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Opportunities for pre-college students to engage in authentic scientific communication are limited, despite evidence that participation in disciplinary practices is important for science identity, motivation, and persistence in STEM. Scientific publication, in particular, remains largely inaccessible at the pre-college level, even though it represents a central practice of the scientific community. This study examines why pre-college students voluntarily pursue the process of publishing their scientific research.

Using a science identity framework (recognition, competence, and performance), the authors analyze pre-publication survey data from student authors, including a multiple-select motivation question and open-ended responses describing students’ reasons for submitting a manuscript. The authors also describe the sources of support students accessed during their research and writing to provide context for how students navigate the publication process. The authors conclude that students primarily view publication as a pathway to gaining recognition and developing scientific competence, with female-identifying students placing greater emphasis on recognition and scientific writing skills.

Although I note my potential COI due to my work in this area (student publication and peer review), I view this research as both timely and important. Empirical studies examining student engagement in disciplinary practices such as scientific publication remain rare, particularly at the pre-college level and beyond the work of a small number of researchers. At the same time, the scholarly publishing landscape is undergoing substantial change, and the science education community stands to benefit from research that deepens our understanding of how these practices relate to science identity.

My comments and suggestions are presented below.

Major issues

• The research questions focus on students’ motivations for publication and whether those motivations differ by gender. However, the section describing students’ independence and sources of support does not directly address these questions. As currently presented, it describes how students conducted their research, not why they chose to publish or how those conditions relate to motivations or gender differences. Thus, these results feel only loosely connected to the main aims.

  • I recommend that the authors clarify how these analyses connect to the motivation questions, or consider relocating them to the Discussion or in the Supp. Materials if they remain descriptive.

• The multiple-select motivation item does not include a response option that explicitly assesses performance-based motivation, which the authors acknowledge in the operationalization section (pg. 5). While the discussion of overlapping boundaries between identity dimensions is helpful, the manuscript continues to frame performance alongside recognition and competence in ways that invite direct comparison across these constructs.

  • To strengthen alignment between the research question, measures, and claims, I recommend that the authors either 1) narrow the framing of the first research question to focus on recognition and competence, treating performance as an emergent qualitative theme, or 2) more explicitly clarify in the framing and limitations that performance-based motivation cannot be interpreted or compared in the same way as the other dimensions.

Minor issues

• The authors analyze only pre-publication survey responses, despite describing the survey as being administered pre and post publication. It would be helpful to clarify why the analyses are limited to pre-publication data.

• The manuscript occasionally frames publication as fostering or strengthening science identity, but the use of pre-publication data alone does not allow for conclusions about identity development over time. Please revise the framing of these claims to align more closely with what the data can support.

• Please clarify whether student authors participated in research experiences where publication was optional, encouraged, or expected, as this context is important for interpreting students’ motivations for publication.

• I believe that a two-tailed Z test of proportions is not technically appropriate when participants can select multiple items (because responses are not independent).

Competing interests

I was a collaborating researcher with the first author on a previous NSF grant related to student engagement in preprint peer review.

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

The author declares that they did not use generative AI to come up with new ideas for their review.