Overview

Threshold concepts represent ‘a transformed way of understanding, or interpreting, or viewing something without which the learner cannot progress’ (Meyer & Land 2003 p. 1). Threshold concepts have particular characteristics:

• Transformative – the learner experiences a significant shift in the perception of a subject
• Irreversible – once the learner has experienced a shift in perception, they are unlikely to ‘unlearn’ the new way of seeing
• Integrative – may ‘bring together’ aspects previously unseen by the learner
• Bounded - may ‘delineate’ a conceptual space
• Troublesome – the knowledge may be ‘counterinitiative’, ‘ritualised’, ‘tacit’ or ‘alien’ to the learner (Meyer & Land 2003, Flanagan 2018)

Grappling with threshold concepts ‘may leave the learner in a state of ‘liminality’, a suspended state of partial understanding, or ‘stuck place’, in which understanding approximates to a kind of ‘mimicry’ or lack of authenticity. Insights gained by learners as they cross thresholds can be exhilarating but might also be unsettling, requiring an uncomfortable shift in identity, or, paradoxically, a sense of loss’ (Land, Meyer & Baillie 2010 p. ii)

Considerations

Jewels in the curriculum

Threshold concepts are known as the ‘jewels in the curriculum’ (Land, Cousin, Meyer & Davies 2005 p. 57), as they can be leveraged to design curricula that explicitly target their troublesome and liminal nature. This could involve embedding threshold concepts across a degree program by:

• ensuring students are developing deepening levels of complexity in the threshold concepts
• taking a recursive approach in understanding that students will need multiple ways to engage with the concepts
• managing students’ discomfort in coming to terms with the new ways of seeing
• designing for the possibility that students may experience an extended liminal state,
• acknowledging that there will be a wide range of variation in the ways that students will come to understand and employ threshold concepts (Land, Cousin, Meyer & Davies 2005)

Support Resources

• Threshold Concepts: Undergraduate teaching, postgraduate training, professional development and school education

  Comprehensive list of publications and resources on threshold concepts including an index of the threshold concepts that have been identified and described by Mick Flanagan

• Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: Linkages to ways of thinking and practicing in the disciplines

  Meyer, J., & Land, R. (2003). The foundational work in the field.

• Editors' preface: threshold concepts and transformational learning

  Land, R., Meyer, J., & Bailie, C. (2010).

• Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (3): Implications for course design and evaluation

  Land, R., Cousin, G., Meyer, J., & Davies, P. (2005).

Contributed by

• Learning Futures
  

Preferred Citation

Learning Futures. (2019). Threshold concepts. Retrieved from https://app.secure.griffith.edu.au/exlnt/entry/8368/view