Transferring Research Innovations in Bridge Inspection Planning to Bridge Inspection Practice: A Qualitative Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The survey provides some important viewpoints for the current situation of bridge inspection practice.  However, the article contains the following drawback.  The main text seems to cover a large part of the questions and the answers from participants, which is very qualitative.  To convince the conclusion, some figures or tables showing the percentages, scattering pattern, etc., may be included in the presentation.  Overall, the paper is well written, and can be further improved by a minor revision.  A few comments are listed below:

1. Full names of some abbreviations should be provided at the first use.

2. In Table 1, for method of Bridge Inspection Questionnaires, is it reliable that only two L2 and two L3 are involved in this section?

Minor editing of English language required.

Author Response

We would like to thank the reviewer for their constructive comments and questions. Please find attached the response to the reviewer comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript entitled “Transferring Research Innovations in Bridge Inspection Planning to Bridge Inspection Practice: A Qualitative Study” proposes identifying the factors that can help improve research products and accelerate research transfer to bridge inspection departments to enhance bridge inspection practice. This is an interesting and current topic, however, the manuscript has some flaws that prevent me from approving it for publication in this journal. Among them, are an insufficient updated literature review to support the results obtained, a methodology that does not allow the reader to fully understand the steps taken, and a discussion of results which, in the current format, adds little to the field of knowledge. In this context, here are some suggestions for the article to be improved and resubmitted in this or another journal.

MAJOR COMMENTS:

1) LITERATURE REVIEW: The literature review aims to indicate the state-of-the-art on the subject. In other words, indicate which results the most recent studies have produced on the subject. As well as substantiating the most important concepts for understanding the research. It is not possible to guarantee a solid theoretical background without broadly discussing the results of previous research on the subject. Although the authors show that they have consulted a significant number of references, the vast majority are outdated. Of the 66 references presented, only 7 are journal papers published in the last five years. Therefore, authors must work to make the study denser and supported by updated scientific evidence.

2) METHODOLOGY: Despite the option for qualitative analysis of the research results, it is necessary to inform whether the number of participating professionals is representative. In other words, do the 26 employees interviewed constitute a representative sample of all employees who perform this type of role in the United States? Although the approach is qualitative, the number of responses directly influences the consistency of the obtained results.

3) METHODOLOGY: Why Bridge Inspection Questionnaires were emailed only to L2 and L3 participants? Why only L1 and L2 staff members were involved in the Journal Article Interviews? Why the responses to the written interviews were anonymous?

4) RESULTS: The results and discussions section should be improved. The information obtained through data collection instruments must be structured and presented systematically, allowing researchers to propose concrete strategies. Unfortunately, in this format, the results presented add little to this area of knowledge.

5) CONCLUSIONS: The limitations of the research must be clearly stated.

MINOR COMMENTS:

6) LINE 18: “... personnel from state DOTs across...”. Acronyms must be cited in full the first time they appear in the text, both in the Abstract and in the remainder of the paper. Please check all text.

7) LINE 94: “Thus, in this section, we tried to review the problems researchers...”.  I suggest avoiding the use of first persons throughout the manuscript. Please check all text.

Author Response

We would like to thank the reviewer for the constructive comments and questions. Please find attached the response to the reviewer comments and questions

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for sharing the manuscript "Transferring Research Innovations in Bridge Inspection Planning to Bridge Inspection Practice: A Qualitative Study" with me. I have the following comments:

- Line 19, what other significant changes? Please be precise or consider removing such generic statements.

- Spell out the acronyms in abstract i.e., DOT, FHWA etc. 

- It is very important to highlight and precisely discuss the innovations and additionality of the study. It can very easily be counter argued that inspections through digital technologies such as UAVs, mobile and stationary sensors and robotics do not have excessive resource requirements and counter to what the authors claimed, such systems are very much practical. This makes the precise contributions of the study very important to be highlighted and its novelty discussed in details. 

