Purpose in Life among First-Generation College Students: Friends Make a Difference

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is a solid paper with some interesting findings about university/college students who are first in generation.

 

As this journal has an international readership, it would be appropriate to briefly sketch out the post-primary education system in the US, and also outline some details about college tuition fees (and student loans). The difference between public and private, college and university, could also be mentioned.

 

The article needs to begin by telling the reader what the study was about, the aim, the methods and some indication of the findings. That will guide the reader when they encounter the literature review, which is rather rambling at present and could be made tighter

 

There needs to be a short concluding paragraph to the paper that really tells the reader the importance of the findings (without references). That would be best included at the start of 4.1, which might be suitably re-titled:

 

Conclusion, Limitations, Future Directions

Author Response

This is a solid paper with some interesting findings about university/college students who are first in generation. As this journal has an international readership, it would be appropriate to briefly sketch out the post-primary education system in the US, and also outline some details about college tuition fees (and student loans). The difference between public and private, college and university, could also be mentioned.

 

• We appreciate this suggestion and have provided additional information about first-generation college student (FGC student) enrollment and student loan debt. 

The article needs to begin by telling the reader what the study was about, the aim, the methods and some indication of the findings. That will guide the reader when they encounter the literature review, which is rather rambling at present and could be made tighter.

• We appreciate this suggestion and have included several sentences at the beginning of the literature review to describe study in general. 

There needs to be a short concluding paragraph to the paper that really tells the reader the importance of the findings (without references). That would be best included at the start of 4.1, which might be suitably re-titled: Conclusion, Limitations, Future Directions

• Thank you for this suggestion. We have added a paragraph summarizing the findings and have re-titled the Discussion section. 

Reviewer 2 Report

This article about the impact of peers and purpose on first generation college students was an interesting read and addresses an important gap on the literature. The literature has been well reviewed and the purpose of this study is clear. However issues within the methods and results sections lead to inconsistencies in the discussion section that should be addressed. Some inconsistencies with formatting appear throughout the paper and should be double checked. Introduction: The authors should include a summative rationale before they state aims. Methods: Ethical approval information (i.e. Approval Number) should be provided for this project. While reliability has been reported for the present study, discussion from previous research on the reliability as well as the validity of the included measures should be included. The authors have removed 'non-traditional students' without providing a rationale for doing so. They have also not described the characteristics or number of individuals removed. Couldn't participants over 25 also be first generation college students? Age could also have an interaction with peer relationships and purpose in college (i.e. First Generation College students over 25 may be less impacted by peers than those under 25) Results: The authors should present all demographic characteristics in a table. The authors did not describe how they defined outliers and why they were removed. The coefficients presented intext do not match the findings that are presented in the referenced table (Table 1) (lines 200-203) The authors begin to describe results which should be presented in the discussion. (lines 208-210) Discussion: The authors describe a number of constructs that were not adequately described or mentioned in the methods which leads to a bit of confusion (i.e. Overwhelm, mutual engagement, empathy, authenticity, empowerment)

Author Response

This article about the impact of peers and purpose on first generation college students was an interesting read and addresses an important gap on the literature. The literature has been well reviewed and the purpose of this study is clear. However issues within the methods and results sections lead to inconsistencies in the discussion section that should be addressed. 

 

Some inconsistencies with formatting appear throughout the paper and should be double checked. 

• We have changed the formatting in the paper. 

 

Introduction: The authors should include a summative rationale before they state aims. 

 

• Thank you for this suggestion. We have now added the following sentences before we state our research questions and hypotheses:
• “As evidence continues to accumulate on the benefits of purpose in life for college students in and out of the classroom more research is needed to illuminate factors that encourage purpose formation. This is particularly important for marginalized students, such as FGC students, who often face various barriers that hinder academic success. Extant evidence indicates that high-quality peer relationships foster numerous beneficial outcomes and may serve as critical supports in purpose development, especially for this population.”

 

Methods: Ethical approval information (i.e. Approval Number) should be provided for this project. 

• We have added approval numbers for participating institutions in the Institutional Review Board Statement at the end of the manuscript. 

 

While reliability has been reported for the present study, discussion from previous research on the reliability as well as the validity of the included measures should be included. 

• Thank you for this comment. We now include research on the reliability and validity of our primary measures. 

