Manuscript ID: education-3868368 Type of manuscript: Article Title: The impact of an immersive block model on international postgraduate student success and satisfaction: An Australian case study Higher Education

Review reports should contain the following: • A brief summary (one short paragraph) outlining the aim of the paper, its main contributions and strengths. The manuscript’s aim is to analyse the impact of a block-model curriculum on in-country international postgraduate students in an Australian university. As a longitudinal institution-wide analysis across a range of disciplines, the manuscript augments an insubstantial base of rigorous evaluations of these students’ experiences of an intensive mode of study. A mixed methods approach enriches both quantitative studies (more common in institutional evaluation) and qualitative studies (more often associated with course/program-level evaluations).

General questions to help guide your review report for research articles: ** Q.1. Is the manuscript clear, relevant for the field and presented in a well-structured manner?

Overall, the manuscript is easy to read, it is clear, scholarly and well-structured. I have one nagging question which circles around the methodology and its implementation. (See

** Q.2 Are the cited references mostly recent publications (within the last 5 years) and relevant? Does it include an excessive number of self-citations?

There are a good variety of recent references related to intensive modes of study. Complementing these are substantial sourcing of more general information about the methodological approaches and educational theories (such as cognitive load active learning and international students’ experience). Arguably fewer contextual sources could be used, particularly when the source is used only once (e.g. Marton & Saljo (1976).

** Q.3 Is the manuscript scientifically sound and is the experimental design appropriate to test the hypothesis? … and **** Q.4 Are the manuscript’s results reproducible based on the details given in the methods section?

The research questions are clearly identified (p. 2) and linked to data sources (page 5). However on reading about the methodology I felt that I lacked sufficient information about the procedure you followed.

Can you elaborate on how your overall methodology demonstrates Creswell & Plano-Clark’s “convergent mixed methods design”? I only had access to the authors’ 2018 edition, so understand that their thinking/explanations may have evolved. Their p.60 explains “we now emphasize what the researcher does with the data sources within the intent of the study (e.g., to converge the results for enhanced understanding”). Page 63 continues “Regardless of the emphasis being placed on each of the two strands [i.e. quantitative and qualitative], the overall intent of the researcher is to converge or compare the results from the two databases”. I felt that you implicitly addressed the final step in this methodology ie “to interpret to what extent and in what ways the two sets of results converge or diverge”. Can you make the convergence/divergence more explicit? Can you review your focus group data to see whether there are quotations that contextualise/illuminate your response to RQ2? Might the student focus group data be related to Table 3 or Table 4 (section 4.2 Unit Satisfaction)?

Your figure 1 was an excellent illustration of the relationship between the themes and sub-themes. Could you provide an extract from your codebook to illustrate how the codes were drawn into sub-themes, and explain how the focus groups data from questions 1 and 2 (lines 303 and 304) were considered?

Similar to the convergence/divergence aspect of your overarching convergence mixed methods approach, I felt that there was insufficient information about how the qualitative data collection process occurred. For example, in what way was the sample “convenience”? In which year was the focus group data collected (can you relate this to the time periods in Table 1)? How long were the focus groups and which disciplines were present in each group? What are the methodological implications of only 3 of the 9 focus group participants studying in a discipline included in the quantitative data? What impact does this have on your answer to RQ3? There were very few illustrative quotes, which I found unsettling as I’d usually be looking to see agreement /disagreement from a variety of voices. Can you provide more quotes to better illustrate the student voice?

Perhaps a little more background context about the “student experience” during the T1 phase? (This is a period mentioned in the Discussion section when it was suggested that perhaps students benefited from their lecturers’ redesigning of units in preparation for the WM period). A richer explanation may also help the reader better understand the context of those students who participated in the focus group, for example, appeared to be in contrast to focus group students observing (lines 562 and 563) that “some units were not designed in ways conducive to deep learning or that the cognitive load remained high”.)

I wasn’t clear on which “underlying theory of change” (lines 595-6) were considered.

** Q.5 Are the figures/tables/images/schemes appropriate? Do they properly show the data? Are they easy to interpret and understand? Is the data interpreted appropriately and consistently throughout the manuscript? Please include details regarding the statistical analysis or data acquired from specific databases.

I struggled with Table 2 in particular. Line 342 says that results only relate to the WM as the predictor of interest, then refers to “Table A2 for a full list…” I couldn’t find Table A2.

** Q.6 Are the conclusions consistent with the evidence and arguments presented?

I would like a clearer understanding of queries raised for review questions 3 & 4 before feeling confident in responding to this question.

** Q.7 Please evaluate the ethics statements and data availability statements to ensure they are adequate.

Can the ethical considerations be clearly incorporated into the methodology section? I only noticed reference to ethical dimensions at the end of the article on page 18.