- Counter to the authors claim many studies such as the following have presented practical solutions based on innovative approaches/digital technologies:

> https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)BE.1943-5592.0001343

>https://doi.org/10.1016/j.autcon.2020.103250

> https://doi.org/10.3390/su15031866

- The novelty of the study is absent from the introduction. what is new and novel in this study?

- Lines 29-30, the authors claimed that many researchers have provided frameworks but did not provide any reference to any of these many researchers or discussed any such framework. The readers must be properly directed towards relevant literature rather than buying authors' words as is. 

- Another issue is the oneness of research questions. It is important to frame these to American context since all respondents are local to US. For example, what do bridge inspection professionals think about current bridge inspection practices "in USA"?

- While the study claims to be a qualitative approach it is concerning to see no such approaches being discussed in the introduction.

- Another issue is the authors lack of reviewing studies on latest digital technologies, gadgets and tools usage in bridge inspections. These if properly incorporated in the article will help authors visualize the gap more clearly. The current gap seems to assume that no studies have provided a practical approach, and most approaches are manual which may not be the case due to advancements in last decade or so.

- The linkage of organizational change as section 2.3 withe the paper is not clear. The section can potentially be removed.

- Another issue with the article is the lack of focus on switching from planning to practices. While the authors have claimed this in the title, no such discussions are seen in the introduction or literature section that sheds light on existing practices and what the authors aim to change.

- Similarly switching to practice through a qualitative approach, i.e. interviews in itself is prone to questions. A practice has to be established through applications not assessing the current state through interviews. This contrary to authors claims fall in the domain of planning than practice - something the authors aimed to address....

- Please provide the precise number of respondents across each level in a table and if possible, provide their experience in number of years. 

- Comparability of the results due to varying number of respondents across each level is another issue that hasn't been addressed by the authors. How and why are the results comparable for example can 4 respondents (L2 and L3) have same weightage compared to 19 (L1 and L2?) Any reference to support such steps?

- The limitations need addition. Methodological limitations are missing.  Please add these to conclusion.

The language is fine.

Author Response

Thank you for the comments and questions, please find attached the response to the the comments provided.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The authors of this qualitative research study state three research questions that they aim to answer by engaging with bridge staff at various DOTs using semi-structured interviews, written interviews, and questionnaires. They obtained responses from 26 personnel across different roles in the bridge inspection process, classified by the authors into three levels based on their responsibilities in the bridge inspection practice.

They summarize some findings from research on bridge inspection, present some strategies used by other organizations to facilitate research transfer, and identify factors and models presented in literature that facilitate and hinder organizational change. The authors were guided by this background knowledge during the development of the questions used to collect data.

They adopt a qualitative research methodology and were careful about attempting to maximize the variation in their sample, following appropriate protocols for data collection, and focusing the analysis of the responses to answer the research questions.

They present and discuss the findings from the study in the context of existing literature where they first recognized five main themes in the responses and relate them to their three research questions. Among some interesting findings from the work was a demonstration of the wide gap between researchers and practitioners about bridge inspection planning – a large segment of practitioners supported a fixed inspection cycle, a fact that the authors found surprising. Based on an assessment of the responses, the authors present how researchers can help DOTs implement a risk-based inspection program. They also discuss findings from other themes and how they used these to answer the three research questions that were the objective of this work.

The paper is well written and easy to read, the research methodology employed is sound, the analysis conducted is appropriate, the findings are clearly presented and are of interest to the community of people interested in transferring research to practice, especially in the field of bridge inspection. I recommend that the paper be accepted for publication with some minor revisions which I list below:

1)    While recognizing the authors' efforts in crafting a well-written paper, it is pertinent to highlight a speculative statement, both in the abstract and introduction, regarding the anticipated generalizability of certain findings. This statement does not fit into the scope of the paper, sufficient effort is not spent by the authors to justify this claim, and in this reviewer’s opinion this weak claim does not add value to the paper. The authors should consider either removing these speculative statements or support their claim more strongly.

