Thank you for the opportunity to review this manuscript. This study sought to compare different dimensions of academic self-efficacy across gender (male-female) among a sample of Mexican university students. Participants completed a measure of academic self-efficacy in-person on a computer. Researchers then analyzed these results and compared across men and women. I will note that this paper read like it was directly translated from Spanish to English which makes it a bit difficult to follow in terms of phrasing and grammar. With that, below are some points for consideration with regard to this study and its conclusions. 

General
•	There are issues with APA Style formatting throughout the paper, including in-text citations and headings 
•	The measure used for this study seems really loaded in terms of the different facets of academic self-efficacy. It also seems challenging to create the 4 indexes based on the number of items for each subscale, particularly the Excellence subscale as it only has two items.
•	Was there any consideration for gender identities beyond male or female? 

Introduction
•	The introduction reads a bit lacking in terms of engagement with the literature related to self-efficacy. Much of the background on self-efficacy with regard to academics does not include citations to external sources. The authors can consider integrating more sources or providing a greater rationale as to why they do not/cannot provide much literature support.
•	Please provide a more explicit theoretical framework for this study. 
•	Overall, the introduction and literature review read a bit disjointed. The authors appear to provide 1-2 sentences on a different variable related to academic self-efficacy throughout the introduction, but do not clearly demonstrate how this builds into the current study. 
•	Additionally, given that the paper is primarily focused on gender differences, the discussion of gender influences on self-efficacy is lacking. Only half of one paragraph explicitly mentions previous research regarding gender differences in the introduction. There should be much more dedicated to exploring gender differences in self-efficacy, broadly, and academic self-efficacy specifically, in order to build a rationale for the reported study.  
•	Furthermore, the discussion of gender frames women as more “emotional,” which reads a bit stereotypically; more detail and elaboration is needed to nuance these findings.
•	The authors do not provide explicit research questions or hypotheses for this study.   

Method
•	Given that numerous variables were described as related to self-efficacy in the introduction (e.g., age, emotionality, intrinsic motivation), were any of these controlled for or considered as potential covariates? If not, please provide a rationale as to why. 
•	It was difficult to follow the description of your self-efficacy measure and the breakdown of the different subscales.
•	Were the indexes part of the original measure or were these created by the authors?
•	Additionally, how were the indexes calculated? Did the authors use summations or means? 
•	It is difficult to see how the sample items measure the identified subscales (e.g., Excellence).  
•	The authors note that the measure has shown adequate reliability, but no statistics from previous studies are reported (i.e., Cronbach’s alpha). Additionally, no reliability statistic is reported for the current sample. 
•	More information is warranted around why this scale was chosen over others, especially given that this scale was manipulated in so many ways (i.e., subscales, further subscales, and indexes). 
•	I appreciate the information on why the scale was 0-10. 
•	I would suggest moving the study design and variables section before the discussion of the measure.
•	How were the students recruited to participate (e.g., class announcements; e-mail)? Were they offered any type of incentive? 
•	Please provide more information around the “brief introduction of the importance of the study.” What details or information was provided for participants? Could this have potentially primed or influenced the results? 
•	Data Analysis subsection should be moved to the Results.
•	Please specify which assumptions you tested for prior to data analysis.
•	Was there any missing data? How was this handled for analysis? 
   
Results
•	Results are presented in a straightforward manner, though each section is a bit difficult to follow due to phrasing and grammar. 

Discussion
•	The majority of the Discussion reads a bit repetitive, as it is mainly a summary of the results without much interpretation. 
•	Further elaboration is needed on the consistency of the findings with previous work, and/or why the authors believe they obtained the patterns they did. 
•	Some of the points in this section would be more useful in the Introduction as a way to frame the study and goals. For example, the connection to Social Cognitive Theory and that similar research has primarily been conducted in other countries. 
•	There was no mention of limitations of this study; please identify and discuss those.
•	There was no discussion on potential future directions or what possible interventions could be developed as a result of this study. 
•	Based on these findings and conclusion, it is unclear what this study contributes to the current literature. 
