Becoming a peer reviewer for an education research journal: peer review mentoring as a boundary crossing experience Open Access

Quality education research is contingent on reliable and rigorous knowledge generation and publication practices. Peer review continues to be the bedrock of the scholarly publication system, ensuring the rigour, quality, and substantive contribution of scholarly work (Vanderstraeten, 2022). However, it is not standard practice within the academy to provide formal mentoring or quality training in peer review for novice researchers as part of their academic enculturation (Lyons-Warren et al., 2024). Rather, novice researchers often learn to participate in the peer review community through the experience of reviewing others’ work or having their own work reviewed, which may lead to poor reviewing practices or a delay in peer reviewing by new researchers.

Academic enculturation is critical in quality research education and includes the preparation of novice researchers for academic activities such as publishing and reviewing research. Sun and Cheung (2022) describe academic enculturation as “the initiation or socialisation into the community of researchers in a particular discipline” (p. 135). Academic enculturation can be viewed as either a direct transmission of cultural knowledge from expert to novice or more of a dialogic social practice (Prior and Bilbro, 2012).

Some science disciplines, such as the biological sciences, have found it increasingly challenging to recruit peer reviewers (Fox et al., 2017). Tapping into science education doctoral candidates may help address this shortage. DeVries et al. (2009) advocate for the involvement of graduate students in the review process, asserting that this participation is a crucial step in their professional development.

This study centres on a peer review mentoring relationship and the intersection of boundary crossings of a mentor and mentee. Two science education researchers and authors of this article (one doctoral candidate at the time of the mentorship, second author, and one experienced researcher and journal associate editor, first author) used a collaborative self-study approach (Stenhouse, 1975) to analyse and articulate the peer review process piloted by a science education peer reviewed research journal and to provide an intimate perspective on the growth of a mentor and a mentee through a novel mentoring experience centred on peer review. For this study, we draw on the constructs of boundary crossing (Akkerman and Bakker, 2011) and mentoring frameworks (Ragins and Kram, 2007) to understand how the mentee moved towards positioning herself as a scholar and peer reviewer. As detailed below, the boundary represents the differences in practices between a graduate researcher supported by an advisor and subject to peer review and a confident peer reviewer familiar with the expectations associated with quality peer review. Akkerman and Bakker (2011) state that the boundary represents a discontinuity and learning potential, which can be negotiated with the support of a boundary spanner or boundary objects, such as a mentor. Employing the method of self-study (Stenhouse, 1975), the participant-researchers considered how their reviewing practices were informed and improved through introspection.

The aim of this project is to explore new perspectives gained during a peer review mentoring relationship involving a novice reviewer and a “more knowledgeable other” (Vygotsky, 1978) who was an experienced reviewer and associate editor of a journal. The research question explored in this paper is “What can a novice reviewer learn about becoming a more skilled peer reviewer through a mentoring program?”

Peer review entails researchers rigorously assessing the quality of each other’s work, with the objective of maintaining fidelity and robustness in their field for new knowledge to be disseminated through research (Spier, 2002). Peer review is a practice in which editors and reviewers assume a gatekeeping role (Vanderstraeten, 2022). Their decisions ensure rigour and legitimise scientific findings (Siler et al., 2015). Goodman et al.’s (1994) evaluation study assessing medical journal manuscripts showed that peer review, along with editing, improves manuscript quality. Additionally, peer review establishes the validity and reliability of manuscript evaluation (Cowell, 2014). Peer review “significantly shapes the agency of science educators” (Roth and Tobin, 2002, p. 127) and influences the direction of future research (Siler et al., 2015).

The peer review system relies on systematic, objective review, but a potential risk of rejecting quality manuscripts remains (Siler et al., 2015), potentially discouraging new authors (Sidalak et al., 2017). The process has been critiqued for the conscious or unconscious biases of reviewers and general inconsistencies among reviewers who might judge a manuscript too favourably or harshly (Haase and Dzurec, 2019). As a practice, peer review “harbours contradictions in that it leads not only to the enhancement of science education practices but to the truncation of agency, hegemony, and in extreme cases, to the destruction of careers” (Roth and Tobin, 2002, p. 127). Hence, Roth and Tobin (2002) caution novice peer reviewers to recognise peer review as a conflicting power that both “enables and constrains scholarship” (p. 127) as they continue the stewardship of forwarding the field.