In the abstract:

“Although the study focuses on the field of bridge inspection, the findings of this study are expected to have some generalizability to other significant changes in engineering practice at DOTs.”

In the introduction:

Although the study focuses on the 37 field of bridge inspection, the findings of this study are expected to be both specific to 38 changes in bridge inspection practice and have some generalizability to other significant 39 changes to engineering practice at Departments of Transportation (DOTs).

A similar statement which is in the discussion section (line 613 onwards) is fine since it is in the appropriate narrow context (although still somewhat weak compared to the rest of this well written paper).

2) On line 213, the authors state “each data collection method involved different job levels (L1, L2 and L3)” – this could give the reader the impression that all levels were involved in each data collection method, which is not the case. The authors could consider rewording their statement on line 213, perhaps to something like “each data collection method involved at least two different job levels …”

3) Pertaining to the numbering of questions within the bridge inspection questionnaire in Appendix A, why does the numbering start from number 4? Pertaining to the numbering of questions within the bridge inspection questionnaire in Appendix A, why does the numbering start from number 4? To enhance clarity, the authors could consider starting the numbering of the six open-ended questions from 1, or alternatively, append a brief explanation indicating that other sections of the questionnaire were omitted as they did not align with the study's primary objectives.

4) The authors should consider revising the following small typos/grammar issues:

Typo in line 141 – change to “managers” instead of “mangers”

Typo in line 155 – change to “mindset” instead of “mind set”

Typo in line 496 – change to “aware of” instead of “aware off”

Typo in line 528 – change to “FHWA” instead of “FWHA”

Typo in line 552 – change to “it’s” instead of “its”

Author Response

We would like to thank the reviewer for their comments and questions. Please find attached the responses to the reviewer comments and questions.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Thanks to the authors for submitting the updated version of their work. However, unfortunately, in my opinion, the changes made are not enough to justify approval of this manuscript in this journal.

In this context, I maintain my initial understanding that the methodology does not allow the reader to fully understand the steps taken, and a discussion of results which, in the current format, adds little to the field of knowledge.

The methodological approach used by the authors, in my opinion, leads to results with limited significance of content and scientific soundness.

It is also necessary to clarify that qualitative research is research that cannot be measured only with numbers and data. In other words, the results will not be evaluated quantitatively. However, this does not mean that the responses of a few individuals provide robustness to the conclusions obtained. At this point, in my opinion, the authors have failed to prove the relevance of their results.

Furthermore, in several parts of the manuscript, the authors present the results in percentage form, as indicated below. So the question remains. If the work had a significant sample, could this data change? How would this impact the conclusions reached by the authors?

- LINES 516-519: “In our investigation it was found that 24% of the participants agreed with the literature, while surprisingly 44% of participants supported the 24-month inspection cycle, and the remaining 32% stated that it has some advantages and some disadvantages”.

- LINES 549-552: “For the risk-based approach, 36% of the participants said they will apply it once it is allowed, 21% said they will not consider it and 43% indicated that they will wait and see how other state DOTs will apply it”.

- LINES 590-591: “Adding to what Lee and Kalos (2015) concluded, in our study 26% of the partici pants mentioned that although NDE methods have a potential to improve inspections...”

- LINES 667-669: “In this context, to provide effective research products 70% of the participants suggested working together and collaborating as researchers and practitioners to improve research products and direct researchers’ effort in the right direction:”

- LINES 704-706: “The consensus among 70% of the participants was that joint efforts can yield better, more applicable results, ensuring that academic endeavors align with on-ground needs.”

Therefore, considering that, in my opinion, the conclusions obtained by the research are not solid enough to arouse readers' interest, my final recommendation is to reject the manuscript.

Author Response

Thank you for reviewing the manuscript and valuable comments. Please find attached our response to your comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for addressing my main concerns. Just a minor comment, if you are addressing the human factors in addition to organizational factors, mention so in the research question. 

Minor editing needed.

Author Response

Thank you for reviewing the manuscript and valuable comment. Please find attached the response to your comment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf