Using Kincheloe and Steinberg’s eight cognitive benefits, this paper engages in a reflective analysis of a collaborative research project involving a university lecturer and four undergraduate students. The eight cognitive benefits present as critical pedagogical directives influenced by post-formal thought, which is, in part, characterised by the ability to engage in flexible problem solving within a range of authentic situations. Kincheloe & Steinberg suggest that, as a benefit to students’ research, this approach “...pushes students to new depths of insight” (Kincheloe & Steinberg, 1998b, p. 241). This framework was selected as part of a post-project process debriefing the experiences of the students, and applied as a way to link practical aspects of collaborative research with critical pedagogies; a pertinent consideration here, due to the existence of potentially unequal power relationships. Using this framework, the genuine collaboration that occurred (the writing of a chapter for a Bachelor of Education course textbook) and the resulting emancipatory discourses of learning experienced by the students and academic are detailed. This paper categorises the eight cognitive benefits into two domains, internal and external, enabling an engagement in critical self-reflection for the internal domain, and critique of authentic connections made outside of self within the university context, for the external domain. By addressing each of the benefits individually, effective outcomes of student-academic collaborations aligned with the theories of Kincheloe & Steinberg (1998a) are demonstrated to have occurred. It is the experiences of the undergraduate students, rather than the academic, that form the focus of this paper. This critique can be transferred to other educational contexts when educators and students engage in authentic research collaborations.

Keywords: critical pedagogy, student engagement, research collaboration