Students were positive about the module, giving it an average rating of 4.5 out of 5 for being “helpful and instructive” (Likert scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree); n=111; response rate 96%).
Thematic analysis of written feedback (n=82) provided insights into three themes: (i) affective experience (i.e. emotional reactions during the task performance); (ii) understanding of scientific practice; (iii) understanding of course content.
With respect to the first theme, affective experience, the students mostly found the experience enjoyable and useful, and indicated that it was unique within the curriculum, as illustrated by these quotes: “This was great. I hope that students following the course in the next year will also have the opportunity to do it”; “Very cool and helpful assignment! Have never had something like this in a course”.
In addition, the interaction with the corresponding author and the ‘real life’ aspect of the module were clearly valued: “The assignment was interesting to do. I liked very much the discussion with the author and the explanation how he addressed the comments”; “I really liked this as you look at the results from a different perspective & direct feedback from the author”.
However, some students were less positive: “Not really clear to me”; “It was very challenging”.
With respect to the second theme, understanding of scientific practice, the comments showed that the module had introduced many of them to the revision and rebuttal process for the first time. Some also commented that the module had helped to prepare them for a future job in research: “It offered a nice view of what reviewers look for in a paper and it was an occasion to compare how students would solve a problem and how a researcher does it. It was a great opportunity for discussion”; “I really liked this exercise, very useful as part of being trained as a scientist”.
In terms of the Dreyfus model of skills acquisition, we can say that the module lets the students move from ‘novice’ (stage 1) to ‘competent’ (stage 2) regarding their skills in the revision and rebuttal process (Dreyfus and Dreyfus, 1980). Competent means that they will be able to recognize similar situations or settings, and to apply guidelines: however, they still need to acquire ‘proficiency’ (stage 3) and ‘expertise’ (stage 4) to reach ‘mastery’ (stage 5). One way for a student to move from stage 2 to stage 3 and beyond is to co-review an article with an established researcher (McDowell et al., 2019; Macarelli and Merkle, 2025). When asked to review a manuscript, many senior researchers already do this, and many journals encourage reviewers to involve a junior member of their group in the review process (Nature, 2025; Gierasch, 2019).
The third theme, understanding of course content, emerged as a result of the students being asked to analyze a complex manuscript in detail and to design new experiments: “Really liked the concept. Never done before. It lets you think and practice how to solve questions by performing experiments”; “It was super cool and gave opportunities to design experimental approaches”.
While the feedback from students was mostly positive, a few found the module challenging or unclear in purpose, which may be interpreted as them being outside their comfort zone. In social-constructivist learning theory this is referred to as the ‘zone of proximal development’, and being outside this zone can support learning, even if it feels uncomfortable to students (Vygotsky and Cole, 1978).