Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1. Table two has repeated lines (cluster 1 aqnd 2)
2. Lines 354-357: The observation that mentoring occupies the central position in the network is expected given that it is the dominant keyword.
3. Lines 358- 359: The transition from identifyingprofessional development as a central network hub to concluding that mentoring is becoming institutionalised is not sufficiently explained. Please elaborate on the analytical reasoning or supporting evidence underlying this interpretation.
4. Lines 390-392: “The statement is overinterpreting the co-occurrence results. While the network indicates a strong association betweenmentoring and professional development, it does not, by itself, establish that mentoring primarily serves as a mechanism of professional development. Please moderate the wording or provide supporting evidence.
5. Lines 397-400: The discussion introduces hotspots such asmedical education, nursing education, and programme evaluation, suggesting that mentoring extends across multiple professional fields. However, the introduction frames the review within the context of teacher mentoring in schools. Please clarify how these broader professional fields align with the stated scope of the study or explain why they are included in the findings.
6. Lines 405;414: The interpretation that mentoring is transversal across professional fields is already well established and therefore offers limited additional insight. Given that the study is presented as focusing on teacher mentoring, it would be more appropriate to ensure that the search strategy and screening process are aligned with this scope from the very begning.

Author Response

Response to Reviewers

Manuscript: Re-mapping teacher mentoring in dynamic and challenging educational contexts: a longitudinal bibliometric landscape analysis (2010–2025)

We sincerely thank the Academic Editor and the three Reviewers for their careful reading of the manuscript and their constructive, detailed comments. We have revised the manuscript in accordance with all the suggestions. To make the revision transparent, each reviewer’s corrections are marked in a distinct colour in the revised manuscript:

■ Reviewer 1 – red

Please note that deletions (the removal of duplicated table rows/columns and duplicated section numbers) cannot be displayed in colour; they are itemised below. Because the reviewers raised several converging points, some changes respond to more than one reviewer; in such cases, the text is coloured according to the reviewer whose comment prompted the specific wording, and the overlap is noted below.

Reviewer 1

Comment 1.1: “Table two has repeated lines (cluster 1 and 2).”

Response: Thank you for pointing this out. The duplicated “Cluster 1” and “Cluster 2” rows have been deleted from Table 4 (the cluster-interpretation table), which now contains exactly one row per cluster. While correcting this, we also found and removed duplicated columns in Tables 1 and 2 and a stray duplicated row in Table 2 (this also answers Reviewer 3, Comment 3.3). As these are deletions, they are not visible in colour, but the tables can be verified directly in the revised manuscript.

Comment 1.2: Lines 354–357: The observation that mentoring occupies the central position in the network is expected, given that it is the dominant keyword.

Response: We agree. In Section 3.3, we now state explicitly (in red) that the centrality of ‘mentoring’ is expected because it is the dominant search term of the corpus, and that the analytical value of the finding lies in the pattern of its connections across the four clusters rather than in its centrality as such.

Comment 1.3: Lines 358–359: The transition from identifying professional development as a central hub to concluding that mentoring is “becoming institutionalised” is not sufficiently explained.

Response: We have rewritten this passage in Section 3.3 (highlighted in red). The claim is now moderated, and the analytical reasoning is made explicit: we point to the strong direct link between ‘mentoring’ and ‘professional development’ and to the co-occurrence of both terms with programme-related keywords (‘mentoring programmes’, ” ‘programme evaluation’), and we state that this evidence is consistent with – but cannot by itself demonstrate – a gradual embedding of mentoring within formal structures of professional development.

Comment 1.4: Lines 390–392: The statement overinterprets the co-occurrence results; the network does not by itself establish that mentoring primarily serves as a mechanism of professional development.

Response: We have moderated the wording in Section 3.5 (highlighted in red). The sentence now describes the pattern as a strong thematic association and explicitly states that the association does not, by itself, establish that mentoring primarily functions as a mechanism for professional development.

Comment 1.5: Lines 397–400: The discussion introduces hotspots such as medical education, nursing education, and programme evaluation, while the introduction frames the review within teacher mentoring in schools. Please clarify how these broader fields align with the stated scope.

Response: A clarification has been added in Section 3.5 (in red). We now explain that these fields entered the corpus because the all-keywords analysis included Scopus-indexed terms and health professional education keywords met the co-occurrence threshold; their presence delineates the wider professional-learning ecosystem surrounding teacher mentoring rather than extending the substantive scope of the study, whose teacher-mentoring core is represented by Cluster 2 and its associated hotspots. Cross-references to Section 3.6 and the Limitations were added.