 

The authors have removed 'non-traditional students' without providing a rationale for doing so. They have also not described the characteristics or number of individuals removed. Couldn't participants over 25 also be first generation college students? Age could also have an interaction with peer relationships and purpose in college (i.e. First Generation College students over 25 may be less impacted by peers than those under 25) 

• We appreciate this suggestion. We limited this sample to emerging adults (i.e., those 18-25) as the formation of purpose is a key developmental task during this time period of life. We have now clarified the focus on emerging adults in the text. We have also noted that only three participants were removed from the analyses and have listed their respective ages. 

 

Results:

 The authors should present all demographic characteristics in a table. 

• Thank you for this suggestion. We have added a demographic table (Table 1) to the manuscript. 

 

The authors did not describe how they defined outliers and why they were removed. 

• Thank you for this comment and the opportunity to clarify our approach to outliers in our analyses. We have revised this discussion as follows:
• “A histogram of the standardized residuals revealed a negative skew and two outliers were identified through casewise diagnostics with residuals greater than 3 (in absolute value). These values were not due to coding or data entry errors. After removing the outliers, the histogram was roughly normal (i.e., no longer negatively skewed) and, consequently, results presented here do not include the outliers.” 

 

The coefficients presented intext do not match the findings that are presented in the referenced table (Table 1) (lines 200-203).

• Thank you for this comment. The standardized coefficients were presented in the text and the unstandardized coefficients are presented in the table. 

 

The authors begin to describe results which should be presented in the discussion. (lines 208-210) 

• We appreciate this suggestion and have deleted the following sentence from the results:
• “In other words, relationships with peers mattered more for purpose formation for FGC students compared to their non-FGC peers.” 

 

Discussion: The authors describe a number of constructs that were not adequately described or mentioned in the methods which leads to a bit of confusion (i.e. Overwhelm, mutual engagement, empathy, authenticity, empowerment)

We have removed the italics from overwhelm as we did not intend to introduce it as a new construct in the paper. We have also added a discussion of the aspects of peer relationships as measured by the RHI peer subscale (mutual engagement, empathy, authenticity, and empowerment) in both the Method section and literature review. 

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors' work is accurate and the article has been developed correctly. However, there are certain aspects that can be developed in order to improve the quality of the article.

First of all, the bibliographic references do not follow the norms of the journal. References must be numbered in order of appearance in the text and listed individually at the end of the manuscript. In the text, reference numbers should be placed in square brackets [] and placed before the punctuation; for example [1], [1–3] or [1,3]. The way of referencing is also incorrect for this journal. Please observe the examples suggested in the template at the end of the manuscript in order to know the specific standards of this journal.

Second, the sample is poorly described. It is not explained how many of the participants were men, how many women, the age ranges ... it is preferable to better explain the sample and the procedure. The preliminary analysis section, in this case, is better limited and incorporated into the description of the sample.

Third, there is no reference to whether the research has been approved by an ethics committee or not. Explain this correctly.

The rest of the sections seem correct and well explained, but please you should take into account these aspects in order to improve the fit of your article to the journal.

Author Response

The authors' work is accurate and the article has been developed correctly. However, there are certain aspects that can be developed in order to improve the quality of the article.

 

First of all, the bibliographic references do not follow the norms of the journal. References must be numbered in order of appearance in the text and listed individually at the end of the manuscript. In the text, reference numbers should be placed in square brackets [] and placed before the punctuation; for example [1], [1–3] or [1,3]. The way of referencing is also incorrect for this journal. Please observe the examples suggested in the template at the end of the manuscript in order to know the specific standards of this journal.

• Thank you for this suggestion. We have changed the formatting in the paper. 

 

Second, the sample is poorly described. It is not explained how many of the participants were men, how many women, the age ranges ... it is preferable to better explain the sample and the procedure. The preliminary analysis section, in this case, is better limited and incorporated into the description of the sample.

• Thank you for this suggestion. We have now created a table with descriptive statistics (Table 1) and have discussed them in the Method section.

Third, there is no reference to whether the research has been approved by an ethics committee or not. Explain this correctly.

• We appreciate this suggestion and have added additional information about the approval of this research by each university participating in the study, as well as approval numbers at the end of the manuscript. 

 

The rest of the sections seem correct and well explained, but please you should take into account these aspects in order to improve the fit of your article to the journal.

 

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I believe the authors have comprehensively addressed all issues raised in my initial report and the article is adequate for publication.

The clarity and structure of the article has been improved with corrections such as the inclusion of psychometric properties of focal scales, descriptive statistics and removal of outliers/participants over 25.

 

 

Author Response

Thank you for your helpful suggestions. We believe those suggestions have helped us greatly improve our manuscript.