Using Technology-Supported Approaches for the Development of Technical Skills Outside of the Classroom

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This article take suturing as an example to provide a case of teaching approach of training technical dental skills outside schools. Few suggestions are as below:

The author should further align the teaching model description to the model used. Some elements are less discussed, including self-reflection, goal setting and self regulation.

The learning in chapter 9 seem not very convincing. More support are needed even numerical data is not available.

The discussion could be further enhanced, e.g. in relation to chapter 4 different domain.

Overall speaking, this piece of writing is reader friendly yet it does not 100% fitting in all the section requirements of a traditional research paper that the journal might look at, especially for the results and discussion sections.

Few type setting problems are spotted.

Author Response

Response to reviewer 1

We would like to thank the reviewer for their very helpful feedback.

We were trying to develop an educational solution through considering and developing existing concepts to actively support and inform practice. We realise form the feedback that the approach to the manuscript had not made that clear, and on reflection it ended up being confused to its purpose. Therefore, we have substantively re-written the manuscript to make it clear that we were developing a conceptual framework to inform our approach to manage the educational situation presented by COVID-19.  We have also highlighted the intended future work to further develop the approach, and the benefits that using the framework could have more widely.  

Reviewer 2 Report

The article shows good research, the objective solves a problem, but my recommendations are:

The problem is clear, but an analysis of works related to this type of research must be carried out, that is; What has been done in research on this topic and what is its contribution.

The introduction is brief and basic, I recommend expanding it and ending with a summary of the content of the entire article, that is; what each section contains to a summary mode so that the reader can have an idea of the entire article.

There are also several paragraphs that do not have references, they are statements (lines 72-79) that must have support to be able to place them in the article.

On the other hand, the methodology is not clear to me, there is no section that talks about it, and neither can a discussion be held if there are no results. Please must order the article so that it exists and defines the methodology, and has results that can be discussed with other research related to this topic of education to acquire practical skills in a medical topic in a general way.

There are too many sections, it is recommended to reduce them and place them within the methodology and results sections. On the other hand, a section on future work remains pending, that is; what should be done to complement the research.

Author Response

Response to reviewer 2

We would like to thank the reviewer for their very helpful feedback, and broad support.

In response to the feedback provided, we have substantively re-worked the manuscript to highlight the conceptual framework and the methodology.

We have addressed the references and reduced the sections in number and explained our plans for future work.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The article is suitable for publication, it has been improved in its writing and sections

Author Response

Thank you