In 2019, one of the universities of Karaganda shifted its status from that of a state to an autonomous research organization entitled as Noncommercial Joint-Stock Organization. Herewith, the university became a research university, which implies that the university allocates significant portion of education programs offer courses that nurture learners’ researcher skills. As a result of this reform, in the program of the undergraduate students were introduced new courses related to research.

Purpose: This study aims to provide insights of the first-year international students of a new course via prism of the cognitive learning.

Methods. The current study was designed as a survey study based on grounded theory analysis. As study respondents, 198 first-year international students out of 252 took part in the study. A total of 117 respondents completed a survey with open-ended questions offline, while 81 completed it online after the defense of their project. Data analysis on open, axial and selective coding, four categories that emerged through the prism of Bloom’s taxonomy revised by Anderson and Krathwohl (2001) were discussed.

Results. According to research results, designing projects in the first-year of study equips students with the metacognitive knowledge and the cognition skills. There emerged five categories ‘new knowledge about the topic,’ ‘an immersion process,’ ‘discovery of issues,’ ‘opening a new Horizon.’ These categories indicated accumulation of knowledge and experience through conducting projects. In addition, students’ have learned to reflect on examining issues related to their student life. Thus, the study indicates that students’ level of cognition transitioned from the procedural to metacognition level.