The Influence of Short-Term Dance-Oriented Exergaming on Cognitive Skills and Psychological Well-Being of Adolescents

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors Interesting article, well structured, where the correct steps have been followed to analyze whether the use of a video game in conjunction
with traditional exercises can improve the cognitive capacity of students.
It is significant that the authors indicate in their results that although the use of exercise games may be attractive to users, they do not seem
to be the only element that would allow the improvement of users' cognitive abilities, but they leave the door open to confirmation or
rectification of exergames by carrying out a study with a larger number of subjects and for a longer period of time.  

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your positive and encouraging remarks. We are pleased that you find the article well-structured and aligned with appropriate methodological steps. Indeed, our findings suggest that while exercise games show promise for enhancing certain cognitive abilities, other factors beyond their novelty and appeal likely also play a crucial role. We believe that longer-term, larger-scale studies could further clarify the scope of exergames’ benefits.

We appreciate your thoughtful summary and look forward to expanding on these insights in subsequent research, possibly by refining the intervention’s duration or including a broader participant pool. Thank you again for your feedback and for the opportunity to share our work.

Sincerely,
On behalf of all co-authors

Renata Rutkauskaitė 

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The aim of study was to determine the change in psychological well-being and cognitive skills of adolescents when exercising is supplemented with video-game-based activity. It presents a good theoretical framework of the theme, and describes the methodology presented and results obtained. However, points can be improved. I am sending suggestions.

 

1. Introduction

suggestion: Check Formatting

suggestion: Deepen study innovation.

 

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Participants and research organization

Suggestion: Was sex, nutritional status, age, or sexual maturation controlled in the formation of the intervention groups?

Suggestion: Indicate the bibliographic reference that supports the instruments used.

What characteristics do the 3 teachers who promoted the activities have? What training? How was the teacher's effect on the program controlled?

Suggestion: to be a little more specific in relation to the intervention conducted by both groups.

 

2.2. Instrumentation

Tip: Who performed the assessments? What is your background and training? How dependable does the team have? The number of sessions was the participants evaluated in. How long?

Suggestion: throughout the study, be consistent "intervention and control groups"

Suggestion: indicate how the body mass index calculated.

 

2.3. Data analysis

Suggestion: remove line 283-284; Lines 278 and 279

Suggestion: Effect Size reference values of this supported by references.

 

3. Results

Table 1.

Tip: Check formatting

Tip: replace "Body mass" with "weight"

Table 2

Suggestion verification of the p and Cohen's d, of the variable Stroop test

In the caption put ms

Suggestion: check the logistic regression. How was the variable, psychological well-being, categorized?

 

4. Discussion

Suggestion to discuss are the effects of exergames or by different subjects in the intervention groups (dance and functional training vs V functional training).

Suggestion: Deepen how the design of the intervention program can influence outcomes (e.g., duration, frequency)

Tip: The effects of the program can influence who runs the program. How was it controlled?

Revision of formatting, reference and English.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We sincerely appreciate the time you spent reviewing our manuscript, and we thank you for your constructive feedback. Below, we address each of your comments in turn. We have revised the text as appropriate and clarified any points that required further elaboration. Please find our responses organized according to your suggestions point by point in attached file. 

Best regards

Renata Rutkauskaite on behalf of all authors

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The improvement in the quality of the article is evident, however I suggest:

Check formatting situations such as:

- Line 136 remove blod

- Missing line space between lines 218 and 219

- Check formatting line 271 and 272

- Table 1 has missing data

- Suggestion to remove logistic regression, it does not fit well with the objective of the study. The effects of the program on the cognitive and psychological components are reported in Table 3.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

 

Thank you for your valuable feedback and for acknowledging the improvement in the quality of our article. We appreciate your thorough review and have addressed your suggestions as follows:

1. Check formatting situations such as “Line 136 remove bold.

Response: The bold formatting has been removed as requested.

2. Missing line space between lines 218 and 219.

Response: A line space has been inserted to ensure proper formatting and consistency.

3. Check formatting line 271 and 272 accordingly.

Response: The formatting of these lines has been reviewed and corrected.

4. Table 1 has missing data.

Response: The missing data have been added, and all the columns have been fixed to provide a complete and clear overview.

5. - Suggestion to remove logistic regression, it does not fit well with the objective of the study. The effects of the program on the cognitive and psychological components are reported in Table 3.

Response: We appreciate the reviewer’s suggestion to remove the logistic regression component from our analysis. However, we respectfully argue for its inclusion based on the following rationale:

• The logistic regression was not intended to serve as a primary analysis but rather as a complementary perspective to the continuous WHO-5 score comparisons. Specifically, we employed the WHO-5’s widely recognized clinical cut-off point (≥51 indicating good psychological well-being vs. ≤50 indicating reduced well-being), enabling us to examine whether demographic or intervention-related variables were associated with adolescents' likelihood of maintaining good psychological health.
• Importantly, this analysis yielded a statistically significant association between BMI and psychological well-being (p = 0.044)—a finding that offers additional insight into potential health-related moderators within our study cohort. Thus, we believe that retaining this analysis strengthens the manuscript by offering a more nuanced interpretation of factors influencing mental well-being beyond mean score changes.

Should the editorial team prefer, we are open to moving this analysis to supplementary materials."

Once again, thank you for your constructive comments that have helped us improve the manuscript.

Sincerely,
Renata Rutkauskaite
On behalf of all co-authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf