Notes on:
Barradell, S. (2013) 'The identification of
threshold concepts: a review of theoretical
complexities and methodological challenges'.
Higher Education 65: 265-276. DOI
10.1007/s10734-012-9542-3
Dave Harris
It is common to identify threshold concepts
between lecturers and students must sometimes with
educational developers: '"transactional curriculum
inquiry"'. Interviews, analyses of exam
responses and classroom observations are also
common. However, there is a lack of
agreement among the participants and also a need
for wider professional and/or public involvement.
Apparently, Entwistle had an early input.
The threshold concept originally emphasise
transformation of distinguishing them from core
concepts which build upon layers. A
threshold concept is '(likely to be)
transformative, (probably) irreversible,
(potentially and possibly inherently) troublesome,
and contains the capacity to be integrative and
bounded' (266). The original Meyer and Land paper
was exploratory. There is been a lot of
interest since, but the terms have not
always been investigated rigorously. Should
a threshold concepts have all five
characteristics? Are some more important
than others? What about hybrids?
Some researchers stressed troublesomeness, but
lots of other concepts might be challenging.
Usually troublesomeness is combined with
transformative potential. These are fairly
easy to identify and quite likely to be important
in learning. Some researchers have found
that it is difficult to separate the attributes
anyway, and that the last two derive from the
first three. There might be differences in
different disciplines. Finding all five
seemed particularly difficult in some cases.
Individual attributes also seemed difficult in
some cases, so that in physics, it was hard to
develop boundedness as a criterion. If
troublesomeness is the issue, it does not clearly
define a threshold concept specifically. The
presentation of the concept might be a
factor. Academics' perception might not be
the same as students' ones. However, some
common interpretation seems to be required.
The regional context for the work was a discussion
of learning outcomes and how they might be
distinguished between core and
transformative. The idea was to aid both
teaching and student learning. However, we
know that many factors are involved in the
learning experience of students, including
teaching style: student focused approaches are
'generally considered more effective'[citing an
old study by Prosser and Trigwell] (267).
Threshold concepts seem to preserve this focus on
the student experience of learning [classically
from an academics' perspective, however, hence the
neglect of instrumentalism and emotions?] They
also help streamline what is taught, identifying
critical points in learning, swapping insights for
mere content. They offer the potential of
integrating concepts between studies and across
year levels to produce the whole framework in
which 'content is selected, organized, presented
and assessed'.
Such a framework might involve: mapping curriculum
content to identify the transformative and
troublesome aspects, and to consider links with
prior knowledge and how it might be integrated in
specific disciplines; contextualize seeing
knowledge in different disciplinary ways, to
explore of boundedness and integrative
possibilities and make learning irreversible;
recognise emotional aspects associated with
learning, if we extend the notion of
transformation to include identity; helping
students to find their place within a discipline;
providing appropriate scaffolding as students work
through the liminal zones to consolidate or make
irreversible cognitive gains.
Academics' knowledge and experience clearly
influences their teaching, especially if we
include pedagogical theory. Threshold
concepts might be a way of involving novices in
teaching and learning practice, building on
subject expertise but extending into the
educational domain. Again improving the
learning experience of students is the key in
identifying threshold concepts.
Threshold concepts are not easy to identify, so
the actual identification process becomes
important. The concepts were identified first in
economics, and so they have been embraced in the
more quantitative disciplines. Research
activity has used a variety of qualitative and
quantitative techniques as well as reviewing old
examination papers and observing classroom
behaviour. Transactional curriculum inquiry
[originally a term used by Cousin 2009 Researching
Learning in Higher Education, New York:
Routledge] ] is required, and teachers have had to
learn threshold concepts themselves, although
students offer additional comparisons, sometimes
to get lecturers to revisit those concepts that
they now take for granted. This is a job for
educational developers, however.
Three examples are then chosen [economics,
engineering and healthcare]. Economics is an
example used by a Meyer and Land themselves, there
is apparently a large scale international project
to identify threshold concepts going on in
engineering, and new interest in Health Care,
especially in physiotherapy.
In economics, a number of methods to identify
threshold concepts have been pursued, involving
conversations between lecturers and
students. For example colleagues were asked
to identify threshold concepts, and 42 were
identified, although only eight gained sufficient
consensus. The 'variability of economics
practice' across three universities involved might
have been responsible for the large numbers
identified, but it is more likely that different
interpretations of what a threshold concept was
were responsible. Another study used answers
to tests in economics to examine the concepts
being used, and differences between lecturers and
students were noted. Past examination papers
were also examined, on content that have been
identified as covering threshold concepts.
The bimodal distribution that resulted in grades
were interpreted as indicating whether students
were using integrating threshold concepts or
not. The combination of methods used
indicates some transactional processes, but
students were not asked what they were learning
independently, just whether they had grasped
threshold concepts identified by the staff.
In engineering, one study focused on students
first, observing a lab setting. The focus
was on student difficulties. In another
case, a simulation tested the characteristics of
integration and boundedness. This overcome
some other problems in asking students to recall
the difficulties, especially if threshold concepts
are irreversible. However, troublesomeness
did not seem to arise specifically from threshold
concepts, but indicated many other factors
including student preparation and student
motivation. The current collaborative
international project tries to involve
perspectives of Academics' tutors and
students. Threshold concepts are identified
primarily through the transformative potential
['chosen after personal communication received by
the authors from Jan Meyer'(271), which included
troublesomeness]. Some additional
facilitators were used to help participants
identify threshold concepts, and a list was
finally produced, together with a prediction about
what made these troublesome and transformative and
how students might be helped - so nice and centred
on student learning.
Two subsequent phases ensued, one consider the
experience from within a single subject, while
another investigated interdisciplinary
interaction. There is apparently a similar
project in Indiana University 'that shares many
principles with threshold concepts', and which
forms 'Faculty Learning Communities', where a
small groups of faculty members from different
Academics' specialisms are actively collaborated
and think about how to support student
learning. Interdisciplinary dialogue helps
academics' 'to explain the true essence of the
discipline and its ways of thinking and
practicing'
This later project included students as well,
however and also had discussions between different
institutions, aiming at greater rigour. It
refers to 'threshold capabilities' although this
idea has not yet led to empirical work. The
categories of irreversibility, integration and
boundedness were not included, and things might
have been different if they had been. There
were still 'varied interpretation as to whether
five or 13 threshold concepts had been identified
by participants' (272).
In Healthcare, threshold concepts are becoming
known. An early personal reflection
identified hearing as a threshold concept, based
on occupational therapy and physiotherapy and the
critical incidence identified by students on
placement. Caring was troublesome for
students and ultimately transformed their
practice. However, student data were
subsequently interpreted by the author, so it is
not a well developed transactional inquiry.
An action research project in Australia showed the
practical potential, after deciding that the
proper threshold concept must satisfy all
characteristics, for reasons not offered.
Using this more stringent definition, and after
consultation with staff, five agreed threshold
concepts were produced and these 'aligned
positively with [an agreed] overall curriculum
reform agenda'.
These examples show that is not easy to identify
threshold concepts, then it takes time and
discussion and debate to do so.
Collaboration is essential between academics and
also with students. It is vital to learn
from student experience [but not if they take an
instrumental stance?]. Further, whole
disciplinary and professional communities ought to
be involved to develop shared understanding which
will lead to more rigour.
Stakeholders beyond the immediate environment need
to be involved such as representatives of the
profession, to introduce professional
issues. This might be easier to manage on
professional degrees where there is already
collaboration. It does acknowledge the
existence of professional standards that graduates
also need to investigate. They might not be
threshold concepts in themselves, again but they
can be linked to them. Threshold concepts
might further encourage dialogues between
theorists and practitioners.
Some other projects seem to find it easier than
others to achieve agreement among the
participants, so some kind of 'consensus
methodology' might be important (274), but the
identification process and where threshold
concepts need to encounter professional
competences. Recommended techniques include
Nominal Group Technique and the Delphi
Technique. Both are apparently, and in
Health Sciences. Consensus and is to be
established between practitioners and theorists,
between the concepts appearing in the literature
and those emerging empirically. These
techniques might be used to structure
transactional inquiry.
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