Comment 1.6: Lines 405–414: The interpretation that mentoring is transversal across professional fields is well established and offers limited additional insight; the search and screening should be aligned with the teacher-mentoring scope from the beginning.

Response: We agree. In Section 3.6 (in red), we now acknowledge that the transversal character of mentoring is well documented and is therefore reported as a contextual observation rather than a novel finding, and we commit to aligning the search and screening strategy with the teacher-mentoring focus from the outset in follow-up analyses. The corresponding methodological consequence (thesaurus/exclusion-keyword filtering, author-keyword-only analysis) is retained in the limitations section.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Review of the article "Re-mapping teacher mentoring in dynamic and challenging educational contexts: a longitudinal bibliometric landscape analysis (2010–2025)"

The manuscript “Reassessing Teacher Mentoring in Dynamic and Challenging Educational Contexts: A Longitudinal Bibliometric Landscape Analysis (2010–2025)” presents a well-structured and comprehensive bibliometric review of the literature on teacher mentoring.

The introduction provides a strong theoretical foundation, the methodology is transparent and reproducible, the results are clearly structured, and the conclusions are presented in line with the results. The reference list is extensive and up-to-date, covering key methodological and substantive sources.

The manuscript presents a timely and well-executed bibliometric review of research on teacher mentoring from 2010 to 2025. The methodology is transparent and reproducible, the literature review is comprehensive, and the reference base is up-to-date and highly relevant. The study provides a valuable conceptual mapping of the field that is likely to be of interest to readers in the field of education. The manuscript would be strengthened by a slightly stronger comparison with previous bibliometric studies on teacher mentoring and professional learning to further emphasize its unique contribution. Sectional Overview and Recommendations
Abstract:
In my opinion, the weakest part of the manuscript from an academic writing perspective is the abstract. It is well written and fluent, but feels more like the beginning of a review essay than a structured scholarly abstract.

The first paragraph begins:
"Over the past fifteen years, mentoring has taken center stage..." - sounds more like an essay than an abstract. Critically review the abstract and improve the academic approach.
Consider making the background more concise and using a more conventional scholarly tone, emphasizing the purpose, methodological approach, and main contributions of the study.

Introduction: Defines the educational problem, provides context, reviews previous gaps, and poses research questions.

Method:
Areas for improvement
The manuscript states that the selection followed the PRISMA 2020 guidelines, but the process is only described in the text. Including a PRISMA flow chart would improve transparency and be consistent with reporting standards. It would be sensible to include a PRISMA flow chart
Provide more information on pre-processing. The manuscript states that duplicates and incomplete metadata were removed, but more details would improve reproducibility, for example: Was the removal of duplicates fully automated or was it manually checked?

Explain cluster validation - The manuscript states that cluster labels were determined by expert interpretation. The reader would be interested to know whether clusters were interpreted by more than one investigator; whether disagreements arose and were discussed - how consensus was reached.

Results:

Practical implications need stronger links to the results. The practical recommendations are good, but at present they seem a bit disconnected from the bibliometric evidence. In addition, the summary could be more carefully worded to reflect what is inferred from the bibliometric evidence.

Discussion:

The discussion section needs improvement. While it is coherent and generally balanced, some interpretations sometimes go beyond what can be directly inferred from a concordant bibliometric analysis. The discussion could benefit from a clearer distinction between the findings supported by the bibliometric evidence and the broader implications of teacher mentoring practices, as well as a clearer comparison with previous bibliometric studies in this area. At present, the discussion reiterates the results rather than interpreting them. A comprehensive discussion should answer the question: "Why are these results important?".

In summary, the manuscript is at times too literary, with the authors sometimes using a narrative style that is more characteristic of an essay than an empirical article. A small stylistic correction could further strengthen the article by adopting a more consistent, objective scientific tone, especially in the results and discussion, where some narrative and interpretive expressions could be replaced with more neutral academic language. 

Taking the suggestions into account and making corrections would certainly improve the quality of the article.

Author Response

Response to Reviewers

Manuscript: Re-mapping teacher mentoring in dynamic and challenging educational contexts: a longitudinal bibliometric landscape analysis (2010–2025)

We sincerely thank the Academic Editor and the three Reviewers for their careful reading of the manuscript and their constructive, detailed comments. We have revised the manuscript in accordance with all the suggestions. To make the revision transparent, each reviewer’s corrections are marked in a distinct colour in the revised manuscript:

■ Reviewer 2 – blue

Please note that deletions (the removal of duplicated table rows/columns and duplicated section numbers) cannot be displayed in colour; they are itemised below. Because the reviewers raised several converging points, some changes respond to more than one reviewer; in such cases, the text is coloured according to the reviewer whose comment prompted the specific wording, and the overlap is noted below.

