- Review: found
Review of 'The effects of cumulative stressful educational events on the mental health of doctoral students during the COVID-19 pandemic'
Average rating: | Rated 3.5 of 5. |
Level of importance: | Rated 4 of 5. |
Level of validity: | Rated 3 of 5. |
Level of completeness: | Rated 3 of 5. |
Level of comprehensibility: | Rated 3 of 5. |
Competing interests: | None |
Reviewed article
- Record: found
- Abstract: found
- Article: found
The effects of cumulative stressful educational events on the mental health of doctoral students during the COVID-19 pandemic
Review information
Review text
Sideropoulos et al aimed to determine the effects of cumulative stressful events on the mental health of doctoral students during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research is important and under-explored; however, I am uncertain as to the appropriateness of the research for an environmental journal. While the research area is important, and the inclusion of assessment of coping skills and attentional ability is a strength, the manuscript could benefit from considerable revisions, with attention paid to setting up the research question, and presenting the results.
Specific comments:
Abstract:
Provide more information on the population/participants in which the study was conducted.
Introduction
Paragraph 2: provide examples/citations that support the claim that examining sub-populations separately is important.
Line 122: This sentence repeats what was stated in the previous sentence.
Methods
Line 181 is missing the close parenthesis.
On lines 183, 187, and 193, I would like to know more about how reliability was tested in more detail.
Section 2.2.4, I would imagine that factors that induce stress in the doctoral community differs by the specialization of study. For example, the nature/cause of stress of a PhD student in the humanities could be different from the factors inducing stress in someone from a “Professional Doctorate” degree. Is there is a reason the field of study was not included as a covariate?
Line 216, please provide more information on the data analysis.
Why were the two individual-level variables not investigated separately? Perhaps if there was more discussion of the relationship between the two variables in the introduction, this would become evident to the reader. As presented, it raises questions and the logic is not easy to follow.
Results
Line 240: Did the authors mean “covariates” instead of “covariance?”
Discussion
Line 251. The term “synthetic” confused me. Did the authors mean “systematic” way?
Line 322: What are the percentages?
The lack of consensus with previous research is unexpected and needs more discussion, likely in line with a lack of generalizability of the results given the unique sample and modest sample size.