A plethora of self-help guides and advice about the characteristics of quality reviews can be located on the Internet and in the literature. Baker (2002), for example, describes the peer review process in science education journals and offers recommendations for revising manuscripts and responding to reviewers’ comments. Every journal provides review criteria expectations, often associated with the typical manuscript structure (Baker, 2002).

Peer review training has been considered useful in several disciplines. Gasparyan and Kitas (2012) point towards a corpus of literature calling for more formal education (undergraduate and graduate courses) to improve peer review. The call for a “structured mentoring approach” is echoed in journals’ appeals for more peer reviewers (DeVries et al., 2009, p. 275). A recent study shows the positive impact of journal-led peer review mentoring programs where participants do two mentored reviews (Lyons-Warren et al., 2024). In comparison, other studies show a lesser impact of pairing novice reviewers with seasoned reviewers on the quality of subsequent reviews (Houry et al., 2012). DeVries et al. (2009) surveyed over 220 papers on peer review, papers which were mainly found in editorial, opinion, or commentary pages. However, the interrogation of the scientific and scholarly aspects of the review process and the cultural practices associated with reviewing remain understudied in educational journals. This article seeks to address that gap by sharing the insights gained from a mentoring program designed to build the skills and capacity of a novice reviewer.

Professionals often improve their reviewing skills through guidance and learning from more experienced colleagues (Gasparyan and Kitas, 2012). Prior studies conceptualise mentoring and the “highly personal relationship” between the “willing” (Carpenter, 2009, p. 191) mentor and mentee. In higher education, mentoring takes on many forms and can be geared towards undergraduates, graduate students, or faculty members, in either dyadic or multi-member groups, and within formal and informal settings (Lunsford et al., 2017). Positive outcomes from mentoring have been found to promote career development and enhance disciplinary identity or professional skills, including graduate students’ productivity in research and writing (Lunsford, 2012).

At the doctoral level, mentoring can involve functional or administrative support, project-oriented guidance, enculturation into the academic community, and the fostering of critical thinking (Lee and Kamler, 2008). Mentoring, transformative learning, and collaboration are key to leadership and enculturation in science education (Yeotis et al., 2009).

Ragins and Kram (2007) describe mentoring as serving both career and psychosocial functions for their proteges. For early career researchers, coaching sessions offer guidance and preparation for advancing in their field. In the psychosocial domain, mentors offer support that builds “trust, intimacy, and interpersonal bonds in the relationship”, enhancing the protege’s confidence and identity both professionally and personally (Ragins and Kram, 2007, p. 5). In comparison, Exter and Ashby (2019) describe their mentoring experience as a cognitive apprenticeship, where lengthy periods of time (3–4 h) are dedicated to discussing projects during the semester.

Different approaches to mentoring are explained by Bäker et al. (2020). In their study of doctoral students and their supervisors, the researchers identified more successful approaches to mentoring at the tertiary level as predictors of gaining tenure. Mentor approaches were seen to be of three types: (1) “teachers” who develop knowledge of the discipline, writing, publication, and norms of the community; (2) “sponsors” who act as brokers to the research community by enhancing visibility and providing opportunities for exchange with the community; and (3) “collaborators”, where the student gains job experience by working on the mentor’s projects. Mentors who are sponsors are the greatest predictors of a mentee gaining tenure, especially those who also act as teachers (Bäker et al., 2020).

For this study, the first interactions centred on mentors as teachers, where the focus of the collaboration was to enculturate the mentee as a junior researcher into the practice of peer review. The relationship then developed into a collaborative partnership as we began preparing for conference presentations, discussing “real” peer reviews, and sharing findings from our self-study research. For convenience, we engaged in virtual mentoring (Todd et al., 2016) given that we were on different continents.

This study is guided by Akkerman and Bakker’s (2011) theory of boundary crossing, which states a boundary exists where there is discontinuity between a familiar and unfamiliar practice. The boundary represents sociocultural differences leading to discontinuity in action or interaction. Akkerman and Bakker describe four mechanisms of the boundary that lead to re-establishing continuity between fields, one of which is reflection where the role of boundary crossing is in “coming to realize and explicate differences between practices and thus to learn something new about their own and others’ practice” (pp. 144–145). Akkerman and Bakker state that reflection, as described by Boland and Tenkasi (1995), involves what they termed “perspective making”, which is the process of articulating one’s new understanding and knowledge about a specific issue, a process that is dialogical and creative in nature. This analysis pays particular attention to the perspective making of the mentee – a graduate researcher – about the sociocultural practices of reviewing.

There are sociocultural practices associated with the actions of peer reviewing in academic journals marked by notions of quality, structure, and pedagogy. The graduate researcher is accustomed to utilising journal articles for reviewing the literature without necessarily conducting a thorough evaluation of their quality, a process carrying the responsibility of enabling or constraining scholarship (Roth and Tobin, 2002). As a graduate researcher approaches this new field of peer reviewing with its established practices, they may encounter discontinuity caused by a lack of knowledge of how to do a quality review. For an individual, discontinuity can be manifested as a lack of confidence and sense of inadequacy, and disrupted identities, based on unfamiliar knowledge, practices, assumptions, beliefs, and experiences. The boundary has learning potential when the individual is able to identify the discontinuity. In fact, if no discontinuity is identified or acknowledged, then there is no perceived boundary and therefore little opportunity for learning (Akkerman and Bakker, 2011). Negotiation of a boundary can be supported by boundary objects, which act as bridges between social worlds (Star, 1989) and brokers who engage in activities that translate and connect practices (Barry et al., 2020). In our study, the mentor acted as the broker, and the process of peer mentoring, along with the cultural tools that acted as boundary objects, included the manuscripts and reviews used as part of the mentoring process.

Drawing on boundary crossing theory, this study centres on the dyadic interactions between an established science education author, editor, and peer reviewer and a doctoral candidate. Boundary crossing theory acted as a framework that informed our reflection on the peer review process, which included identifying discontinuities, understanding learning as new perspectives needed to re-establish continuity, and examining how the mentoring program supported this learning.

Please note that the mentor was not the mentee’s doctoral supervisor; rather, the relationship was established through the journal mentoring program.

In June 2020, the co-editors-in-chief of a science education journal invited members of the editorial review board to act as mentors in a trial program for mentoring new reviewers. The journal co-editors sought mentees from junior researcher applicants. Both the mentor and mentee submitted expressions of interest and were matched by the journal.

The aim of the initiative was to guide novice researchers (mentees) in the production of high-quality reviews. The intention was for the mentor and mentee to work through three review cycles involving the following: (1) the mentor provides a manuscript under review to the mentee, (2) the mentor and mentee review the manuscript separately, (3) the mentor and the mentee discuss the review and the mentor provides feedback, and (4) the anonymous reviews submitted to the journal would be shared with the mentee for discussion.

As associate editor of the journal, the mentor retrieved the review manuscripts from the journal reviewing system and anonymised them. The mentee’s reviews did not count towards the formal evaluation of the manuscript. The intention was that following the third review, the mentee would be encouraged to apply to become a member of the editorial review board; however, in our enactment of this process, the mentee requested to review four manuscripts.

In addition, the mentee requested that the mentoring program form the basis of a research project using self-study to explore the new perspectives emerging through the mentoring process. Ethics approval was granted through the mentor’s institution. A process of reflection was therefore integrated into each review cycle to generate data for this self-study.

The formal virtual mentoring period occurred between October 2020 and May 2021. The data generation period was from September 2020 to December 2021. Data generation included the mentee’s reflections prior to the first review cycle. Each review followed a cycle similar to that shown in Figure 1. Each cycle ran for approximately 6 weeks and began with selecting and sharing the manuscript to be reviewed (review manuscript). Adequate time was provided for the mentor and mentee to read and annotate key points on the manuscript and write the review. We met once during the cycle when we discussed our reviews, which had been previously shared by email, and then reflected on what we learned using the boundary crossing framework. Each cycle ended with the mentee reflecting on the process in a shared document (see below). In two cycles, the mentor shared the anonymised reviews submitted (submitted reviews) to the journal for the review manuscript with the mentee for comparison purposes.

We employed self-study (Stenhouse, 1975), which is an intentional and systematic approach to examining one’s practice, aimed at both improving and gaining a deeper understanding of the practice. It involves studying the work of others and testing practice (Stenhouse, 1975). Loughran (2004) claims that self-study does not describe a particular method as such but indicates the focus of the study. The design and methodology of this study encouraged pre-reflection and post-reflection, enabling us as participants–researchers to engage in self-study. By using the systematic (Stenhouse, 1975) and rigorous (LaBoskey, 2004) method of self-study, we could make an account of what we had learned and how our practices were informed and improved through introspection.

The mentee diarised the mentor–mentee experience of examining each other’s reviews and applying new perspectives in subsequent reviews. Combined reflection before, during, and after the study enabled our multiple perspectives to inform a collective understanding of the process and outcomes of peer review mentoring.

Areas for reflection throughout the formal mentoring period were inspired by the boundary crossing mechanisms from Akkerman and Bakker (2011), which include identifying discontinuity, establishing and coordinating boundary objects, reflecting on practice and identity, and transforming practices and identity. These mechanisms were expected to manifest during mentoring whenever the mentee faced discontinuity caused by the unfamiliar process of peer review and the generative learning throughout the mentoring.

The research design of this collaborative self-study involved four processes.

1. Define and scope. The mentor and mentee co-constructed and operationalised the peer review mentoring process. The mentee conducted a preliminary literature review and reflected on her current thinking about review that informed our understanding of mentoring in the context of peer review.

2. Interactions. The mentee and mentor established the schedule and processes for distributing manuscripts, sharing reviews, meeting virtually through email and synchronous meetings using the web-based video-conference Zoom platform, and writing reflections. The mentoring interactions generally involved describing the parts of our reviews, sharing our opinions on the manuscript and rationale for our review decisions, and coming to a consensus on the review outcome. At times, the mentor shared previous experiences of reviewing and observations of trends as an associate editor. The anonymised manuscripts and submitted reviews shared with the mentee were authentic examples (White and Forgasz, 2017) and acted as boundary objects. Using these documents during our mentoring meetings helped focus attention and generate reflections on the reviewing process and the meaning of quality manuscripts and reviews.

3. Data collection. The research emerged naturally from the mentoring and reviewing process, with data consisting of transcripts of video-recorded meetings, notes, journal entries, email correspondence, and initial and final peer review remarks. A shared document was generated to record and store reflections, as well as to monitor the progress of the mentoring process and research. The mentee kept reflective notes, which consisted of pre-meeting notes and post-meeting notes associated with the four reviews (October 2020, November 2020, December 2020, and May 2021). The mentor recorded the video-conference meetings and shared her peer reviews of the manuscripts prior to the meetings.

4. Reflection. Reflection after the mentoring had ceased (December 2021) focused on how the mentoring program led to a more complex understanding of the peer review process and what had been learned about quality manuscripts and reviews.

The total number of words comprising the reflective notes included 5,585 words of reflections and emails.

We obtained ethics approval to ensure accountability to each other and adherence to a research protocol. A plain language statement acted as an agreement that detailed the aims of the research and implications of consent for participating in the research project.

After the review cycles were completed, the mentor used Nowell et al.’s (2017) six phases of thematic analysis to draw meaning from the mentee’s reflective notes, focusing specifically on the areas a reviewer needs to appreciate and understand while learning to peer review. Drawing on Nowell et al.’s six phases of analysis proceeded as follows.

In Phase 1, the mentor familiarised herself with the data by reading it multiple times and collating and colourising the data against each of the four review cycles.

In Phase 2, emergent codes relating to discontinuities and learning about the peer review process were noted in the margins of the reflective notes and were then collated into a list. Coding of the transcript focused on reasoning for specific decisions, comparisons between reviews, responses to mentor statements about reviewing and the editorial processes, as well as concerns raised and confidence issues. Coding did not focus on the specifics of the manuscripts or the reviews.

In Phase 3, common codes were combined and the associated data collated under four themes, maintaining the colour coding from Phase 1.

To undertake Phases 4 and 5, both the mentor and mentee worked through the coded data together and the list of codes. They then jointly defined and named the themes, selecting illustrative quotes for the theme descriptions that represent the patterns and trends. This is where triangulation occurred as described below.

Phase 6 involved producing the manuscript where each co-author selected data for the themes and contributed to writing and editing all parts of this manuscript.

Potential confirmation bias was mitigated by adhering to the criteria of trustworthiness described by Nowell et al. (2017) during the thematic analysis, with debriefing, triangulation, and consensus adding to rigour of the analysis. For triangulation, after all the review cycles were completed, the mentee used the notes to develop narratives for each peer review cycle, identifying key areas of discontinuity and learning. These narratives are not reported here but served as triangulation for the thematic analysis where the key insights from the narratives by the mentee were compared to the themes created by the mentor. Both identified similar areas of learning, so parts of the narratives were incorporated into the themes described below. Excerpts from the reflections are labelled with the date of reflection by the mentee and mentor: October 2020 (mentee), November 2020 (mentee), December 2020 (mentee), May 2021 (mentee), and December 2021 (mentee, mentor).

The analysis of discontinuities and key insights identified four themes representing areas that the mentee grew to appreciate and understand while learning to craft a thoughtful and critical review: (1) disagreement and/or agreement amongst reviewers, (2) discerning quality, (3) stance and pedagogy of the review/er, and (4) expertise and confidence of the reviewer. These themes arose out of discontinuities experienced by the mentor.

Despite a journal’s efforts to scaffold the review process with guidelines, editors generally make judgements based on reviews, highlighting strengths and weaknesses, requesting changes, and recommending outcomes. The mentor reflected on her observation as an associate editor of a journal.

A major focus of our meetings was comparing our reviews. We discussed the mentor’s observation of variation in reviewing styles and that what people notice is influenced by what they think is important. The mentee reflected on the seemingly “subjective” nature of this and the importance of the journal categories selected by the author: “Everything is so subjective. Comes down to who you send the papers to. Be careful what categories you add to the paper” (Mentee, May 2021).

The repeated comparison of the reviews by the mentor and mentee prompted reflection on the differences between reviews. Much of the time in our meetings and the mentee’s reflections reflected on this comparison.

Sharing the reviews submitted to the journal for manuscripts we had been reviewing also prompted reflection. A high-quality submitted review for the second review manuscript was shared with the mentee. On seeing the review, the mentee emphasised the need for clear guidelines on the recommendations that reviewers can select from (accept as is, minor revisions, major revisions, reject but encourage resubmission, reject). The mentee’s reflections also referred to the mentor’s suggestion to offer advice to an author, even if the decision is to reject the manuscript.

The mentor then chose two submitted reviews for the first manuscript that differed in what they noticed and their final recommendations – one was reject and the other was accept. The mentor’s decision as associate editor was to reject but encourage resubmission. (Note that the timing of this submitted review meant it was available after our second review cycle.) The starkly different reviews induced cognitive dissonance, with the mentee reflecting on the perceived unfairness of rejecting the manuscript despite one reviewer’s decision to accept it. The mentee reflected empathetically on the rejection of hours of labour, indicating her tentativeness in critiquing and rejecting an article if needed. Ultimately, however, the mentee conceded that the critique and option of encouraging resubmission or even submitting to a journal more friendly (appropriate) was fair for both the author and the journal.

The criteria used to determine quality research are generally provided by the journal. The reviewer’s role is to determine the quality of the manuscript by identifying the strengths and weaknesses of an article, recommending changes for improvement, and determining whether the article is suitable for the journal. Discernment of the quality of an article and preparing a “quality review” was one of the mentee’s concerns: “Was it a quality enough review? These are the things that peer reviewers notice, what we notice determines the quality of the review” (Mentee, October 2020).

Sharing the submitted reviews and comparing our reviews as part of the mentoring process was educative in understanding the features that might be critiqued. On reflection, the mentee noted how her review lacked quality because of not noticing the flaws and because of lacking the confidence to be “more harsh” in her judgements and suggest alternatives. Understanding the difference between a recommendation for minor or major changes was also problematic.

The mentee’s wish to give a harsher critique highlighted her learning about the review process and the mutuality in sharing our thought processes. She reflected that without the mentor’s guidance on key manuscript issues, she might have missed critical flaws.

