BANGKOK — A recently published research paper on elephant behavior has all the hallmarks of academic literature — plentiful references, detailed methodology — until the reader looks more closely at the authors.

Thirteen contributors are students from the East Side Middle School in New York, and their participation marked one of the first times that teenagers have co-authored a scientific article alongside researchers with advanced degrees.

The research, which appeared in April in the journal PLoS One, centered on whether elephants understood hand gestures from humans. But by including the young people in the study, Joshua Plotnik, the lead researcher, was essentially conducting an experiment within an experiment: Can young students, with their fresh eyes and questioning minds, help unlock the inner workings of the elephant mind?

“A 12-year-old kid is inquisitive, motivated, enthusiastic and extremely impressionable,” Mr. Plotnik said in an interview in Thailand, where he is a lecturer at Mahidol University and is helping design after-school activities for Thai students on elephant conservation. “They can think about it from simple but important ways.”