The introduction provides information about the research which has investigated the challenges faced by educators during the transition to online education, including issues related to technical communication, lack of live interaction, and increased workload, but misses the Research Questions.

Ø 4. Results           line 141

line 142           correct 3.1 to   4.1. Outcome 1

line 200           correct 3.2 to   4.2. Outcome 2

line 251           correct 3.3 to   4.3. Outcome 3

Ø  The author/s may give their own analyze about ‘The developed methodical model’, demonstrated in Figure 1 - line 195 -

       How do the external factors influence?

 

Ø  Feedback from economics students, presented on pie charts (Figure 3 – Figure 9) line 272-2294, should be analyzed, not only presented as recommendations (line 301-331).

Author Response

Thank you for your insightful suggestions. The revised manuscript includes a refined abstract, research questions have been added for one of the studies in the introduction, corrections have been made to lines 142, 200, and 251, an in-depth analysis of the developed methodological model has been provided, as well as an analysis of student feedback.

Reviewer 3 Report

The topic and the research are certainly interesting, timely and relevant, as are the proposed solutions to the problem. However, there are places in the article that need to be improved:

- the titles of sections 3.1, 3.2, 3.3 should be more precise and concrete, with the clear idea what the reader is able to find in the chapter or section. Now the presented titles sounds like a working option

- Figure 2 is uninformative. Values should be provided on the columns, as it is not entirely clear from the current presentation whether this is a percentage expression and how many of those percentages there are. The image visualization also should be editable.

- 3.3. The section presents a whole series of pictures without analysis and comments or interpretations, what must be done

 Also, figures - above the diagram - must not have the question as the title of the figure. The titles under the figures are also incorrectly worded

- Conclusions should be presented in a more structured manner.

Author Response

Thank you for your valuable feedback. In the updated manuscript, section titles have been clarified, Figure 2 now displays percentages, interpretations are provided following a series of images, figure titles and captions have been standardized in line with one of the published articles from the journal (https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/13/2/135), and the conclusions are now more structured.

Reviewer 4 Report

1. Two reviewers read the article and given the errors listed below, we cannot recommend this paper for a publication.
2. The sample selection - criteria and steps - is completely missing.
3. The sample size is way too small. Although the total sample size is 34, as they are broken down by control and treatment groups, 17 is not enough to produce a robust result.
4. Table 1 was reported incorrectly. It should specifically state that it was an "independent-samples t-test," and the calculated p-value should be .34, not .05. If the p-value were in fact .05 (as is reported in the table), it would be a statistically significant difference between the two groups. As such, there is a misalignment with what was reported in Table 1 and what was written out in the write up.
5. Table 2 was incorrectly written up and interpreted. Control group was NOT effective in helping the students develop their foreign language competence but the experiment group was, based on the reported t-values, which they oddly labeled "T-test experimental." Table 2 is also missing the p-values. Again, misalignment with their table and the write up.
6. Table 3 was not written up correctly. There should only be one t-value, as we are comparing the two groups, control and experiment in their "after" scores. It is missing the p-value, and is not interpreted clearly. 
7. We are not sure how well Outcome 3 aligns with other aspects of the study. We don't know who constructed the survey and what questions were included. If this is intended as a mixed method study, the QUAL portion should be used to explain or illuminate the results found in the QUANT portion of the study.
8. This is a simple pre-post randomized control and experiment design. As such, ANCOVA, instead of two types of t-tests, should have been applied to reduce Type 1 error.

In sum, there is a good deal of problems with the study. Even if analyzed rigorously, the simple fact that it was 17 participants in each group really undermines the study's reliability.

 

Author Response

Thank you for your valuable feedback. In the revised manuscript, the criteria and stages of sampling have been outlined. We agree that a sample size of 34 is limited; however, the sample was restricted by the number of first-year students at NGUEU enrolled in the specified major and specialization. We will certainly consider sample size in future research endeavors. The data in Table 1, Table 2 and Table 3 were carefully reviewed and corrected. The level of statistical significance (p-value) was of p=0.05. The p-value was not calculated, and was used as the cutoff for significance. The data listed in Table 1 indicate that there is no statistically significant difference between the comprehensive assessment results of first-year students in the experimental and control groups before the experiment (denoted as “CG before” and “EG before” in Table 1, respectively). Thus, one can conclude that the English language proficiency among first-year students after the post-secondary school, is at a comparable level in both groups. This discussion was added in the revised manuscript text.

The data in Table 2 were reviewed and corrected. The column title was corrected to “t-test”. The level of statistical significance (p-value) was of p=0.05. This information was added in the Table 2 title. Table 2 lists the comparative data from the prior and final testing (denoted as “CG after” and “EG after” in Table 2, respectively) within control and experimental groups. The obtained t-values indicate an improvement in scores within both groups during the study period (for the CG t=2.61; for the EG t=3.47). Note, that the critical t-test value was of 2.037 at level of statistical significance of p=0.05. Thus, one can conclude that both pedagogical methodologies (implementing the language support tasks and learning MOOC materials without them) are effective for the development of students' professional foreign language competence.

The data in the Table 3 were reviewed. The calculated t-value of 2.76 after the final testing indicated a statistically significant variance after the final testing (t-test critical value t=2.037). Thus, one can conclude that the merit of the proposed methodical model for a stepwise enhancement of professional foreign language competence among economics students through the application of MOOCs.

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for the corrections 

Author Response

Thank you very much for careful reading of the manuscript. In the revised manuscript I have addressed all your useful remarks and comments. All the corrections were highlighted with yellow color in the manuscript text.