Virtual Bridges: Enhancing Intercultural Competence Among Pre-Service Teachers Through 3D and Video-Conferencing Platforms

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (New Reviewer)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

while data is near complete and convincing, authors need to provide the diagram to illustrate the research method.

In addition to that, some photos from the Zoom and VW sessions will make the paper more appealing. 

The discussed topic is a very controversial topic, authors should define the jews and arabs! is there any jewish arab or jews and arabs are two separate groups without overlapping or intersection?

Emphasize the research gap in the literature!

Authors must justify the use of VW and Zoom, why not google meet or ms teams?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The topic is timely and valuable, and the mixed-methods design is promising, but the paper needs clearer exposition and stronger reporting before it can make the contribution it aims for. To start, the study design and group equivalence should be made explicit. Please spell out how participants ended up in the virtual-world (VW) versus Zoom conditions (randomization, any stratification by ethnicity/language/college, instructor effects, etc.) and include a CONSORT-style flow diagram from recruitment through analysis. The baseline imbalances are sizeable (e.g., VW with a higher proportion of Jewish PSTs; Zoom with a higher proportion of Arab PSTs; main-language differences as well) and could easily confound platform effects. I would therefore encourage a re-analysis using mixed-effects models that at least adjust for ethnicity, main language, religious level, instructor, and clustering; at minimum, ANCOVA/mixed models with these covariates and clearly reported adjusted effects.

The manuscript also needs a formal Ethics/IRB statement (board name/ID/date) and a brief description of the informed-consent process. Given the sensitivity of the context, please add a short paragraph on data-privacy safeguards for interview recordings and any measures taken to ensure intercultural sensitivity. On measurement, more detail and validity evidence are required for the CCD and ISS-15: note any translation/back-translation and expert review; report reliability (α and ideally ω) by timepoint and group; and document the factor-analytic choices (extraction method, rotation, loading cutoffs) that led to dropping ISS item 14 and collapsing factors. Include a complete items-by-loadings table (item 2 is currently blank) and clarify the R² row, where 26.96% and 50.91% appear reversed or mislabeled. If feasible, a CFA and basic measurement-invariance checks across groups and over time would greatly strengthen the case.

Statistical reporting could be tightened. Please specify the within-subjects factor (time) and the between-subjects factors (platform, ethnicity) for the repeated-measures MANOVA; report assumption checks (e.g., sphericity, equality of covariance matrices), effect sizes with 95% CIs, and the exact Ns used in each analysis. The overall N=183 should be reconciled with df such as F(1,216) and F(1,214). Define and justify the “communication satisfaction” construct (scale, items, reliability) that favored VW over Zoom, and add a brief power check given the small effects reported (e.g., CCD Δ≈0.10; ηp²≈.018). Presentation of results would also benefit from some housekeeping: correct Table 1 (“Year of Study = 11.7” looks off), verify all means/SDs/p-values, keep decimal precision consistent, and standardize labels (VW vs. Zoom; PST vs. PTS). A simple figure showing pre/post intercultural competence with confidence intervals by platform and ethnicity would make the modest changes easier to interpret.

The qualitative side needs greater transparency. Please explain interview sampling (why N=22 and evidence of saturation), transcription/translation procedures, the coding protocol, intercoder-reliability estimates, and exactly how AI (Claude) was used (inputs, outputs, human verification, versioning). Strengthen the integration by tying themes directly to the research questions and triangulating them with the quantitative findings. Interpretation should also be brought into line with the results: the primary intercultural-competence outcome shows no platform difference and ISS scores are mostly stable, so the practical takeaway is that intercultural simulations may offer modest benefits regardless of platform; VW may enhance perceived communication satisfaction, but it can also introduce usability burdens that impede learning. The limitations should note group imbalance, nonrandom assignment, possible instructor effects, platform familiarity, and open questions about measurement invariance.

Finally, the manuscript would benefit from a careful copy-edit: fix typos (e.g., “succesfully,” “contianed”), use PST consistently, standardize capitalization (Zoom), remove duplicate inline DOIs, ensure references follow journal style, and replace anonymized “Author” placeholders at de-blinding. A few quick clarifications would also help readers: briefly describe OpenSIM TEC Island (with a citation, and a supplementary screenshot if possible), define the religious-level variable with scale anchors, state how missing data were handled (attrition, listwise/pairwise), and clarify whether Zoom learners only watched recorded VW simulations or also participated in synchronous role-play. With clearer design and reporting, fuller psychometric detail, a complete ethics statement, and claims aligned to the evidence, this work could make a solid contribution.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

• Research design, questions, and methods: Although detailed, the methodology has weaknesses. The self-selection of participants and the demographic imbalances (e.g., ethnic distribution) reduce the strength of the findings. These limitations need to be explicitly acknowledged, and the research questions or hypotheses should be more clearly articulated.

• Arguments and discussion of findings: The discussion is rich and references theoretical frameworks, but at times it repeats results rather than critically interpreting them. A sharper, more focused analysis would enhance the contribution.

• Conclusions: While aligned with the findings, the conclusions are somewhat general. They should be linked more directly to the research questions and highlight the theoretical innovation and practical implications more clearly.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors, it is my pleasure to review your research article for this journal. In this regard, I hope you receive my evaluation comments in a cheerful and interested manner, as their only purpose is to improve or contribute to the publication review process of your submission.

With great regret and due to the high index of this journal and some errors detected, my decision is to reject the article. However, I leave you some indications or aspects to improve, so that you understand the reason for my decision and improve it for any other submission attempt.

Please understand that the major limitation of the study are the samples and their size, as well as the inaccuracy in describing VW and comparing it with Zoom, something that should be emphasized as novel in your context, but which is not so in other parts of the world. Please reinforce these aspects with a view to resubmitting the article.

On the other hand, at the beginning of the text and throughout the document I find many quotes under the name “author”, I understand that this is because you quote yourself. This is not recommended. Remove all self-citations from the text. This is a journal rule and you should remove them, you can use ideas from authors other than yourself to refute all that information. As an expert in educational technology I can think of several.

Usually your theoretical framework is very weak and you should go deeper on some ideas. For example.

How do video games and other elements of digital learning interact with culture? What does the literature say? Are there any literature reviews that study this?

What about learning? What do other authors say that you can relate to your conclusions and final discussion? About motivation and learning?

You should augment and restructure the theoretical framework to answer these questions.

Relate the cultural learning and include, if available, a graphic document of the experience.

Has the study been approved by a bioethics committee? How were the data handled? Research with sensitive data that does not, will hardly be publishable today.

On the other hand. Conclusions need to be discussed with previous studies and it is an almost indispensable requirement to know the limitations of the study and to outline them at the end of the document.

I am very sorry to make this decision, but I trust that you can learn from the mistakes and improve your work when you try to publish it again elsewhere.