Students’ Burnout Symptoms Detection Using Smartwatch Wearable Devices: A Systematic Literature Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This article presents a systematic literature review using the widely adopted PRISMA guidelines. The article focuses on the use of smartwatch wearable devices and artificial intelligence for the early detection of burnout symptoms in students. 

It positions itself clearly by including the context and highlighting the motivation. It examines existing research and highlights the potential of physiological monitoring and AI-driven predictive models in assessing student mental well-being.

It identified that stress is the most frequently studied symptom and heart rate variability is a key biomarker. 

The objective was achieved using 7 research questions related to behavioral patterns, wearable devices, survey methods and the accuray and performance of the surveyed systesm, etc. The final review comprised of 13 research articles.

The article describes the findings through a number of talbes and figures.

The review also discusses challenges and limitations, including data reliability and ethical considerations, and evaluates the accuracy and performance of various methods used in the reviewed studies. Ultimately, it underscores the promise of wearable AI technology in student mental health but emphasizes the need for further refinement and ethical implementation.

Overall, I find the review quite comprehensible as it focuses on sevearl possible aspects of stress and burnout in students addressing the issues with devices, privacy, machine learning predictions, etc. 

If I have not missed it between the lines, I feel that the relationship between stree/burnout and academic performance is missing. While the article discusses interventions and apps aimed at managing stress and anxiety, and it also mentions the negative effects of stress and burnout on academic performance, the article does not explicitly state that managing stress, anxiety, or burnout using any specific intervention or app reviewed in the studies has directly led to improved academic performance.

Can the author improve the manuscript by indicating if improving the stress has resulted in improving the academic performance? Or some other form of relationhip between them.

The quality of figures can be improved as they are low-quality images.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article is very interesting and suitable for any reader interested in students’ burnout. Burnout in students is a frequent and worrying phenomenon. Nevertheless, some recommendations for publication should be considered:

1. The structure should include an abstract, keywords, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, and conclusions.
2. Introduction: Consider including the research questions and objectives here to clarify the section.
3. Introduction: Improve the literature review by including more scientific references.
4. Method: include the analysis of biases in the selected studies.
5. Include the research string before the PRISMA 2020 flowchart.
6. Confirm the verification of the 27 items included in the PRISMA 2020 statement.
7. Method: Include an infographic to explain the methodological process.
8. Discussion: Authors should discuss the results and their interpretation. Clarify this section. One option is to create a quantitative thematic and keyword analysis.
9. Improve the scientific level of the manuscript with more statistical measures.
10. Conclusions are basic. Improve this point. Include highlights of the results obtained.
11. In this reviewer's opinion, a brief comment on the future of students’ burnout research needs to be included in the conclusion.
12. The use of figures and diagrams in the discussion improves the clarity of its descriptions. This section needs improvement in this regard.
13. Conclusions: Relate the importance of students’ burnout in the design of the future educational programs and the relationship to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
14. Include more scientific references on the phenomenon of burnout in students and teachers, for example: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/6/3732

Minor recommendations:

1. Check references; there are mistakes. They do not adapt to the MDPI format. For example, the correct format of the paper is: Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C.D. Title of the article. Abbreviated Journal Name Year, Volume, Page Range.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for granting me the opportunity to review this well-structured paper. Here are my following comments:

• Problem statement: The review of the gap of the study and problem statement could be phrased more clearly in the introductory section just before the Objectives section (Section 2). Normally, the researchers would need to identify a clear gap or missing element in literature before embarking on a paper, even if it were a systematic review. As an example, normally, it is not just based on the importance of addressing a main problem, but more so on the gap of existing methods or areas which lead towards resolving the main problem.

• Abstract: The abstract, while well structured, also needs to add a short problem statement just before the objective. This is to ensure an effective flow of reason from the main problem to the objectives.

• Discussions related to research questions: Since the authors have systematically provided a list of research questions (RQ1 to RQ7), it is imperative that the authors explicitly and directly address these research questions in the discussion text as well. This will make the discussion more systematic. 
• More citations on AI applications in general: Since this paper focuses on AI applications, please consider citing the following paper. Thank you

  Chong, P. L., Ismail, D., Ng, P. K., Kong, F. Y., Basir Khan, M. R., and Thirugnanam, S. (2024). A TRIZ Approach for Designing a Smart Lighting and Control System for Classrooms Based on Counter Application with Dual PIR Sensors. Sensors, 24(4). doi:10.3390/s24041177

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thanks to the authors for taking into account the comments of this reviewer. The manuscript can be published in its present version.