Some important points noted by the mentee about a quality manuscript were ensuring that the “argument is clearly stated and flows/matches the rest of the manuscript, methodology has enough detail, results are accurate and relevant to the research question, and contribution to new knowledge is clearly stated” (Mentee, October 2020). Discernment of quality requires distancing oneself, seeing the argument as a whole, and examining the individual parts.

The review process is pedagogical, meaning there is an exchange of ideas between the author(s) and the reviewer. A review provides constructive feedback to guide improvements and fosters dialogue by allowing the author to respond. The reviewer’s stance shapes the pedagogical nature of the review, influenced by their theoretical and methodological knowledge, beliefs about its purpose, and viewpoints that guide their interpretation and response to the subject matter. Some reviewers, for example, engage deeply with the content of a manuscript, taking the opportunity to build on, stretch, or counter the arguments provided in the manuscript, while others focus just on the strengths, weaknesses, and suggested changes. The mentee noted the importance of thinking about reviews as pedagogical.

Despite the necessity in pointing out deficits in a manuscript, during the mentoring meetings, the mentor reiterated “the importance of not just being critical but offering detail that can be really useful for the author” (Mentor, December 2020). Pedagogical opportunities arise when reviewers demonstrate this type of deep engagement by sincerely offering suggestions to shift the manuscript to a more central, focused direction and ultimately a high-quality argument. These exchanges are epitomised when authors work through the revised version, incorporating new changes based on the suggestions of the reviewers, who in turn will reread the manuscript and respond to the changes.

Confidence in conducting a review is interlinked with being able to discern quality. The mentee noted elements of the review process where she lacked confidence, particularly with the methodology section. The quote below refers to our discussion on the language of replicability, which the mentee raised in her review but the mentor did not. The quote also illustrates the important link between the confidence and authority of the reviewer – does the reviewer know enough to critique or pass judgement?

The mentoring process was designed to support the mentee in developing confidence over time. The mentee reflected on the design of our mentoring process, indicating the trepidation of a novice reviewer entering the reviewing community and the responsibility this brings in enabling and constraining scholarship (Roth and Tobin, 2002).

In response to the mentee, the mentor reflected on her observations as an associate editor and the crisis in confidence even a seasoned reviewer can experience.

The mentee was worried that the third review she completed was shorter than the others. Length and quality of the review comes with having completed multiple reviews, as well as having a deep knowledge of the topic, both of which can embolden the novice reviewer with a sense of competence and confidence.

Confidence pertains not only to being able to discern quality, but also to constructing a review that is long or detailed enough, focused on the right things, and whether the final judgement is defensible. Ultimately, the aim of the mentoring process was to shift the focus of concern from lack of confidence to a review aligned towards engaging deeply with the content and providing a critique that would improve the manuscript for publication.

From the mentee’s perspective, the mentorship process was immensely valuable. Mentoring allowed her to widen the research and writing skills she gained from her graduate program, optimising her productivity (Lunsford, 2012). Not only did the regularly scheduled sessions provide a foundational understanding of the review criteria (Baker, 2002), they propelled her to examine her peer reviews intentionally and systematically. Having a mentor during the last stages of her doctoral study translated into her being exposed to alternative theoretical frameworks and ways of thinking, enhancing her dissertation and future scholarly work.

The reflective mechanism of the boundary entailed perspective making (Boland and Tenkasi, 1995) where the new perspectives generated through discussion and feedback had the effect of uncovering and resolving discontinuities. The process began with a review based on journal guidelines, followed by discussions and negotiations to define a quality review, informed by differences and similarities between the mentee’s and mentor’s perspectives. This perspective making was a dialogical process where creative activity produced new ideas about quality reviewing beyond the journal guidelines. Figure 2 summarises the new perspectives that helped the mentee to realise, understand, and articulate the unique practices involved in conducting a high-quality peer review. Through discussion and negotiation of authentic manuscripts and submitted reviews, new perspectives were developed to address the mentee’s concerns (discontinuities) regarding the peer review process. The mentee learned that evaluating the clarity, originality, and rigour of the manuscript involves assessing its contribution to the field, methodological soundness, and adherence to ethical standards. Appreciating that feedback can vary between reviewers due to differences in expertise, perspective, and interpretation can help reviewers remain objective and open-minded. Offering constructive feedback that is both useful and encouraging means identifying strengths and areas for improvement while fostering an author’s growth and confidence in their work.