Reviewer 2

Comment 2.1: The abstract is the weakest part from an academic-writing perspective; it reads like the beginning of a review essay. Make the background more concise, use a conventional scholarly tone, and emphasise purpose, methods, and contributions.

The abstract has been completely rewritten (in blue) in a structured scholarly form: background (one sentence), aim, methods (corpus size, database, period, software, analysis type), main results (network metrics, central node, four thematic lines), and contribution. The essayistic opening (“Over the last fifteen years or so…”) has been removed, and the closing sentence now explicitly states what the study contributes and what its results do and do not represent.

Comment 2.2: A PRISMA flow chart should be included to improve transparency and consistency with reporting standards.

Response: A PRISMA 2020 flow diagram has been added as the new Figure 1 (Section 2.6), showing the full trail: 3,671 records identified → 84 duplicates removed → 3,587 records screened → 744 excluded (724 not related to educational mentoring; 20 with incomplete metadata) → 2,843 studies included → 123 keyword elements on the final map. The subsequent figures have been renumbered accordingly (Figures 2–4; renumbering is marked in blue).

Comment 2.3: Provide more information on pre-processing; was duplicate removal fully automated or manually checked?

Response: Details have been added in Section 2.8 (in blue): duplicate removal combined with automated DOI matching with a manual check of titles and author names for records lacking a DOI; borderline cases were inspected individually, and the completeness of metadata fields was verified manually on a random subsample.

Comment 2.4: Explain cluster validation: were clusters interpreted by more than one investigator; how were disagreements resolved?

Response: Section 2.10 now explains (in blue) that cluster labels were first proposed independently by two researchers based on the dominant keywords, connection structure, and network position; the small number of divergent proposals was discussed until consensus was reached, and the agreed labels were cross-checked against the full keyword lists of the clusters.

Comment 2.5: Practical implications need stronger links to the results.

Response: A linking passage has been added at the start of the implications (Discussion, in blue), anchoring each implication to specific bibliometric patterns: the mentoring–professional development axis (Sections 3.3 and 3.5), the bridging position of reflective and identity-related keywords (Section 3.3), and the post-2020 prominence of digital and program-related terms (Section 3.4).

Comment 2.6: The discussion should distinguish findings supported by bibliometric evidence from broader implications, compare the study with previous bibliometric work, and answer “why are these results important?”.

Response: Two changes address this issue. First, a new paragraph (in blue) compares this study with previous bibliometric and review work (Patty et al., 2024; Zhao et al., 2022; Luong, 2025) and states explicitly the importance of the results (locating the conceptual weight of the field, identifying bridging concepts, and documenting the post-2020 repositioning of the discourse). Second, a scope statement at the beginning of the Discussion now separates what the co-word evidence supports from broader educational implications (added at Reviewer 3’s parallel request; marked in green – an overlap between the two reviews).

Comment 2.7: The manuscript is at times too literary; adopt a more consistent, objective scientific tone, especially in the Results and Discussion.

Response: We have replaced most narrative formulations with neutral academic wording (in blue), for example, “Numbers like these… already tell a fairly clear story” and “The picture is clear enough” in Section 3.1, “The most immediate implication of all this is fairly straightforward” and “Finally, there is one point that is easy to overlook” in the Discussion section. The rewritten abstract (Comment 2.1) also contributes to a more conventional scholarly tone.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This manuscript addresses a relevant and timely topic by providing a longitudinal bibliometric mapping of teacher mentoring research between 2010 and 2025. The methodological framework is generally well described, the search strategy is transparent, and the use of VOSviewer is appropriate for the stated objectives. The manuscript also demonstrates extensive engagement with recent literature.

Nevertheless, several aspects should be strengthened before publication.

First, the introduction occasionally presents substantive claims about the evolution of mentoring (e.g., the shift toward more collaborative, holistic, and autonomy-supportive models) that are formulated as established conclusions before the bibliometric analysis has been presented. These statements should be reframed as expectations or research motivations rather than findings.

Second, the discussion sometimes moves beyond what bibliometric evidence can legitimately support. Co-word networks reveal conceptual associations and thematic structures, but they cannot demonstrate educational effectiveness or actual changes in mentoring practice. Interpretations should therefore remain proportional to the analytical scope of the study.

