Community-Engaged Learning Within the Medical Curriculum: Evaluating Learning Outcomes and Implementation Challenges

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Overall, the paper is important, should be published, and has a few points to be addressed as below. 

-  Line 135 - While this is a legitimate research design, The section on 'design' needs to be expanded and each element of the design should have at least one solid reference to justify the specific type of methodology adopted: "Design: An explorative, qualitative design with pre-training and post-training measurements were used in this study"

-  Line 643 - please use long version of CEL as a lot of readers will go straight to the conclusion, so it must be clear.

-  After the Discussion section, I'd like to see a section on 'Findings', where the key findings are clearly articulated, even if point form needs to be used for clarity.

-  Line 642 - Conclusions. As it stands, this is just a very general summary. Please incorporate a list of key Conclusions as well as the generic text. This will enhance the paper's readability and uptake by end-users.

Author Response

Please find the reply to Reviewer 1 in the attached document. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Abstract

“The study analyzed students' written reflections” what kind of analysis was done (content analysis, thematic analysis?)

Introduction

What is the difference between service learning and Community Engaged Learning?

Method

First and foremost, I need to be informed about the method used, specifically the thematic analysis of the written journals by students who attended the course. I should have a clear and precise understanding of what was done and how it was conducted. This section should begin with that information, providing an immediate overview before delving into the details.

I need to know whether the researchers were the ones conducting the course and how the teacher-student relationship was addressed. Could the journals be critical, considering that students were receiving some form of credit for the subject? How did this influence the results?

Line 135 "pre-training and post-training measurements" – this is very similar to the terms used in the experiment. Please consider renaming it to avoid confusion with pre-test and post -test.

Were the journals published in any repository, so that they could be reviewed?

According to whose guidelines was the thematic analysis conducted (you mention Braun and Clark later on, but there are 6 steps, and you used only 4).

Results

Figure 2, Figure 3 – It is hard to see the connection between the terms. Please create a more precise thematic concept map. Are the terms you identified really not connecting with each other?

After the quotation the coded identification is missing (eg J4) – journal 4

Lines 205 – 2017 the quotations are not italics.

Some quotations seems repetitive. Don’t use more then 1 or 2 to illustrate the same phenomenon.

Discussion

I found that it is sometimes repetitive of introduction and results.

Line 509 „in Stewart and Wubbena’s Review” please add one more time reference number here.

Lines 536-537 needs references after theories you mentions: “learning frameworks such as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and 536 Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development”

How did the cultural setting of the research influence it?

Strengths and limitations

I would avoid using the term "systematic" to describe the strength of qualitative research. Instead, you might consider emphasizing its depth.

Conclusions

Please rewrite so it will be most important conclusion form your study not just the ending of the article.

Author Response

Please find the reply to Reviewer 2 in the attached document. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx