Meaning-Making and Adaptive Learning During the First-Year University Transition
A community-engaged research project examining how first-year university students construct meaning around learning during transition — and how those lived insights can inform the design of reflective learner support infrastructure at Glowing Gate Academy.
How do emerging adults construct meaning around learning during periods of educational transition and uncertainty in university — and how can these lived insights inform the design of reflective infrastructures that strengthen adaptive learning agency?
First-year university is increasingly complex. Students navigate shifting academic expectations, digital learning platforms, and heightened autonomy — all while constructing the emerging adult identities that will carry them forward.
Most existing campus initiatives emphasize discrete academic skills delivered through Western-centred frameworks that prioritize performance optimization over reflective integration. Critically, students' lived experiences and interpretive processes remain underrepresented in the design of those transition-focused supports.
This project addresses that gap directly — by centring student voice and lived experience as the foundation for learner-development design.
This study sits at the centre of what Glowing Gate Academy is and does — not adjacent to it.
Findings from this research directly shape how we design group facilitation programs and consultation work — so what we offer to students is grounded in evidence of how they actually experience learning during transition.
The academy is built on the principle that emerging adults are not just the audience for learner support — they are its most important informants. This research operationalizes that principle.
Glowing Gate is a research-driven academy. This Mitacs-funded project demonstrates what that means in practice — and how rigorous educational psychology can translate into responsive, real-world learner development.
Our research design, recruitment process, and detailed methodology are currently being finalized in close collaboration with the University of Victoria and will undergo institutional ethics review before launch. Further details — including participant information, study procedures, and ways to take part — will be published here as the project progresses through 2026 and 2027.
If you are a first-year University of Victoria student curious about the work, or a campus partner interested in collaboration, you are warmly invited to send a brief inquiry. We will be in touch when participation opens.
Send a research inquiry