Consequences of COVID-19 on Education and Work of Young Adults: An Expert and Peer Interview Study in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland of Their Perspectives on the Past, Present and Future

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The introduction should be rewritten so it is clearer and catchier. For example, stating that "youth unemployment increased by 1% at the beginning of the crisis” does not say much to the author without a context — is this an exceptionally high number (sounds like a reasonably low number, in fact), or how does it compare to youth unemployment in other years? Clearer language would also be helpful; for example, on line 42 “school situation” sounds rather vague — what exactly about schools was assessed?   The text also needs careful proofreading, especially to avoid long, run-on sentences, such as the one between lines 33-36 — in fact, this one sentence is an entire paragraph, so paragraph structures should also be edited (usually 3-5 sentences per paragraph makes it a smooth read). Th introduction contains very heavy literature review — it would be great to systematize it for the reader not to be lost in all the details. Reviewing literature thematically is one option, showing some numerical findings through visuals (graphs, tables etc) would also be helpful.   The research question itself (lines 119-21) needs to be clarified — what is “situation” again? What kind of experiences? Is this question specifically related;ated to Covid times? If so, what timeframe or wave of Covid? The question is extremely vague.   The methodology section should very clearly state the limitations; rather than stressing that "sample selected was as heterogeneous as possible” (line 124) it would be fair to admit that interview with 23 adults is rather limited and hence the study may be indicative but not representative. It is also unclear how 23 interviewees were distributed among the 3 countries (each had 23? Altogether?) It is also unclear what happened to the data collected by those interviewees who agreed to be multipliers. And again, unclear why some interviews were examined as complimentary (lines 179-181), as this is all we learn from this 1-sentence paragraph (again, lengths of paragraphs should be adjusted, besides clarifying some details).   The theoretical section reads as chaotically as the introduction — there are multiple theoretical models used, which is great, but the author(s) don’t seem to be able to present a new and clear model that they used to frame their own study.   Later, in the result section, there seems to be no new information, beyond what has already been discussed and uncovered in academic studies… The author(s) admit this fact themselves: "The aspects mentioned in the area of schooling largely correspond to the findings of studies already conducted on distance learning.” (Line 388-9). This article adds some interesting nuances, such as the discussion of students’ reaction. In terms of the quotes used from interviewees, it is great to read original thoughts from the youth, but perhaps it can be edited (“um”-s can be definitely taken out!). The transition aspect would also be novel, but it is pushed to the background at the end of the article.   Overall, the structure of the article reads as chaotic and not well developed at the moment. The article may need re-thinking and re-structuring so it clearly contextualizes and positions this study in the relatively large number of studies already conducted on this topic, points out the clear niche (and clarifies the research question) and presents findings in a disciplined way.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your detailed review – we appreciate that a lot! The introduction has been restructured with corresponding titles so that the reader can follow more easily. Moreover, study-irrelevant quotes have been deleted. The research question have been split up into three questions. We rewrote them so that they are less open and contain all the relevant details such as period, age of the interviewees etc. We added some more information to the methodology section such as a detailed table of the interviewee characteristics, further explanations on how we collected and analyzed our data, and a more self-critical statement. We connected the theoretical models we referred to so that the relevance of them for our study can be seen in an overarching way. We restructured the result section according to the research desideratum and tried to give more explanation regarding how our study adds to the other findings. We also edited the quotes as desired.

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper presents original data that may contribute to better understanding the experiences of youth during the Covid-19 pandemic. However in its present form it still requires major revisions in order to do so. The authors should consider revising the paper by taking into account the following suggestions: 

1.     Reorganizing the introduction into a more coherent and thematically structured outlook – in its present form interesting ideas and information is presented but it is difficult to follow due to the very loose argumentative structure. Also a thematic structure would allow returning to these points in the conclusion more clearly. 

2.     Incorporating English language sources about young people’s experiences during the pandemic in the literature review - the German language sources are alright but they are dominating the presentation of a debate that has also been carried out in English language youth studies journals. 

3.     Formulating more precisely the research question. Especially the reference to past, present and future in relation to the experiences of youth is very unclear. Which aspects of these experiences are relevant to the inquire in the present paper? And what is the relationship between the stated temporalities and the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the concept of youth transitions. 

4.     Explaining in the methodology section why certain interviews were analyzed systematically whereas others were not. Where the peer researchers compensated or how were they rewarded (e.g. through acquiring research skills)? Explaining how the group of young people was diverse (e.g. in the presentation of findings all young people appear to be matura/ abitur graduates – which is a very privileged section of the respective age groups. Specifying the language of the interviews (probably German). Giving more details about the topics covered in the interviews. Explaining more clearly which were conducted through Zoom and which directly. Which interviews were conducted by adult researchers and which by peer researchers and how this impacted the data and whether you took this into account during the analysis. Explaining how and why deductive categories were chosen – especially the concept of coping mechanisms is shacky and in my view not clearly applied to the data in the present version of the paper (see next comment). 

5.     In the presentation of the findings more care needs to be given to explaining the concepts employed and how you are developing them. 

a.     When referring/ exploring school – do you only address the impact of distance education or also other aspects of the pandemic context – in which way? 

b.     When addressing the transition it is unclear what you mean by ‘spontaneity’ – from the data it appears to refer to unpredictability of the present context and the precarity of the position of young people (high school graduates) within it – but this would need empirical substantiation and theoretical grounding. Especially the scholarship on emerging adulthood (including in a pandemic context) should be discussed here. 

c.     The section on coping strategies is rather unclear – as the coding in the section is deductive the authors should explain what exactly the authors expect that the young people are coping with – the pandemic context and its social consequences? Or something else? 

