Review Reports - School Dropout: Intentions, Motivations and Self-Efficacy of a Sample of South Africa Youth

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The subject of the paper “School dropout: Intentions, motivations and self-efficacy of a sample of SA youth” is timely and valuable to the audience of the Youth. Researchers presented results from asking 625 South African students from 9 and 11 grades about their intentions to drop out from school.

Overall, the paper is well structured, reads quite well, and covers the existing literature quite well. The analysis of the data is interesting and well documented. However, in my view, some major amendments are required prior to publication.

Table 1. the third column is supposed to be „Males”, not „Grades”. Row Metro East, Grade 11. The numbers 77 and 98 do not sum to 167. This needs to be corrected.

Line 149: Instead of „sex,” supposed to be gender.

Lines 154 - 161. There is information about 16 questions for motivation, four items for each subscale, and finally, there are five subscales (intrinsic motivation, identified regulation, introjected regulation, external regulation, and amotivation). So it doesn’t match since five subscales, and four items in each subclass are a total of 20 questions. Please, be more precise here.

Table 2. The sum in „Race” is 623 - not 625 - needs to be corrected. The sum in Language is 610 - not 625. Same situation. I see further information about not always having 625 responses in tables 3 and 4, but does it mean that somehow responses were not collected?

Titles for tables 3 and 4 are identical, but I believe they have different data and responses to different questions.

I also noticed that cited literature is not current. Many references are 20 or more years old. I lack discussion and results compared with more recently published works.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments and suggestions. We have addressed the reviewers' comments in track changes in the article.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

In reference to the methodology, point 2, Learners' Motivation and Self-Efficacy, presents the Motivation category, the Self-efficacy of learners category and the Learners' intentions to persist in school category. To assess motivation, the scale "Motivation for Learners and the Perceived Locus of Causality" (Goudas, Biddle and Fox 1994) is used with the following subcategories included: intrinsic motivation, identified regulation, introjected regulation, external regulation and amotivation.

School dropout: Intentions, motivations and self-efficacy of a sample of SA youth

We fully agree with the authors on the need to prevent school dropouts. We also agree that the most precise good for personal and social development is education. For this reason, we have found interesting the investigation

The study aimed to determine the relationship between learners’ intention, motivation and self-efficacy to drop out of in low and high socio-economic schools. One point that we miss is a better contextualization of the research, for example a more detailed identification of the differences between high socio-economic status schools and low socio-economic schools; as well as in the differences between the statuses of the students, their families, or the neighbourhood environment, given the enormous influence of capital and family habitus in school dropout and performance.

The authors introduce in the discussion the main reference to the South African context. We believe that at the beginning was necessary the question of how is it possible that after 26 years into democracy, the high school dropout rate of approximately 50% exists? because this implies a complex problem, with various interrelated factors that go beyond a motivational problem of the students.

In the conceptual framework, we recommend the authors for future research the theory of self-determination (Deci & Ryan, 2000) understanding that if education is a key driver for development, the concept of self-determination implies the will and persistence in motivation and self-efficacy. We recommend reading this perspective as it posits three innate psychological needs – competence, autonomy, and relationships – which, when satisfied, lead to increased self-motivation and when frustrated lead to reduced motivation. This conceptualization includes processes of tenacity, socialization and autonomy that are partly independent of the social or cultural stratum of origin.

The Results are relevant and interesting, for example: Learners in low socio-economic schools scored higher on motivation; Learners in low socio-economic schools scored lower on overall self-efficacy, leisure and academic achievement, and learners in low socio-economic schools scored higher on parental and community support and self-regulated learning. But these results are not properly discussed in the Discussion.

Regarding the Reasons for learners considering dropping out of school, the result that “When things are not well at home” in low socio-economic schools versus “I hardly consider dropping out” in high socio-economic status schools is consistent. And very interesting that the result “I Would love to finish Grade 12 but cannot handle the pressure” is found in both Low and High schools; so it is a pity that these results have not been consistently discussed in the Discussion. The research is interesting but deserved a deeper and critical discussion. For example, even when student dropout figures are denounced as alarming, it should be questioned how the educational system and policy, or the adequacy of the teaching staff, may have influenced both groups to underline “I cannot handle the pressure”, which can mean that it is the system that produces helplessness, disappointment or demotivation.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you for your comments and suggestions. We have addressed the comments in track changes in the article.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you very much. All of my previous comments were correctly addressed. I think that the manuscript has been significantly improved. I wish you good luck in your future work.