The VSB/UBC Transition Program is a Ministry of Education Provincial Resource Program for
highly academically gifted young adolescents. Unique to British Columbia and Canada since its
inception in 1993, the two-year program is currently housed on the UBC campus and affiliated
with University Hill Secondary School. Despite an extraordinary range of hurdles - which are
fully discussed and analyzed in this study - the eventual establishment of an early entrance to
university program is seen as a remarkable accomplishment of educational leadership and
organizational learning involving institutional partnerships, flexible governance and a shared
commitment to academically gifted young people.
The study examined the complexities of implementing a unique educational innovation for
academically highly gifted young students in a university setting and in a provincial context
which has not traditionally favored support for the highly gifted. The study had two phases. An
historical narrative traced the development of this innovation and described how the current
program model evolved in response to student needs. Documentary evidence based on original
documents and interviews with program developers, implementers, and participants provided a
multi-faceted perspective of the program's complex history and highlighted factors contributing
to program success for students, as well as problems encountered along the way. Building upon
this narrative, the second phase surveyed and then analyzed the views and expectations of
students, parents, and staff as well as program planners at different stages of the program. These
various perspectives were used to advance an understanding of how and why this unique
program developed as it did, and how its participants variously responded to a wide range of
expectations and needs to arrive at the current delivery model.
The study concludes with a discussion of critical issues and documents the strengths and unmet
needs of academically gifted students that have emerged over the course of the program's
development. It culminates by providing an understanding of key elements related to program
success for gifted youth together with recommendations for future program development and a
broader array of programs and services for academically gifted students in secondary schools and
post-secondary institutions in BC. The study ends by encouraging more support for educational
innovations that respond to the developmentally unique needs of all students, and a commitment
to on-going short term as well as longitudinal research on the Transition Program and its
graduates. / Education, Faculty of / Educational Studies (EDST), Department of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/14748 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Danylchuk, Daria |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Format | 18566246 bytes, application/pdf |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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