6.     In the discussion section the lines 517 – 521 on pg. 13 are unclear. The authors should be careful to not fall into psychological speculation or stigmatize research participants.  

7.     The thesis proposed at the end are two schematic and fail to bring together the paper. Especially the conclusions addressing coping mechanisms should be carefully re-analyzed as there is not a large enough sample to authentically derive hypothesis and correlative relationships in this paper.   

Author Response

Thank you very much for your detailed review – we appreciate that a lot!

To 1 and 2: We restructured the introduction and added corresponding titles. We also added some more international literature.

To 3: We concretized our research question by splitting It up thematically and adding all the relevant details.

To 4: We gave more explanation and details about the sample, data, data collection and data analysis.

To 5a: We explained what we mean by school and why we didn’t differentiate between the different forms of schooling in our data.

To 5b: We exchanged spontaneity with impulsivity and explained what we mean by that and how we derived it from the quotes.

To 5c: We inserted our coding guideline with the rules and anchor examples for our deductive coding so that it is transparent for the reader.

To 6: We explained our interpretation based on common belief.

To 7: As the thesis are derived from the analysis and our interpretations (s. discussion), we formulated the theses based on what data has shown. We rewrote them now in a more hypothetical way. Does it look better now? What do you think? As an explanation for our theses: Qualitative research is characterized by a small number of cases with many characteristics to develop and enrich theoretical understanding and develop theses which then can further develop to hypotheses which can then be quantitatively examined with a big number of cases and a very focus set of characteristics (Ragin, 1994, p.302)

As written at the beginning of the theses chapter, the theses are formulated as assumptions to be verified for generalization. We plan to conduct a follow-up study (survey; quantitative) in order to verify the theses.

Ragin, C. C. (1994). Introduction to qualitative. The comparative political economy of the welfare state, 299.

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for your detailed report on an innovative if small-scale study

Author Response

Thank you for your review! We edited certain aspects such as the structure, details or clarity based on the other two reviews.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The article still needs proofreading (consider sentences like the one in line 77-78, where "but" is used twice, incorrectly: Various studies [9, 15, 17, 36, 44, 62], looked into the health, but not only the physical 77 dimension but also in the psychological or social one. 

I recommend clearly stating the hypothesis and research goals at the beginning. The only way I could understand the purpose of the study is from the abstract (or reading beyond p. 4), then the paper spends extensive time reciting literature review, which, admittedly, is an important part of research, but should not crowed out the research question.

Great improvement in the presentation of the methodology of the study!

Paper needs editing. In the Introduction section, are those sub-sections? why aren't they numbered like in the "Design of the study" section?

Reconsider titling paragraphs or sections, it is confusing. You have section titles and sub-section titles, I do not see a need of titling beyond this.

If the journal allows, consider using appendix for information like a list of interviewees and coding guidelines. Both take up much space but can be included in Appendix instead.

Findings are presented sufficiently and point at some interesting results. Again, when I see excessive titles, it takes away from the fluency and coherency of the paper, it reads more abruptly. Unless it is a strong preference of the author(s), I would have continuous text discussing findings. 

Author Response

Thank you for your comments! What we edited now:

• We took some minor changes in the language after proofreading it again.
• We put the research questions in a summarized form to the introduction chapter.
• We structured the introduction section equal to the design of the study section > Hence, it should become clear that the state of research is summarized in the introduction chapter.
• Since appendixes are not allowed, we decided to let the tables and figures in the text
• We decided for the sub-headings in the discussion section since it helps to find texts about a certain topic in order to let the reader directly jump to the regarding discussion part if they are interested in reading further comments after reading it in the result section.
• Furthermore, we applied some minor changes such as unifying the spelling (lower / upper case) (e.g. coping strategies), or making sure that the numbers of tables we refer to in the text are corresponding to the right table.

Reviewer 2 Report

The article is much improved, congratulations!

The methodology especially is more clearly stated and elaborated.

I do however consider that the psycho-social/ socio-educational approaches to youth transitions may require further reflection, but I think the article brings together an important contribution in its present form so that the authors may consider these suggestions for future manuscripts.

For future research, the authors may consider dividing the analysis of psycho-social and socio-educational processes into separate papers. This is especially recommended when different modalities of coding processes (inductive and deductive) are used. This would also allow for better embedding of the conclusions into literature in each of this streams. In its present form, integrating these two perspectives with the literature remains a challenge. 

Some minor revisions should nevertheless be carried out before publication. E.g. there is a section (on coding and coping strategies) that appears twice in the current version of the manuscript. This should be avoided. The coding definitions when not paraphrased but taken literally should be marked with quotation marks ("") and complete in text reference (including page numbers), as they currently appear as being detected by anti-plagiarism software. 

Looking forward to seeing this in print!

Author Response

Thank you for your valuable inputs! It is a great idea to focus more on the psycho-social / socio-educational approaches in another paper.

• We added this input to the outlook section (4.6 further research)
• The description of the analysis of the coping strategies was shortened in the section 3.3 Coping strategies to avoid redundancies.
• The coding definitions are now marked with quotation marks and the page numbers are added
• Furthermore, we applied some minor changes such as unifying the spelling (lower / upper case), (e.g. coping strategies), or making sure that the numbers of tables we refer to in the text are corresponding to the right table.