Carpenter (2009) notes that the “craft of review” (p. 191) is a process learned over time, through trial and error, and by observation. This analysis demonstrates that learning can be facilitated by a mentoring relationship. Through reflection, then the transformation process of crystallisation, new routines or procedures are developed that “embody what has been created or learned” (Akkerman and Bakker, 2011, p. 148). The mentee developed new practices during mentoring, such as stepping back while reviewing and adopting a positive approach. These routines, along with a pedagogical stance, helped her become encultured into the peer review process (Sun and Cheung, 2022), transitioning from a novice focused on legitimacy to an official journal reviewer.

This study’s findings have several implications for universities, journals, and those responsible for mentoring graduate researchers and early career researchers. A practical implication of this study is the need to support potential reviewers to grow in confidence and identity through mentoring and induction processes. Drawing from the themes, Figure 2 provides a useful set of guidelines for mentors and mentoring programs as to what should be addressed when preparing a quality review, beyond the journal’s instructions. The ability to identify strengths of a manuscript is a critical skill learned through the experience of reviewing. As demonstrated by this research, mentoring can guide the mentee through the sometimes contradictory nature of peer reviewing. The theme of disagreement and/or agreement among reviews indicates that being aware of the biases, inconsistencies, and conflicting power (Roth and Tobin, 2002) cautions reviewers to examine their own written responses and critiques. By remaining impartial while completing the review, quality manuscripts are more likely to be recognised, published, and contribute to the literature. Equally noteworthy is the importance of countering potential biases by seeking out positive aspects of a work and encouraging the author with “useful feedback” that might ultimately improve the manuscript and advance the field. Novice peer reviewers need to be cautioned about the “potential risk of rejecting quality manuscripts” (Siler et al., 2015).

With peer review necessary for sustaining the quality of published research informing education, our study underscores the obligation that exists for education journals to prepare the next generation of reviewers by giving them opportunities to practise with the support of a more experienced colleague, as they transform into early career researchers. A pedagogical stance is needed for supporting early career development in both publishing (Lee and Kamler, 2008) and reviewing (Davidoff, 2004). Lee and Kamler (2008) claim that given the “increasing pressure on students to produce peer-reviewed publications” (p. 512), more explicit attention needs to be given to “developing a stronger orientation to induction and participation in the world of peer-reviewed publication” (p. 511). Similarly, Davidoff (2004) argues that journals have a responsibility to train those who will mentor peer reviewers and that peer review should be integrated into graduate research education programs. Davidoff argues that it is the journal’s responsibility to train the trainers of peer reviewers and that the peer review should be part of graduate researcher education. It is crucial to provide these supports to help potential reviewers grow in confidence and identity through the mentoring process. Academic communities need to elevate the service given by peer reviewers more, recognising and rewarding their contributions as gatekeepers as they seek funding and career promotions (Davidoff, 2004). Sustainability of journals might be enhanced by valuing peer review mentoring, partnering with graduate programs to help enculturate students into the reviewing community, and supporting and initiating peer mentoring programs. Future studies could explore how novice reviewers’ confidence and peer review quality develop over time, comparing the impact of journal reviewing experience to different types of training, such as workshops or mentoring.

The research employed self-study centred on a singular context, with one mentor and one mentee, and only four cycles of peer review mentoring. Completing this program transnationally, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and online added logistical challenges. Results may have been different if the program had been face-to-face, although the opportunity for meaningful engagement was a rewarding outcome despite the effort required. While the scope of the research was this single case study, the detailed process described here may be useful for other contexts, such as universities and journals considering individualised support for research and doctoral students and early career researchers in understanding the reviewing process.

Becoming a professional in academia is facilitated through focused and supportive mentoring relationships that build the capacity of the novice researcher. Using self-study through this mentoring process enabled deep reflection on the characteristics of a quality review, the challenges experienced by a novice researcher, and how a mentoring program can support crossing the boundary to becoming a confident and proficient reviewer. Based on our experiences reported here, we argue that collaborative programs that consider the psychosocial aspects of learning to peer review play a crucial role in developing autonomous and confident reviewers. These reviewers can discern research quality, develop their own style while recognising how their personal stance and experiences might bias their review, and sustain a pedagogical stance that enriches the research community.