Third, some editorial inconsistencies should be corrected. There are duplicated section numbers (e.g., Section 2.3 and Section 2.4), repeated entries in Tables 1, 2, and 4, and a few formatting issues that reduce readability.

Fourth, the manuscript would benefit from a more explicit acknowledgment of the limitations associated with using only the Scopus database and keyword co-occurrence analysis. Although these limitations are mentioned, their implications for interpretation should be discussed in greater depth.

Finally, the conclusions should emphasize that the study maps the intellectual structure of the literature rather than providing empirical evidence regarding the effectiveness of mentoring practices. A clearer distinction between bibliometric findings and educational implications would strengthen the manuscript's scientific rigor.

Overall, this is a valuable bibliometric contribution with a transparent methodology and a relevant dataset. However, moderate revisions are needed to improve the alignment between the evidence generated by the bibliometric analysis and the interpretative claims made throughout the manuscript.

Author Response

Response to Reviewers

Manuscript: Re-mapping teacher mentoring in dynamic and challenging educational contexts: a longitudinal bibliometric landscape analysis (2010–2025)

We sincerely thank the Academic Editor and the three Reviewers for their careful reading of the manuscript and their constructive, detailed comments. We have revised the manuscript in accordance with all the suggestions. To make the revision transparent, each reviewer’s corrections are marked in a distinct colour in the revised manuscript:

■ Reviewer 3 – green

Please note that deletions (the removal of duplicated table rows/columns and duplicated section numbers) cannot be displayed in colour; they are itemised below. Because the reviewers raised several converging points, some changes respond to more than one reviewer; in such cases, the text is coloured according to the reviewer whose comment prompted the specific wording, and the overlap is noted below.

Reviewer 3

Comment 3.1: The introduction presents substantive claims about the evolution of mentoring as established conclusions before the analysis; reframe them as expectations or research motivations.

Response: The relevant passage at the end of the Introduction has been reframed (in green): the shift towards digital, collaborative, autonomy-supportive, holistic, and equity-oriented approaches is now formulated explicitly as an expectation and research motivation, and the question of whether such a shift is visible in the bibliometric record is stated as an empirical question addressed by the analysis.

Comment 3.2: The discussion sometimes moves beyond what bibliometric evidence can support; co-word networks cannot demonstrate educational effectiveness or actual changes in practice.

Response: A scope statement has been added at the beginning of the Discussion section (in green): all interpretations are to remain within the analytical scope of co-word analysis, which documents conceptual associations and thematic structures, not effectiveness or actual practice change. The specific overinterpretations flagged by Reviewer 1 (Sections 3.3 and 3.5) were moderated accordingly (in red), and the third limitation is now spelled out as well (in green).

Comment 3.3: Editorial inconsistencies: duplicated section numbers (2.3 and 2.4), repeated entries in Tables 1, 2, and 4, and formatting issues.

Response: All corrections have been made. (a) The duplicated section numbers have been resolved by renumbering the Methods subsections consecutively (2.1–2.11); the new numbers are marked in green. (b) The duplicated column in Table 1, duplicated columns and stray duplicated row in Table 2, and duplicated Cluster 1 and Cluster 2 rows in Table 4 have been removed (deletions cannot be shown in colour). (c) Formatting slips were corrected: a double full stop at the end of the Introduction, a stray parenthesis in the inclusion criteria, empty quotation marks in Sections 2.5 and 2.8, and corrupted quotation marks around the keyword lists in Section 3.6 and in the Limitations.

Comment 3.4: Acknowledge more explicitly the limitations of using only Scopus and keyword co-occurrence analysis; discuss their implications in greater depth.

Response: Both limitations have been expanded (highlighted in green). The Scopus limitation now discusses concrete implications: outlets indexed only in the Web of Science or ERIC are absent, certain strands of the literature may be underrepresented, and the reported frequencies and link strengths are Scopus-specific estimates. The co-occurrence limitation now states that none of the reported patterns can be read as evidence of effectiveness or practice change and notes the sensitivity of co-word results to indexing conventions, keyword granularity, and threshold choices.

Comment 3.5: The conclusions should emphasise that this study maps the intellectual structure of the literature rather than providing evidence of the effectiveness of mentoring practices.

Response: A closing paragraph has been added to the Conclusions (in green) stating this distinction: the study maps the intellectual structure of the literature; the bibliometric findings identify where scholarly attention has been concentrated and how it has shifted, while educational implications remain interpretative and require empirical and evaluative testing. The same distinction is now stated in the final sentence of the abstract.

We hope that the revised manuscript addresses all the reviewers’ concerns, and we thank them once again for their comments, which have substantially improved the paper.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf