Threshold Concepts on the Edge [1 ed.] 9789004419971, 9789004419964

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Threshold Concepts on the Edge

Educational Futures උൾඍඁංඇ඄ංඇ඀ ඍඁൾඈඋඒ ൺඇൽ ඉඋൺർඍංർൾ

Series Editor Michael A. Peters (Beijing Normal University, P.R. China) Editorial Board Michael Apple (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA) Miriam David (Institute of Education, London University, UK) Cushla Kapitzke (Queensland University of Technology, Australia) Simon Marginson (UCL Institute of Education, London, UK) Mark Olssen (Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand) Fazal Rizvi (University of Melbourne, Australia) Susan Robertson (University of Cambridge, UK) Linda Tuhiwai Smith (University of Waikato, New Zealand) Arun Kumar Tripathi (Indian Institute of Technology, Mandi, Himachal Pradesh, India) VOLUME 73

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/edfu

Cover illustration: Detail from ‘Psyche Entering Cupid’s Garden’, 1903. John William Waterhouse (1849–1917). Harris Museum & Art Gallery, Preston, UK. Bridgeman Images. All rights reserved. All chapters in this book have undergone peer review. The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov

ISSN 2214-9864 ISBN 978-90-04-41995-7 (paperback) ISBN 978-90-04-41996-4 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-41997-1 (e-book) Copyright 2020 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, %ULOO 1LMKR൵ %ULOO 5RGRSL %ULOO 6HQVH +RWHL 3XEOLVKLQJ PHQWLV 9HUODJ 9HUODJ Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

CONTENTS

Preface

ix

Acknowledgements

xxiii

List of Figures and Tables

xxv

Notes on Contributors

xxix

Part 1: Theoretical Directions 1.

The Labyrinth Within: Threshold Concepts, Archetype and Myth Ray Land

2.

At the Troublesome Edge of Recognising Threshold Concepts of 2QOLQH 7HDFKLQJ $ 3URSRVHG /HDUQLQJ 7KUHVKROG ,GHQWL¿FDWLRQ Methodology Maria Northcote, Kevin P. Gosselin, Peter Kilgour, Catherine McLoughlin, Chris Boddey and Kerrie Boddey

19

Caution! Theories at Play! Threshold Concepts and Decoding the Disciplines Leah Shopkow and Joan Middendorf

37

3.

4.

(PEHGGLQJ $൵HFW LQ WKH 7KUHVKROG &RQFHSWV )UDPHZRUN Julie A. Timmermans and Jan H. F. Meyer

3



Part 2: Liminal Space 5.

6.

Vygotsky, Threshold Concepts and Liminality: Using Vygotsky to Illuminate the Edge of Conceptual Understanding Rachel Thompson and Michael Michell

71

Analysing Discourse in the Liminal Space: Talking Our Way through It Susie Cowley-Haselden

89

7.

Intensive Mode Teaching Explained Using Threshold Concepts Sally A. Male, Stuart Crispin and Phil Hancock

8.

Edging towards Understanding: Illuminating Student Experiences of Liminality in Introductory Sociology Alison M. Thomas

v

101

113

CONTENTS

9.

Bringing the Apple and Holding up the Mirror: Liminal Space and Transformation in Visual Art Making Matthew J. Ravenstahl and Julie Rattray

10. 7KH 6WXGHQW 6FKRODU ,GHQWLW\ 8VLQJ 6WXGHQWV¶ 5HÀHFWLYH :RUN to Develop Student-Scholars, Address Liminality, and Design Curriculum Yvonne Nalani Meulemans, Allison Carr and Torie Quiñonez

127

143

Part 3: Ontological Transformations 11. ‘… ’Cause Soon Now, It Will Be Real …’: Medical Simulation as Change Space in Interprofessional Training Leif Martin Hokstad and Stine Gundrosen

159

12. Threshold Concepts and the Ontology of Professional Identity in Human Services Curriculum Design: A Case Example Jackie Stokes, Vicki Bruce and Tanya Pawliuk

175

13. Threshold Concepts: Strategies for Assisting Doctoral Candidates to Learn to be Researchers Margaret Kiley

189

Part 4: Curriculum 14. Threshold Concepts as Pathways through Ancient Religion: Curriculum as Initiation Jason P. Davies

201

15. Threshold Concepts at the Sharp Edge: Entrepreneurship Curriculum Redesign Lucy Hatt

213

16. Information Literacy and Liberal Education: From Google to Scholarly Sources D. Bruce MacKay and Nicole C. Eva

229

17. Curriculum Design on the Edge: A Case Illustration of Liminal Learning Activities for Search Expertise Virginia M. Tucker

239

18. Threshold Concepts in the Applied Mathematics BSc Programme: A Structural Comparison with Threshold Concepts in the Computer Science BSc Programme Bert Zwaneveld and Hans Sterk

vi

255

CONTENTS

Part 5: Crossing Disciplines 19. Exploring Threshold Concepts on the Edge: Learning, Teaching and Assessment Practices Shannon Murray, Anne Marie Ryan and Brad Wuetherick 20. Investigating Threshold Concepts in the Scholarship of Teaching DQG /HDUQLQJ DQG WKH ,QÀXHQFH RI 'LVFLSOLQDU\ %DFNJURXQG RQ the Research Process Andrea S. Webb and Anne M. Tierney 21. Diversity, Hybridity and New Revelations in Conceptual Threshold Crossings in Cross-Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Research Learning Gina Wisker

275

285

297

Part 6: Writing across Thresholds 22. Naming What We Know (in Writing Studies): Engaging Troublesome Trends in Educational Policy and Practice Linda Adler-Kassner and Elizabeth Wardle

313

23. Beginning to See the Connection between Everything: Developing Scholarly Identity in Writing Studies through Threshold Concepts Erika Hawkes and Tekla Hawkins

327

24. Understanding Writing Transfer as a Threshold Concept across the Disciplines Jessie L. Moore and Peter Felten

341

25. Edging towards the Threshold Concept of Autonomy in Language Learning and Teaching through a MOOC Blend: Becoming Autonomous Learners and Teachers Marina Orsini-Jones, Shooq Altamimi and Barbara Conde Gafaro Index

353 369

vii

PREFACE

Being on the edge isn’t as safe, but the view is better. – Ricky Gervais THE EDGE OF A CONTINENT

This book had its beginnings on the edge of the North Atlantic Ocean, when international scholars from all over the globe met in Halifax, Nova Scotia at the 6th International Biennial Threshold Concepts Conference held over the three days of 15–17 June 2016. This gathering, hosted by Dalhousie University’s Centre for Learning and Teaching, and organised by Brad Wuetherick, Anne Marie Ryan, Julie Timmermans and Michelle Soucy, allowed teachers, practitioners and researchers from different disciplines, varied professional backgrounds and diverse cultural origins to explore the implications and possibilities of Meyer and Land’s Threshold Concepts Framework (TCF) in a rich and intense collegial exchange of ideas and views (Meyer & Land, 2003, 2005). It also brought into view different understandings of what an edge might mean in the contexts of learning. (RE)IMAGINING THE EDGE

What image comes to mind when you picture an edge? Perhaps you see the edge of a cliff, the edge of a flowing or tumultuous river. The word ‘edge’ somehow seems to connote something jagged, sharp, or rough; less often, we presume, do we think of edges as having soft contours. We may approach an edge, peek over, but maintain a safe distance from it. The edge is often a separation between solid ground and instability. On one side of the edge, the landscape is certain, solid. It supports and sustains us. On the other side of the edge, the landscape is open, uncertain, unknown. Yet, these seemingly unfriendly, unforgiving edges may be part of a landscape of great beauty. The beauty encompassing these edges, however, is often shrouded in an element of danger or peril. We spend much time convincing ourselves and others (often those we care about deeply) to beware of the edge, not to get too close. ‘Be careful! You could hurt yourself!’ we say to ourselves or others. ‘And I might not be able to protect you’. As educators, our attitudes in educational landscapes are often quite unlike those in geographical landscapes. Knowingly or unknowingly, intentionally or not, we RIWHQ EHFNRQ OHDUQHUV WR DSSURDFK WKH HGJH RI WKHLU FRJQLWLYH D൵HFWLYH HSLVWHPRlogical, and ontological landscapes when the surefootedness of the new landscape is not yet in view. As teachers, we have likely traversed these landscapes. Perhaps we remember these crossings; often, however, we do not.

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Interestingly, and perhaps only by chance, we have observed that the word ‘knowledge’ is composed of the terms ‘know’ and ‘ledge’ or ‘edge’. Etymologically the suffix -ledge has its roots in Anglo-Saxon -laec, an ending derived from the Old English verb lacan, whose meanings include to ‘bring about’, to ‘bring into being’, to ‘bring into the world’, or to ‘make happen’. It can also mean ‘move about’ and by extension ‘play’, as in the Northern English dialect word laik (‘play’) or the familiar idea of to ‘lark about’. It is found similarly in Danish lege (to play games) from which the famous Lego toy brand is derived.1 While we may know something, this knowing also has its own limits. Internal or external circumstances may beckon us to question this knowing and to move (willingly or unwillingly) beyond these edges, shaping new forms of mind. The edges of knowing may indeed present real or perceived threats to our integrity – integrity of mind, identity, and ways of doing (for a discussion, see Timmermans 2010, for example). Yet, as Garvey Berger observes, and as many of us have also observed through our work with threshold concepts, ‘the edge is the most precarious – and most important – transformative space’ (2004, p. 338). These edges provide valuable information about our current states and may offer insight into areas and opportunities for growth. Garvey Berger (2004) has named these our ‘growing’ or our ‘growth edges’. It seems important, then, that in our roles as educators, we help students to find and understand their growth edges – the contours of where they currently are – and that we both acknowledge and honour the wisdom inherent in their current epistemologies and ontologies while also showing possibilities for new learning. Our collective work has shown that the growing edges towards transformation are not experienced similarly by all students. While there is indeed ‘variation’ in student understanding (Meyer, 2012), there is also variation in the ways in which students experience the edges of understanding (e.g., Garvey Berger, 2004; Perry, 1970, 1988). Indeed, some students may see the edges as inviting and cause them to approach; others retreat from the edge. Consequently, we must remain mindful that, as learners encounter the educational curriculum, they also concurrently navigate their own life curriculum. They are perhaps living away from their country, culture, comforts, and community – the people and places that previously gave shape to their lives and affirmed their positionality. At the same time as knowledge is up for debate, so too are students’ senses of self. Not only are they navigating new possibilities for what they know, but also for how they know and who they are. The ‘complexity without’ therefore meets the ‘complexity within’ (J. Garvey Berger, personal communication, March 15, 20182), and Coughlin asks how we might cultivate our own and others’ internal selves so that ‘we can thrive in the complexity out there’ (C. Coughlin, personal communication, March 29, 20183). What happens, then, at the confluence of these streams of internal and external complexity? Is there turbulence, harmonious mixing, or perhaps even chaos? And if there is chaos, might it be somehow productive?

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LEARNING ON THE EDGE OF CHAOS

It was observed some time ago (Barnett, 2004) that there is an intrinsic irony in attempting to prepare our students to cope with a world of increasing uncertainty, complexity and risk by designing curricula for them which are hedged in by new kinds of certainty, or what Ecclestone (2012) has termed ‘crystal clarity’. If the students are to develop a capability to make reasoned evaluative judgments (as the basis of subsequent informed and effective decision-making) then they will probably need to enter ‘strange places, anxiety-provoking places’ (Barnett, 2007, p. 147) and encounter ‘pedagogies of uncertainty’ (Shulman, 2005). In both of the latter there are likely to be strong affective dimensions. This is not surprising, if one accepts Shulman’s observation that for significant learning to take place there needs to be ‘something at stake. No emotional investment, no intellectual or formational yield’ (Shulman, 2005, p. 4). But these approaches perhaps also reflect the zeitgeist of our time in particular ways. They catch something of the tension felt in Zygmunt Bauman’s characterisation of a shift in the last sixty years from a state of ‘solid modernity’ to one of ‘liquid modernity’ (Bauman, 2000). Whereas the former is characterised by a concern to minimise risk and disorder through increased security, hierarchical control, rules, regulations and categorising, the latter will be inevitably informed by ambiguity and uncertainty. As Maggi Savin-Baden has indicated in earlier work (2008, p. 77): To live in the liquid modern we need to act under the conditions of uncertainty, risk and shifting trust. Liquid learning on the other hand is characterised by emancipation, reflexivity and flexibility, so that knowledge and knowledge boundaries are contestable and always on the move. From a learning perspective (and perhaps this becomes amplified in a consumeroriented age) there can be an allure, enticement or attraction to the strange, unfamiliar or risky (iconically represented in Eve’s taking of the apple in Eden). Conversely, the unfamiliar and unknown also constitute an object of fear and apprehension, of potential risk and disorder (iconized in Adam’s hesitation). Complexity theory deals with the nature of ‘emergence, innovation, learning and adaptation’ (Santa Fe Group, 1996, cited in Battram, 1998). It posits a dynamic between stability and instability, between stasis and chaos, in which the ‘edge of chaos’ has been found to be an effective and creative sphere in which to act and learn. Indeed, the word ‘chaos’ as used in ancient Greece originally signified an ‘abyss or emptiness that existed before things came into being’ (Merriam-Webster n.d.; emphasis added). As Tosey (2002, p. 3) observes, ‘Teaching on the edge of chaos is not the same as teetering on the brink of collapse’. The states of liminality and disjunction encountered in PBL and the TCF entail similar tensions and also countenance the pursuit of emergence, innovation and adaptation, leading to conceptual and ontological shifts. Complexity Theory suggests that the ‘edge of chaos’, a term originally coined by Chris Langton from the Santa Fe Institute, might be an effective and creative place xi

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to conduct teaching and learning. The term refers to the dynamic of, and between, stability and instability, between turbulence and disequilibrium (Tosey, 2002). ‘This balance point’ suggests Waldrop (1992, p. 12) ‘… is where the components of a system never quite lock into place, and yet never quite dissolve into turbulence, either’. It has many of the characteristics of a liminal space. The diagram below illustrates the ‘complexity continuum’ between stasis and chaos. Kleimann (2011, p. 62.6) suggests following the work of Stacey et al. (2000) and Tosey (2002) that: it illustrates how a system’s search for, or need for, equilibrium in the form of certainty and agreement produces stasis. It also shows how the further one travels away from certainty and agreement, the nearer one approaches a state of chaos. Right on the ‘edge of chaos’ is an area that Kleiman (2011) has called the ‘zoo’ or ‘zone of optimal operation’. It is the point at which a system is poised just before it moves into an actual chaotic state.

The ‘complexity continuum’ between stasis and chaos (from Stacey, 2002)

It is there, right on the edge of chaos, where creativity is most potent. It is also an area where levels of energy and emotion are high, where risk-taking, excitement and exhaustion co-exist in a ferment of activity. It is characterised by encounters with uncertainty, anxiety, doubt, chance, error and ‘muddling through’ (Stacey et al., 2000). Tosey characterises this space as

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like a good party; lively, lots of flowing conversations, and fun. A party in stasis would be safe, but probably boring and stilted; one in chaos might be thrillingly anarchic, or perhaps offensive or dangerous. In chaos, a system could self-organise into a higher level of complexity, with novel forms of relationship emerging, or it could disintegrate (Tosey, 2002, p. 18). In this zone of complexity, Zimmerman (2001, p. 5) argues, traditional outcomesbased approaches appear to be less effective ‘but it is the zone of high creativity, innovation, and breaking with the past to create new modes of operating’. Rather than a traditional outcomes-based model we might prefer Kleiman’s alternative recommendation – predicated on the educationist Dorothy Heathcote’s maxim that the most important word in education is the word might – that ‘on completion of this module the student might be able to do this, and they might be able to do that, and they might be able to create/produce/write about something really interesting that had not been considered’ (Kleiman, 2011, p. 62.5). LOOKING INSIDE / LOOKING AHEAD

The musings above have led us to ask, ‘What are the growing edges of threshold concepts research?’. Perhaps, as educators, we are used to thinking of the ‘edges’ of our disciplines from the perspective of the contours of content. But what if we were to map concurrently the growing edges and thresholds of curricula in terms of the ways of knowing? That is, ‘we might begin to wonder how we could grow not just the thinking capacity and the content knowledge of our young people, but increase their capacity for making sense of complexity’ (Garvey Berger, 2017, p. 10). We could then deepen this mapping to include transformations of affect and identity. Doing so may call upon some of us to transform our own ways of thinking and practising as educators. We may find that we ourselves are hesitant when called to experience transformation in these ways. This perhaps gives us more empathy for what we are encouraging our students to do. And we must continue to marry our intuition with evidence. As we propose theories about students’ learning, we must continue simultaneously to gather evidence of the multiple dimensions and ongoing unfolding of their ways of knowing, being, and feeling. This is itself complex and messy, disturbing and exciting. As we bring students to the ‘edge of chaos’ in learning, we perhaps come to approach, ourselves, the ‘edge of chaos’ in designing learning experiences that attend to the whole human being, rather than only to the mind. We then allow the actual experiences of our students’ learning to filter into and reshape our theories. Garvey Berger (personal communication, March 8, 2018) urges us to ‘see whether we can find a way to connect the theory, in the most helpful and opening way, to a human being’. She draws

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on Carl Jung’s (1928, p. 361) wisdom who reminds us: ‘Learn your theories as well as you can, but put them aside when you touch the miracle of the living soul’. Book Structure The content of the book reveals that multiple intersecting threads are at the forefront of our current explorations. You will find in this volume compelling discussions of, expansions upon, and questioning of the Threshold Concepts Framework as it relates to theory, liminality and affect, ontology, curriculum, disciplinarity, and writing. Here, we provide an overview of each part of the book. At the beginning of each chapter, the abstract contains a valuable statement which elucidates the ways in which the chapter will be of interest and relevance to readers across disciplines. Part 1: Theoretical Directions Since its inception, the TCF has remained exploratory and tentative. Though there is now a substantial international body of TCs scholarship available across many disciplines (Flanagan, 2019), the TCF remains always (and intentionally) a provisional stability. Colleagues have challenged, developed, modified and expanded the analytical premises of the TCF in a variety of ways and directions. In Part 1 of this volume we see this tendency continuing as the theoretical edges of the Framework are pushed out further in very different ways. In the opening chapter, Land discusses the many correspondences of the TCF with archetype and myth, in particular with wider meanings of the labyrinth, and with the patterns and stages found in the classical ‘Hero’s Journey’ (Campbell, 2008) with its call to adventure, descent, ordeal, transformation and return, as well as its archetypal figures of heralds, mentors, guides, allies, threshold guardians, shapeshifters and tricksters. In the second chapter Northcote, Gosselin, Kilgour, McLoughlin, C. Boddey and K. Boddey seek to expand the application of the TCF to contexts of professional learning, but specifically as provided within online learning environments. In doing so they offer a new methodology for curriculum design in this area. In Chapter 3 Shopkow and Middendorf present us with a ‘crossroad of theories’. They examine both the differences and the complementarities of the Threshold Concepts Framework and the Decoding the Disciplines approach (which came into existence independently within a year of each other), working from the premise that whilst the former is a theory of difficulty, the latter is primarily a theory of pedagogy. To conclude Part 1, Timmermans and Meyer, in Chapter 4, explore the still relatively under-researched dimension of affect within the TCF, with particular focus on the relation between affect, cognition, and learning outcomes. In proposing ‘affective co-variation’ as a new threshold concept for educational study, they conclude that far from being peripheral to thresholds research, affect is, rather, ‘essential and integrative, and, consequently, must be explicitly embedded in it’. xiv

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Part 2: Liminal Space That nearly one quarter of the chapters in this volume are directly concerned with liminality highlights that students’ experiences in the liminal space are at the forefront of our community’s inquiry. The chapters in this part emphasise our collective desire to understand more deeply this transformative, yet ‘liquid’ (Felten, 2016) and often mysterious space. In this part, students’ voices predominate, and we are privy to their discourse, emotions, and insights as they experience the transformative liminal space occasioned by encounters with threshold concepts. We also come to see how different forms of expression and language – oral discourse, written reflections, and art may reveal and promote passages through the liminal space. In Chapter 5, Thompson and Michell examine the intersections between the Threshold Concepts Framework and Vygotsky’s theories. These intersections urge us to examine the liminal space from a developmental perspective and to pay particular attention to language used within this liminal space. In Chapter 6, Cowley-Haselden also draws our attention to the importance of attending to students’ discourse practices within the liminal space, as these may be highly revelatory of students’ journeys towards grasping threshold concepts. In several chapters, we understand that the notion of liminality is deeply intertwined with the notion of time. Male, Crispin, and Hancock (Chapter 7) explore how students enter into and traverse the liminal space in intensive mode teaching situations where the time available for grasping threshold concepts is contracted. Time is fundamental, too, in Thomas’s (Chapter 8) investigation of the sociological imagination. Preliminal variation – the time in their developmental journeys when students encounter the threshold concept – influences the time it takes grasp the threshold. Chapters 9 and 10 explore the deep intersections between liminality and identity. Ravenstahl and Rattray (Chapter 9) describe how the visual art-making process serves both as a catalyst for and as a representation of a student’s navigation through the liminal space as she navigates her developing and changing identity and self-esteem as a woman. Meulemans, Carr, and Quiñonez explore ‘student-scholar identity’ as a threshold concept in Chapter 10. They illustrate how students’ identities and dispositions as scholars transform in the liminal space and interact with identities beyond the academy. The authors propose a taxonomy for understanding the developmental unfolding of ‘student scholar identity’ through the liminal space. Part 3: Ontological Transformations As we can see, questions of liminality and ontology are intimately intertwined. It is in this liminal space that learners construct and reconstruct ways of being/identities as they enter into disciplinary communities, develop professional identities, and become more fully themselves.

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In Chapter 11, Hokstad and Gundrosen examine the interprofessional training of future health professionals through medical simulations. As learners develop the ‘overarching threshold concept’ of ‘situation awareness’, they grapple with the WKUHVKROGV FRQFHSWV RI µFRQ¿GHQFH WR FKDOOHQJH¶ µWROHUDQFH RI XQFHUWDLQW\¶ DQG µEHing in the liminal space’ of which it is constituted. It is in this liminal space that learners experience an ‘awakening’ or bourgeoning of their professional identities. In Stokes, Bruce, and Pawliuk’s work (Chapter 12), we encounter again the ontological precariousness experienced by learners preparing to become professionals – this time in a human services context. Drawing on students’ own voices, the authors identify six threshold concepts anchored in professional identity development which can serve as the underpinning of ontologically rooted curriculum redesign. In Chapter 13, Kiley explores strategies that doctoral supervisors can employ to help doctoral candidates to develop their identities as researchers. She elucidates three approaches from the literature that can inform this quest: understanding candidates’ concepts of research, drawing on insights from the literature on threshold concepts in learning to be a researcher, and promoting conceptual change that prompts learners to cross conceptual thresholds. Part 4: Curriculum Part of the original impetus behind the TCF was to explore how students might successfully negotiate pathways through their disciplinary curriculum and across conceptual terrain that was new to them. This approach sought to identify and analyse areas, en route, that might occasion misunderstanding, puzzlement or other particular difficulty. In the opening chapter of this part (Chapter 14) Davies examines the nature of curricula associated with Ancient Religion, and identifies from the outset a major source of confusion about the nature and meaning of ancient religion: Though modern scholars do not agree exactly on what it was, there is a good consensus about what it wasn’t, and it wasn’t most of the things people assume are reliable aspects of what they also assume is a universal category, “religion”. The learning of ancient religions entails both affective challenges and issues of identity. Drawing on anthropological stages of ‘initiation’ this chapter outlines a pathway for students to approach difficult threshold concepts indirectly, but actively, which creates ‘an environment for genuinely open-ended exploration and enquiry’. The model offers a prototype that might be developed in other disciplines. In Chapter 15 Hatt also offers an approach that might prove portable to other academic domains. In attempting to elicit the ways of thinking and practising involved in entrepreneurship, she develops a distinctive methodology that draws on both Delphi technique and Cousin’s Transactional Curriculum Inquiry (Cousin, 2007, 2009) to establish how academic programmes of entrepreneurship might better develop ‘entrepreneurial mindsets’ in their graduates. xvi

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Given the current uncertain and challenging environment of fake news – and the unprecedented speed and overload of information that arises from our technologydriven society – MacKay and Eva, in Chapter 16, assess the nature of the threshold concepts that students undertaking programmes of information literacy and liberal education must master, in order to develop the necessary skills of critical inquiry and evaluation to make sense of such complexity. The TCF has recently attracted considerable attention (and debate) in the library and information sciences – particularly in the field of academic librarianship – as a result of the Association of College of Research Libraries in the USA adopting six threshold concepts for information literacy (ACRL, 2016). These TCs are referred to as ‘frames’, or ‘the framework’, and have replaced the previous US standards for information literacy. Against the backdrop of this debate, Tucker, in Chapter 17, discusses the redesign of her own Masters programme in Library and Information Science (MLIS). She has embedded threshold concepts within the advanced search methods component of this programme which have been derived from research into the nature of search expertise. Four concepts were identified for search expertise which appeared to manifest characteristics of threshold concepts, namely: information environment, information structures, information vocabularies, and concept fusion (the ability to integrate the other three threshold concepts). She characterises the course that eventually emerged from the redesign as a ‘curriculum on the edge’. In the area of the mathematics curriculum, Zwaneveld and Sterk (Chapter 18) were interested to determine the etxent to which teacher perceptions of students’ threshold concepts resembled their empirical findings of what students actually experienced as threshold concepts. Further, they were keen to assess whether the frequency patterns of threshold concepts found in mathematics (a relatively stable subject with a long teaching history), might differ from the frequency pattern for thresholds in the more recent and fast-developing field of computer science. Part 5: Crossing Disciplines While much of the literature on threshold concepts is situated with particular disciplines, increasingly there are attempts to explore how the Threshold Concepts Framework might be harnessed in interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary ways. At its origins, the notion of threshold concepts emerged from a research project that brought together pedagogical researchers from a wide variety of disciplines. While particular thresholds may vary, at the root of our work is a deep curiosity and respect for learning and teaching. In Chapter 19, Murray, Ryan, and Wuetherick compile reflections originally presented during a plenary panel session at the 6th TC conference in Nova Scotia. Here, they explore a number of issues related to threshold concepts and applicable to students and teachers across disciplines: the notions of thresholds and transfer in learning, developing a scholarly teacher identity, and assessment practices that elucidate variation in student understanding of a threshold concept. This chapter encourages xvii

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us to be attentive witnesses and inquirers into to our students’ learning and our own teaching. Webb and Tierney (Chapter 20) provide a compelling investigation of threshold concepts for faculty members in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). From different methodological perspectives, in different countries, rooted in different institutional contexts, and with different populations in their studies, the authors reveal rather consistent findings in ‘how engagement with SoTL develops’. In Chapter 21, Wisker extends her contribution to understanding conceptual threshold crossings in doctoral learning and reveals ‘surprising’ findings, gleaned from research with both doctoral students and supervisors, about the ‘rich contribution of interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary theorising, decoding, researching, translating and sharing’ (Wisker, Chapter 21). Her work reveals an expansion of perspectives when doctoral supervisors and students recognise the richness inherent in appropriating and applying theories, frameworks, terms, and ways of thinking from other disciplines to one’s own. Part 6: Writing across Thresholds The transformative role of language in threshold concept acquisition was noted early in the development of the TCF. As Meyer and Land (2005) commented: It is hard to imagine any shift in perspective that is not simultaneously accompanied by (or occasioned through) an extension of the student’s use of language. Through this elaboration of discourse new thinking is brought into being, expressed, reflected upon and communicated. (p. 374, emphasis added) They argued, further, for a shift in learner subjectivity – ‘a repositioning of the self’ – as students achieve mastery of TCs and extend their use of language in relation to these concepts. The chapters in the final part of this volume all contribute to our further understanding of the role of language in threshold concept acquisition. Adler-Kassner and Wardle in Chapter 22 draw attention to an important tension in contemporary attitudes to learning. They discern an increasing policy preference in higher education institutions (particularly in the USA) in which ‘learners’ paths should be quick and efficient’ and their education ‘governed by strict and quantifiable measures of accountability’. As they go on to demonstrate, this tendency, often predicated on the use of big data and predictive analytics, does not always sit comfortably with, and can become antithetical to, ‘the kinds of messy and complicated learning valued in threshold concepts theory’. Such complicated learning can present particular challenges for university students from non-traditional backgrounds. Hawkes and Hawkins (Chapter 23), working with such groups in the quite different contexts and traditions of UK and US higher education, outline successful utilisations of threshold concept theory in assisting their non-traditional students to gain confidence, increase their writing skills and develop scholarly identities. They emphasise, however, that such initiatives also require transformation at the institutional xviii

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level, and recognise the importance of partnerships and advocacy in effecting such educational endeavour. A different writing problem is addressed by Moore and Felten in Chapter 24, namely the ‘troublesome and transformative’ issue of effecting writing transfer across disciplines and modules as students progress through their university programme. They identify such transfer as a threshold concept, with implications for teachers as well as students, and for both pedagogy and curriculum. To address and assist the complex nature of writing transfer, their research identifies a set of five practical approaches which incorporate (1) awareness-raising, (2) the use of frequent practice and feedback across a range of increasingly difficult tasks, (3) making explicit connections between current writing assignments and future writing goals, (4) encouraging reflection and metacognition, and (5) measuring students’ writing progress. The part concludes with an innovative ‘role-reversal’ model of threshold concept inquiry. In Chapter 25, Orsini-Jones, Altamimi and Conde Gafaro present their research into the development of autonomy in language learning and teaching. They identify autonomy as a powerful but ‘troublesome’ concept in the field of language teacher education, with contested definitions, but indicating a ‘capacity for detachment, critical reflection, decision-making, and independent action’ (Little, 1991, p. 4). Its troublesomeness potentially derives, they suggest, from a requirement for teachers and students engaged in language teacher education ‘to critically review their practice (or perception of good practice) and belief systems on a continuous basis’. To investigate the fostering of autonomy, they employ an approach that is doubly distinctive. Firstly, it draws upon the affordances of MOOC technology to demonstrate ‘how transformative effective engagement with technology through social-collaborative environments can prove to be for teachers’ agency’. Secondly it is ‘student-driven’, with a reversal of customary roles in that the Principal Investigators (PIs) for the research project were Masters students who had previously undergone the MOOC blended learning programme – the subject of their investigation – as part of their course. *** Collectively, the various conversations within this volume reveal that, as we expand on the Threshold Concepts Framework, we simultaneously delve more deeply into exploring the influence and impact of transformations on the minds, identities, and affect of learners. We invite you to continue your reading about threshold concepts, to enter into these conversations, and to consider how they may reshape your notions of what it means to teach and learn. We conclude with the observation of Joseph M. McShane (2019), current President of Fordham University, that: Cared for, our students are challenged. Challenged, they awaken to their real potential. xix

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Awakened, they are transformed. Transformed, they are empowered. NOTES 1 2

3

Etymological information provided by Ransford (2017). The insights cited here emerged from participation in an online class during 2018 entitled “The Art of Developmental Coaching” offered by Coaches Rising. Garvey Berger facilitated a module on “Complexity and complexity of mind: Simple habits for developmental coaching”. The insights cited here emerged from participation in an online class during 2018 entitled “The Art of Developmental Coaching” offered by Coaches Rising. Carolyn Coughlin facilitated a module on “Context, identity, and soma as resources for development”.

REFERENCES Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). (2016). Framework for information literacy for higher education. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework Barnett, R. (2004). Learning for an unknown future. Higher Education Research and Development, 23(3), 247–260. https://doi-org.ezproxy.otago.ac.nz/10.1080/07294360.2012.642841 Barnett, R. (2007). A will to learn Being a student in an age of uncertainty. Buckingham: Society for Research in Higher Education and Open University Press. Battram, A. (1998). Navigating complexity. London: The Industrial Society. Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Campbell, J. (2008). The hero with a thousand faces. Novato, CA: New World Library. Chaos: Meaning and History. (n.d.). In Merriam-Webster Words at play online. Retrieved from https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/chaos-meaning-and-history Cousin, G. (2007). Exploring threshold concepts for linking teaching and research. Paper presented at the International Colloquium: International Policies and Practices for Academic Enquiry, Winchester, UK. Retrieved from https://www.ee.ucl.ac.uk/~mflanaga/Glynis_Cousin_Exploring_.pdf Cousin, G. (2009). Transactional curriculum inquiry: Researching threshold concepts. In G. Cousin (Ed.), Researching learning in higher education An introduction to contemporary methods and approaches (pp. 201–212). New York, NY: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203884584 Ecclestone, K. (2012). Instrumentalism and achievement: A socio-cultural understanding of tensions in vocational education. In J. Gardner (Ed.), Assessment and learning (2nd ed.). London: Sage Publications. Flanagan, M. T. (2019). Threshold concepts Undergraduate teaching, postgraduate training, professional development and school education A short introduction and a bibliography. Retrieved from https://www.ee.ucl.ac.uk/~mflanaga/thresholds.html Garvey Berger, J. (2004). Dancing on the threshold of meaning: Recognizing and understanding the growing edge. Journal of Transformative Education, 2, 336–351. doi:10.1177/1541344604267697 Garvey Berger, J. (2017). Growing complex A cultivating leadership/growth edge coaching. Whitepaper draft. Gervais, R. [rickygervais]. (2013, February 8). #Being on the edge isn’t as safe, but the view is better [Tweet]. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/rickygervais/status/300026666204418048?lang=en Jung, C. G. (1942). Contributions to analytical psychology (H. G. Baynes & C. F. Baynes, Trans.). London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. (Original work published in 1928) Kleiman, P. (2011). Learning at the edge of chaos. The All Ireland Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (AISHE-J), 3(2), 62.1–62.11. Retrieved from http://ojs.aishe.org/index.php/ aishe-j/article/view/62 Little, D. (1991). Learner autonomy 1 Definitions, issues and problems. Dublin: Authentik. McShane, J. M. (2019). Caring for students Cura personalis. Retrieved from https://www.fordham.edu/ info/23846/caring_for_students

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PREFACE Meyer, J. H. F. (2012). ‘Variation in student learning’ as a threshold concept. The Journal of Faculty Development, 26, 8–13. Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (2003). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge 1 – Linkages to ways of thinking and practising. In C. Rust (Ed.), Improving student learning – Ten years on (pp. 412–424). Oxford: OCSLD. Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (2005). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (2): Epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning. Higher Education, 49(3), 373–388. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-004-6779-5 Perry, W. G. (1970). Forms of intellectual and ethical development in the college years; a scheme. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Perry, W. G. (1988). Different worlds in the same classroom. In P. Ramsden (Ed.), Improving learning New perspectives (pp. 145–161). London: Kogan Page. Ransford, H. C. (2017). God and the mathematics of infinity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-origin-of-the-word-knowledge Savin-Baden, M. (2008). Liquid learning and troublesome spaces: Journeys from the threshold? In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & J. Smith (Eds.), Threshold concepts within the disciplines (pp. 75–88). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Shulman, L. S. (2005). Pedagogies of uncertainty. Liberal Education, 91(2), 18–25. Stacey, R. D. (2002). Strategic management and organisational dynamics The challenge of complexity (3rd ed.). Harlow: Prentice Hall. Stacey, R. D., Griffin, D., & Shaw, P. (2000). Complexity and management Fad or radical challenge to systems thinking? London: Routledge. Timmermans, J. A. (2010). Changing our minds: The developmental potential of threshold concepts. In J. H. F. Meyer, R. Land, & C. Baillie (Eds.), Threshold concepts and transformational learning (pp. 3–19). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Tosey, P. (2002). Teaching at the edge of chaos Complexity theory, learning systems and the idea of enhancement. New York, NY: LTSN Generic Centre for the Imaginative Curriculum Network, The Higher Education Academy (UK). Waldrop, M. M. (1992). Complexity The emerging science at the edge of order and chaos. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. Zimmerman, B. (2001). Ralph Stacey’s agreement & certainty matrix. Schulich School of Business, York University, Toronto, Canada. Retrieved from https://www.betterevaluation.org/en/resources/guide/ ralph_staceys_agreement_and_certainty_matrix

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7KH HGLWRUV RI WKLV YROXPH ZRXOG OLNH WR H[SUHVV JUDWLWXGH WR -RKQ %HQQHWW DW %ULOO _ Sense Publishers for his support in the production of this volume. They would also OLNH WR H[SUHVV WKHLU DSSUHFLDWLRQ WR -RODQGD .DUDGD 3URGXFWLRQ &RRUGLQDWRU DW %ULOO _ Sense, and Jane Read of Read Indexing, for their professional expertise and careful attention to detail. The editors are particularly grateful to the authors who have contributed to this volume. Their scholarliness and collegiality have been inspiring.

xxiii

FIGURES AND TABLES

FIGURES

1.1. 1.2. 1.3. 1.4. 1.5. 5.1. 5.2. 5.3. 5.4. 5.5. 6.1. 7.1. 7.2. 7.3. 9.1. 9.2. 9.3. 9.4. 9.5. 9.6.

Pattern of Cretan Labyrinth (Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cretan-labyrinth-round.svg) Stages of Campbell’s Hero’s Journey (adapted from Vogler, 2007, p. 205) John William Waterhouse: Psyche entering Cupid’s Garden, 1903 (Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston, UK) The Hero’s Inner Journey as basis of The Learner’s Journey (adapted from Vogler, 2007, p. 205) The Heroine’s Journey (adapted from Murdock, 1990, p. 5) The reconstitutive nature of the learning journey across the liminal space (adapted from Land et al., 2010, p. xii) Conceptual learning according to Vygotsky Visual representation of the zones and direction of conceptual development Apparent correspondences between the TCF liminal space and the Vygotskian zones of development Visual representation of learner progression through conceptual thresholds as zones of development The semantic plane (from Maton, 2016, p. 16) Problems if students are not supported to enter and traverse liminal space Improvements if students are supported to enter and traverse liminal space Improvements if students are supported to enter and traverse liminal space and form learning communities Looking into the gallery, from the outside, through the glass covered with the writings between Ramesha and her aunt Ramesha writing on the glass with brush and ink The front room of Ramesha’s installation. The coffee table and photograph album on one side and the skeleton covered in broken glass on the far side with Ramesha working on writing on the glass The three photographs provide details of the photograph album, with Ramesha’s face removed, and the skeleton The make shift dark room that suggests the printing of photographs of Ramesha The pink crib is made from wood that was split in order to show a contrast of the soft blankets and suggestion of comfort xxv

4 10 11 14 15 72 75 80 81 83 97 105 109 110 132 133 134 134 135 136

FIGURES AND TABLES

17.1. Subject terms assigned to ‘Brain on Google’ article in Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics) and MEDLINE ® (U.S. National Library of Medicine) 17.2. Search strategy and planning worksheet 17.3. Data visualisation in Web of Science citation map (Source: Web of Science Group/Clarivate Analytics) 18.1. Numbers of the (non-) overlapping different thresholds mentioned by students and in the literature, and the percentages of the non-overlapping different threshold concepts 18.2. Numbers of the (non-) overlapping different thresholds mentioned by students and teachers and the percentages of the non-overlapping different threshold concepts 18.3. Percentage of students vs percentage of teachers mentioning a particular threshold concept 25.1. Conversational Model of Online Learning (Laurillard, 1993, 2013; revisited by Sharples, 2016)

247 248 248 263 264 266 359

TABLES

2.1. 2.2. 2.3. 6.1. 8.1. 8.2. 11.1. 12.1. 15.1. 17.1. 18.1. 18.2. 18.3. 18.4. 18.5. 18.6. 18.7.

xxvi

Analogies and metaphors used in association with threshold concepts Previously identified threshold concepts about online teaching and online course design A sample of threshold concepts about online teaching Transitivity analysis of discussion (including research participants’ errors with grammar and vocabulary use) Sample data collection schedule: Winter 2015 Test marks for student answers to questions on the sociological imagination, Test 1 and Test 3 TverrSim – Students’ evaluations Programme design and taxonomy of learning Study design Learning activities, attributes, and threshold characteristics Frequencies of threshold concepts mentioned by students (Mathematics: N = 60; CS: N = 59 in 2014) Percentages of thresholds characteristics judged applicable to the threshold concepts according to the students Variation in the students’ concepts list Threshold concepts mentioned by students Frequencies of thresholds concepts predicted by their teachers (N = 12) Variation in the teachers’ concepts list Threshold concepts expected by the teachers

22 27 31 95 115 118 161 179 223 251 259 261 262 262 263 263 264

FIGURES AND TABLES

18.8. The percentages each threshold concept is mentioned by students and teachers, respectively; in each column the number of threshold concepts with this pair of percentages is also indicated 25.1. Participants 2015–2016 (from Altamimi, 2016) 25.2. Participants 2016–2017 (from Conde, 2017)

265 363 364

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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Linda Adler-Kassner is Professor of Writing Studies, Director of the Center for Innovative Teaching, Research, and Learning, and Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education at University of California Santa Barbara. She has been a writing instructor, programme director, and/or department chair for more than 25 years. Her research focuses broadly on how literacy is defined, valued, taught, and assessed across contexts. She has explored threshold concepts with faculty members on her own campus and many others through a variety of research and consulting projects. Among her publications are two books focusing on threshold concepts co-edited with Elizabeth Wardle: Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies (Utah State University Press, 2015) and (Re)Considering What We Know (Utah State University Press, 2019). Shooq Altamimi is a writer and a teacher education specialist. Currently working at the Directorate of Training and Development at the Ministry of Education in the Kingdom of Bahrain, she graduated from Bahrain Teachers College, University of Bahrain, with a Bachelor of Education. She received her Master of Arts in English Language Teaching with Distinction in 2016 from Coventry University. She participated in a telecollaboration project with Bogazici University, Turkey and gave several talks with other students and staff regarding her learning experience, MOOCs and Threshold Concepts in Turkey and in the UK. Her research interests include teacher education, threshold concepts, telecollaboration, and autonomous learning. She has published articles on critical thinking as a threshold concept. Chris Boddey provides eLearning support to teaching staff across the Avondale College of Higher Education campuses and lectures at the Avondale Business School. Chris has a professional background across primary, secondary and tertiary education in both Queensland and New South Wales. Chris has been involved in supporting educational technology innovation for over thirty years and has utilised his experience in education to capitalise on business opportunities in education throughout his career. He has operated a small business in the education sector for over fifteen years and has twenty years’ experience in school governance. Chris is keenly aware of the challenges associated with the changing face of twenty-first century education in a variety of educational settings. His research interests include: professional development curriculum design and delivery, facilitating authentic blended learning environments and addressing barriers to effective ICT integration in education. Kerrie Boddey is a science educator and is currently a sessional lecturer at Avondale College of Higher Education in the Schools of Education and Science and

xxix

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Mathematics. She also teaches a senior chemistry class at a local high school just because she loves it. Kerrie has a keen interest in innovative pedagogical practices that engage students in constructing knowledge and applying this to an online setting for science education. Her research interests include chemistry in nursing education and constructing meaningful learning experiences and augmenting this to an online setting. Vicki Bruce has a Bachelor’s degree in Child and Youth Care from the University of Victoria and a Master’s degree in Special Education from the University of Oregon. Vicki has worked with youth in a variety of practice settings – families, foster care, schools, residential and correctional facilities and in street level agencies. Vicki has taught courses in human services, community and school support, child and youth care, and social work at a number of colleges and universities in British Columbia. Vicki keeps her teaching current by providing counselling and organisational development services through her private consulting company. Allison Carr is the Academic Transitions Librarian at the University Library at California State University at San Marcos. Her primary focus is working with students in various stages of transition, including first-year and transfer students, and other special populations. Additionally, she works closely with a team of librarians to engage the K12 community through professional development opportunities. Her current research interests focus on using critical pedagogy coupled with the ACRL Information Literacy Framework further develop the student-scholar identity, and helping librarians to continue to develop as critically reflective practitioners. She has a Master of Library and Information Science from San Jose State University. Barbara Conde Gafaro obtained a Bachelor Degree in Modern Languages at the Pontificia Javeriana University in Bogota, Colombia. Her thesis was published in the Lingua Xaveriana Journal of the faculty of Communication and Language. Barbara also obtained an online diploma for a course on teaching Spanish as a foreign language at Universidad Externado de Colombia. After working as an English teacher for a year in Colombia, Barbara enrolled on the MA in English Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics at Coventry University, which she completed (with a distinction mark) in 2016 with a dissertation on a blended MOOC integration. She is currently working as a Spanish lecturer at Coventry University while also studying for her PhD on MOOCs for Foreign Language Learning at the Open University, supported by the award of a Leverhulme scholarship. She has published two articles based on her MA dissertation and has presented at national and international conferences. Susie Cowley-Haselden is a senior lecturer in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) at the University of Northampton, UK. She is a teacher, a teacher trainer, and the course director for the summer pre-sessional programme. She is a PhD student at Coventry University. Her PhD is an attempt to rid knowledge of its pariah xxx

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

status within the teaching and design of pre-sessionals, arguing knowledge should be brought in from the cold and reside in equal partnership with language. An issue that has been at the heart of her practice and scholarship for the past ten years. She explores this and other issues pertinent to the teaching of English for Academic Purposes at https://theeaparchivist.wordpress.com/ Stuart Crispin is the Associate Dean Learning and Teaching with the Tasmanian School of Business and Economics at the University of Tasmania and teaches in the areas of marketing, strategy, and entrepreneurship. Stuart has taught undergraduate and postgraduate business units in intensive modes for over ten years. His research focuses on marketing and entrepreneurship education, and value creation in agricultural supply chains. Jason Davies (SFHEA) has held various teaching and research roles in UCL’s Arena Centre for Research-based Education since 2003, including multiple roles in an interdisciplinary research project on a UCL-wide Evidence, Inference and Inquiry and being programme director of UCL’s former MA Education. Previously he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL: he has taught a wide range of courses across UCL over two decades. He currently teaches interdisciplinary courses and is part of the team that supports UCL’s Arena programme for HEA fellowship as well as being a chair of UCL’s Liberating the Curriculum initiative. His abiding interest is in people’s experience of interaction through different knowledge systems. He has published on interdisciplinarity, history of religion and constructions of belief. He is a founder member of the Teaching and Learning Ancient Religion Network (tlarblog.wordpress.com). Nicole C. Eva has been a librarian at the University of Lethbridge since receiving her MLIS in August, 2008. She is liaison to the School of Liberal Education, the Dhillon School of Business, and the departments of Economics, Political Science, and Agricultural Studies. She also serves on the groups stewarding Collections and Scholarly Communications for the Library. Past research interests have included information literacy to distance users, technology use in teaching information literacy, and marketing and outreach in academic libraries. Peter Felten is a professor of history, assistant provost for teaching and learning, and executive director of the Center for Engaged Learning at Elon University. His books include the co-authored volumes: The Undergraduate Experience: Focusing Institutions on What Matters Most (Jossey-Bass, 2016); Transforming Students: Fulfilling the Promise of Higher Education (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014); Engaging Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching (Jossey-Bass, 2014); Transformative Conversations (Jossey-Bass, 2013); and the co-edited book Intersectionality in Action (Stylus, 2016). He has served as president of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (2016–17) and also of the POD Network xxxi

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

(2010–2011), the U.S. professional society for educational developers. He is coeditor of the International Journal for Academic Development and a fellow of the John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education. Kevin P. Gosselin is the Director of Academics & Biostatistics with the HonorHealth Research Institute in Scottsdale, AZ and an Adjunct Professor at A.T. Still University in Mesa, AZ. He is an experienced leader, educator and researcher with expertise spanning an eclectic array of disciplines. Dr. Gosselin has produced over 100 research abstracts, publications, and presentations with an emphasis on online teaching and design, faculty development and contributions in the health sciences. His research includes projects in psychometric development and evaluation of psychosocial assessment instruments, institutional research focused on online course design and instruction, and faculty development. Stine Gundrosen educated as Registered Nurse in Namsos, Norway (1985). She has work-experience from medical, surgical and intensive care wards. The last 20 years, her professional focus has been on education both within the ICU and in the Medical Simulation Centre at the University Hospital and The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway. Her postgraduate education involves specialising in intensive care nursing (1995), teaching (2005) and science (2009). She obtained the Master’s Degree in Health Science at the Faculty of Medicine and Health science, NTNU in Trondheim, August 2009. She is administrative leader of the Medical Simulation Centre in Trondheim, and defended her PhD on communication in interprofessional emergency-teams at NTNU in March 2019. Phil Hancock is currently Professor of Accounting and Associate Dean Education in the Faculty of Arts, Business, Law and Education at The University of Western Australia. He is a Fellow of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand, CPA Australia and the Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand. He has received more than $700,000 in research grants and has published widely in accounting and accounting education and is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Accounting Education. Lucy Hatt is a Senior Lecturer at Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University and leads the Entrepreneurial Business Management programme where students start up and run their own businesses in teams. She is also a Doctoral Researcher at the School of Education, Durham University, researching Entrepreneurship Education through the lens of Threshold Concepts and Transactional Curriculum Inquiry. Following a career in industry and consultancy, Lucy joined Northumbria University in 2009. Erika Hawkes is currently Skills Development Manager at the University of Warwick and was previously Researcher Developer at the University of Birmingham. xxxii

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Erika researches and designs skills development activities for students with a particular emphasis on Masters students. Current areas of interest include issues of identity in distance learners, digital writing development, and transitions to postgraduate study for non-traditional students. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Tekla Hawkins is an Assistant Professor in the Writing and Language Studies department at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, teaching digital rhetoric, composition theory, and queer theory. She gained her PhD in English from the University of Texas at Austin, where she was part of the Digital Writing and Research Lab, and assistant editor for Texas Studies in Literature and Language. Leif M. Hokstad is a professor in digital competence in teaching and learning at the Unit of Educational Development at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), and a pedagogical advisor to the Medical Simulation Center. His professional career has gravitated around projects with strong inter-disciplinary components. From 1984–1992 he was a consultant in the Task Force for the Introduction of Computers in Education, under the Norwegian Ministry of Education, in issues regarding the use of computers in education. From 2003–2013 he was the director of the interdisciplinary Program for learning with ICT at NTNU, under the trans-disciplinary Strategic Area ICT at NTNU. His research and publications are in the areas of teaching and learning in technology rich environments, and the study of threshold concepts in serious games, in architecture and medical education. His non-work interests gravitate around American literature in the interwar period, Afro-American literature and all things jazz. Margaret Kiley’s research and teaching interests have for many years been related to the education of future researchers. In addition to working in Further/Higher Education in Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia and the UK she has also presented workshops on research education and training in Canada, Ireland, Japan, Myanmar, New Zealand, South Africa, and the USA. Margaret now holds an adjunct position at the Australian National University. In 2017 she received the Australian Council of Graduate Research (ACGR) Award for Excellence in Graduate Research Leadership. A recent publication, with Taylor and Humphrey, is A Handbook for Doctoral Supervisors (2nd ed., 2017, Routledge). Peter Kilgour is the Director of the Christian Education Research Centre and a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education, Business and Science at Avondale College of Higher Education. His research areas include teacher education, innovative learning and teaching, assessment in work integrated learning, cultural awareness and mathematics education. He is an educator of 35 years’ experience in four different countries. As a former secondary mathematics teacher, school principal, and school system CEO, he has a passion for innovative learning and has worked to implement xxxiii

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

this in the higher education setting, in online and on-campus modes. His current teaching responsibilities include multicultural education and professional development for pre-service teachers. Ray Land is Emeritus Professor of Higher Education and Emeritus Fellow of University College at Durham University. He has published widely in educational research, including works on academic development, learning technology and quality enhancement, and was co-founder of the Threshold Concepts Framework. He has acted as consultant for the OECD, the European Commission and the British Council and recently conducted projects in Europe, Latin America and India. He has presented on his research in over fifty countries across six continents. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He currently holds a Gambrinus Fellowship at Technische Universität, Dortmund. D. Bruce MacKay is Coordinator of the Liberal Education programme in the Faculty of Arts & Science at the University of Lethbridge. Although his PhD and Masters degrees are in Religious Studies and his Bachelor’s is in Anthropology, he is drawn most to breadth of perspectives provided by a Liberal Education. His current research is in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning with a focus on threshold concepts and student learning in the first years of University. Sally A. Male has the Chair in Engineering Education at The University of Western Australia (UWA). Her research interests are curriculum development, work integrated learning, employability, engineering practice, and gender inclusion. Sally has used threshold concept theory in curriculum development and major research projects. Through workshops and publications, she has introduced numerous educators and researchers to threshold concept theory. At UWA, Sally is the Program Chair for the Engineering Science Foundation. She teaches Electrical & Electronic Engineering Design, and Introduction to Professional Engineering, and oversees the professional engineering practicum. Sally is a Fellow of Engineers Australia; Governance Board Member for Engineering Institute of Technology; Editor-in-Chief, Australasian Journal of Engineering Education; Associate Editor, Journal of Engineering Education; Advisory Council Member, Women in Oil and Gas – Perth; and Executive Committee Member, Women in STEMM Australia. Publications are listed at http://uwa.academia.edu/SallyMale Catherine McLoughlin is an Associate Professor with the Faculty of Education at the Australian Catholic University, Canberra. With over 30 years of experience in higher education in Europe, South East Asia, the Middle East, and Australia, she has experience and expertise in a variety of educational settings, with diverse students and across a wide range of global contexts. Catherine’s research focuses on technology enabled pedagogy in higher education, curriculum design, and evidence xxxiv

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

based-practice in education and teacher professional development. Her current research interests include the use of social networking tools to support learning, teacher education and the centrality of threshold concepts in the design of curricula in higher education. Yvonne Nalani Meulemans is the Head of Teaching and Learning at the University Library at California State University at San Marcos. In this role, she leads the University Library’s efforts to engage student-scholars through learning experiences and spaces within and beyond the Library. Her research centers on the use of threshold concept theory to create curriculum that is inherently inclusive of students from groups that have been historically underrepresented in higher education. She has most recently published on pedagogical approaches to reference and research help, librarian identity in collaborative relationships with faculty, and the use of threshold concept theory in first-year seminar courses. She has a Master of Library and InforPDWLRQ 6FLHQFH IURP 8QLYHUVLW\ RI +DZDLµL DW 0ƗQRD Jan H. F. Meyer, a retired Professor of Education in the School of Civil Engineering at The University of Queensland, is presently an Honorary Professor in the same institution. He proposed the notion of a ‘threshold concept’ at a research project meeting held at the University of Edinburgh in February 2001. This basic notion, initially expressed in two seminal papers, “Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: Linkages to ways of thinking and practising” (Meyer & Land, 2003) and “Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (2): Epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning” (Meyer & Land, 2005), has attracted much international research endeavour in developing what is referred to in this volume as the Threshold Concepts Framework. Meyer’s current (and immediate past) collaborative, work with Timmermans contributes in both practical and theoretical terms to previously alluded to, but relatively under-researched, aspects of the Framework; namely, the professional development of university teachers and the affective experiences of student learners. Michael Michell is an honorary lecturer at the UNSW School of Education where works in the area of languages and literacy education. His doctoral thesis, “Academic engagement and agency in multilingual middle year classrooms” (2012), investigated academic engagement in English as an additional Language, project-based classrooms from a Vygotskian, sociocultural perspective. His research interests are English as an additional language and literacy learning and assessment, student engagement, language teacher education and professional learning, Vygotskian and Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) and education policy. Previously, he worked as an English as a second language teacher and consultant in the NSW Department of Education leading assessment, curriculum and research projects and policies aimed at improving the educational outcomes of ESL learners. Michael is currently president of the Australian Council of TESOL Associations. xxxv

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Joan Middendorf sits at the crossroads of disciplinary scholarship and the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) and plays both games. Playing by the educator’s rules, she created a theory of pedagogy with David Pace, Decoding the Disciplines (2004), intended to get good results from the teaching and learning process. Practising on the SoTL playground, she models the theory in cross-disciplinary faculty groups, making adjustments to it, such as in a current NSF-funded study exploring approaches to encourage science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) instructors to adopt evidence-based teaching methods. She has published a practical guide to Decoding the Disciplines, Overcoming Student Learning Bottlenecks: Decode the Critical Thinking of Your Discipline (Stylus, 2018) with Leah Shopkow as well as an investigation into affective learning, “What’s feeling got to do with it? Decoding emotional bottlenecks in the history classroom.” She is an instructional consultant and adjunct professor at Indiana University Bloomington. Jessie L. Moore is director of the Center for Engaged Learning (www.CenterForEngagedLearning.org) and professor of professional writing and rhetoric at Elon University. Her scholarship focuses on transfer of learning, multi-institutional scholarship of teaching and learning, the writing lives of university students, and engaged learning pedagogies. She is the co-editor of Excellence in Mentoring Undergraduate Research (with Maureen Vandermaas-Peeler and Paul C. Miller, Council on Undergraduate Research, 2018), Understanding Writing Transfer: Implications for Transformative Student Learning in Higher Education (with Randy Bass, Stylus, 2017), and Critical Transitions: Writing and the Question of Transfer (with Chris Anson, The WAC Clearinghouse and University Press of Colorado, 2016). She has served as the elected Secretary for the Conference on College Composition and Communication (2015–2019) and as U.S. Regional Vice President (2016–2018) for the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Shannon Murray is a professor of Renaissance English literature and a 3M National Teaching Fellow (2001). She is currently the coordinator of the 3M National Teaching Fellows’ programme. She has facilitated UPEI’s Faculty Development Summer Institute on Active Learning since 2002 and gives workshops and talks on threshold concepts, active learning, capstone experiences, and portfolios. Her publications include work on leadership in higher education, on John Bunyan, on adaptation and on early children’s literature. She is currently writing a co-authored book with Lisa Dickson and Jessica Riddell on teaching Shakespeare and is completing a project on the 19th century actress Sarah Siddons. Maria Northcote, Associate Professor, is the Director of the Centre for Advancement of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (CASTL) at Avondale College of Higher Education. She is an experienced higher education teacher, leader and researcher and is involved in undergraduate and postgraduate education, and xxxvi

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professional development. She was recently appointed a Fellow of the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia (HERDSA) in recognition of her service to higher education and her commitment to ongoing professional development in teaching and learning. Marina Orsini-Jones is Professor in Education Practice and Associate Head of School (International) in the School of Humanities at Coventry University (UK). Marina is a Principal Fellow and National Teaching Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and has been involved threshold concepts pedagogy since 2003. She obtained her doctorate in 2012 with a dissertation titled: Towards a role-reversal model of action-research-supported threshold concept pedagogy in languages and linguistics. She has contributed to over 100 conferences (including as invited plenary speaker) and has published work on action-research-led curricular innovation, threshold concepts in languages and linguistics, MOOCs, telecollaboration, and digital literacies. Tanya Pawliuk has a Masters of Child and Youth Care from the University of Victoria. Tanya’s employment experience includes a focus on adoption, adoption education, attachment, the prevention of violence against women and children, and childhood trauma. She has worked in a variety of practice settings, always utilising play and expressive therapies. Tanya’s research interests include an interprovincial strengthening of the quality and availability of adoption education; the needs of the adoptive family; the caring professional’s experience with compassion, forgiveness, and trust; and Samuel Beckett and Popular Culture. Torie Quiñonez is the Arts and Humanities Librarian at the University Library at California State University at San Marcos. In addition to her role as a subject liaison to Humanities subjects and the School of Arts, she works closely with the Academic Transitions Librarian to create curriculum and instructional strategies to support the University’s First-Year Programs. Her research investigates the way first-generation Latinx students experience barriers to the student scholar identity and the use of validation theory and critical pedagogy to craft local interventions. She has a Master of Library and Information Science from Pratt Institute. Julie Rattray is Director of Postgraduate Taught Programmes and Associate Professor in Education and Psychology at the School of Education at Durham University. Her research interests include the affective dimensions of learning with a particular focus on liminality and Threshold Concepts. Julie teaches on a range of undergraduate and postgraduate modules that take a psychological approach to teaching and learning. In addition, she contributes to the Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice. Julie is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

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Matt J. Ravenstahl is currently an IB Visual Art and Theory of Knowledge teacher in Fairfax County, Virginia. He earned his EdD from Durham University in the UK, with Dr. Julie Rattray, Professor Ray Land and Dr. Demitri Kotsoloka as his supervisors. His research focuses upon Threshold Concepts and interrelationships between the visual art-making process and the navigation of the liminal space. The implications of his research are intended to promote critical engagement with the role of art education in the twenty first century as it pertains to semiotic theory with implications for pedagogy and learning environments. In addition Matt has an extensive background as an exhibiting artist throughout the United States. Anne Marie Ryan is a University Teaching Fellow in Earth Sciences at Dalhousie University, where she teaches numerous courses throughout the undergraduate years in addition to serving on graduate student committees. In addition to her earth sciences teaching, Anne Marie introduced and currently leads a Community of Teaching Practice for science faculty, and co-developed a Certificate in Leadership and Communication in Science for senior undergraduates, in which she co-teaches the leadership capstone course. She was the recipient of the Anne Marie McKinnon Educational Leadership Award from the Association of Atlantic Universities (2017), as well as the Dalhousie Alumni Excellence in Teaching Award (2016). Her research includes work on geoethics, threshold concepts in the nature sciences, and visual literacy in the sciences. Leah Shopkow sits at the crossroads of disciplinary scholarship and the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) and plays both games. Playing by the medieval historian’s rules, she has written a monograph on medieval historiography and most recently published a translation of the Chronicle of Andres of William of Andres. Hanging out on the SoTL playground, she has recently published “A Tale of Two Thresholds” with Arlene Díaz, which engages with Threshold Concepts theory, and Overcoming Student Learning Bottlenecks: Decode the Critical Thinking of Your Discipline (Stylus, 2018), a how-to manual on Decoding the Disciplines, as second author to Joan Middendorf. She is currently writing a book that involves playing both games at once, a worked example of how historians work with hagiographic sources. Her article, “How Many Sources do I Need,” has won the AHA’s 2018 William and Edwina Gilbert Award. She is a professor of history at Indiana University-Bloomington. Hans Sterk is a mathematics lecturer and the vice program director of the Bachelor Applied Mathematics at Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands. He is also involved in the university’s (mathematics) teacher training programme. He received his PhD in mathematics from the Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen, the Netherlands (presently called Radboud Universiteit) and moved to Eindhoven after stays at Columbia University, the University of Utah, and the Universiteit van Amsterdam. Research-wise he is interested in algebra and geometry, and in mathematics teaching. xxxviii

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Jackie Stokes has a Bachelor of Social Work from the University of British Columbia, a Masters of Social Work from the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC), and a Doctorate in Education from Simon Fraser University. She has lived and worked in northern British Columbia for 25 years working in a variety of social work roles including substance use counselling, children’s mental health and in the non-profit sector. She has also been a manager in the Ministry for Children and Families and Northern Health and taught at both UNBC and the College of New Caledonia. Jackie’s research interests are in decision making, particularly in child welfare and substance use, the scholarship of teaching and learning and furthering understanding of the factorial survey methodology of research. Threshold concepts have been instrumental in thinking about her classroom pedagogy, and are now an aspect included in her research and publishing. Alison M. Thomas was educated in the UK and began her teaching career there, but emigrated to British Columbia, Canada in 1996. She taught for eight years in the Sociology Department at the University of Victoria, before joining Douglas College, a post-secondary community college in Vancouver, where she teaches courses in Introductory Sociology, Gender, Family, and Research Methods. After spending many years researching in the field of gender, her growing interest in the scholarship of teaching and learning led her to shift focus and undertake research in this domain instead. She first collaborated with colleagues on two interdisciplinary projects (one on group-work and another on study abroad), before discovering the literature on threshold concepts and deciding to apply this framework to explore student learning in her introductory sociology classes, as described in this book. She is currently working on completing the analysis of her research data and publishing its findings. Rachel Thompson is Senior Lecturer and Learning and Teaching Fellow at the Office of Medical Education, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. These roles include mentoring and support for faculty teaching staff and convening of the Quality of Medical Practice element of the medical programme. She practises a scholarly approach to teaching, using continuous evaluation and reflection alongside research to improve her curriculum and teaching practice. Her research focusses on the identification, teaching and learning of threshold concepts and numeracy issues in evidence-based practice and medical biostatistics. In October 2019 she was conferred a PhD for research with the UNSW School of Education, thesis entitled: “A Vygotskian exploration of medical students’ critical thinking within threshold concept liminal spaces.” Anne M. Tierney is currently assistant professor, Learning and Teaching Academy at Heriot Watt University. Originally a botanist, Anne developed her interest in education at the University of Glasgow, where she taught biology for almost twenty years, followed by five years in the Department of Learning and Teaching Enhancement at Edinburgh Napier University. Anne has been involved in pedagogic research xxxix

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for over a decade; her interests include enquiry-based learning and work-related learning. Her interest in threshold concepts in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) were developed during her PhD at Durham University, when she investigated the effect of the Research Excellence Framework on teaching-focused academics, and the implications of the implementation of the Teaching Excellence Framework on UK higher education. Anne reviews for several journals and is on the Advisory Board of the international teaching and learning conference, Improving University Teaching. Julie A. Timmermans is a Senior Lecturer at the Higher Education Development Centre, University of Otago, where she is involved in teaching, research, service, and academic development work. Her research and practice weave together threshold concepts, Decoding the Disciplines, and, more recently, wellbeing. She believes that the ideas which cause us intellectual and emotional discomfort might offer the greatest opportunities for development, and that learning is enhanced when environments are designed to allow people to explore the edges of their understanding while being well-supported. Currently, she is especially interested in exploring the affective and ontological dimensions of liminal spaces and is enjoying animated discussions with collaborator Jan Meyer and other colleagues on these topics. Virginia M. Tucker is assistant professor at the School of Information, San José State University. Her research and teaching interests are in information retrieval system design, advanced search, and information architecture. Tucker was previously product architect and training manager at Dialog/Thomson (now ProQuest), the physics librarian at Stanford University, and a public law librarian. She has a PhD in information systems from Queensland University of Technology; MLS from University of California at Berkeley; and a BA in music composition from Stanford University. Elizabeth Wardle is the Roger & Joyce Howe Distinguished Professor of Written Communication and the Director of the Howe Center for Writing Excellence at Miami University (OH). She was previously department chair and director of writing programmes at the University of Central Florida, and director of writing programmes at University of Dayton. Her research and publications have focused on the nature and purpose of first-year composition, writing programme design, knowledge transfer, and threshold concepts of writing. Her publications include Naming What We Know (Utah State University Press, 2015); Composition, Rhetoric, and Disciplinarity (Utah State University Press, 2018); Writing about Writing (Bedford/ St. Martin’s, 2011; 2nd edition, 2014; 3rd edition, 2016); and the forthcoming (Re) Considering What We Know (Utah State University Press, 2019). Andrea S. Webb spent a decade as a classroom teacher and department head before returning to higher education as a teacher educator. Her research interests lie in xl

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teaching and learning in higher education and she is involved in research projects related to Threshold Concepts, the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), and Social Studies Teacher Education. She works to foster SoTL in higher education through her work on the programme advisory board for the International Program for the Scholarship of Educational Leadership (SoEL): UBC Certificate on Curriculum and Pedagogy in Higher Education and the Board of ISSoTL (VP Canada). Gina Wisker, Head of University of Brighton’s Centre for Learning & Teaching, Professor of Higher Education & Contemporary Literature, teaches and researches in learning, teaching, postgraduate study supervision and academic writing. She has published 26 books (some edited) and over 140 articles including: The Postgraduate Research Handbook (Palgrave Macmillan, 2001; 2nd ed. 2007); The Good Supervisor (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, 2012); Getting Published (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015); The Undergraduate Research Handbook (2nd ed, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). Gina also specialises in contemporary women’s writing, postcolonial, Gothic & popular fictions: Key Concepts in Postcolonial Literature (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007); Horror Fiction: An Introduction (Continuum, 2005); Margaret Atwood, an Introduction to Critical Views of Her Fiction (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); Contemporary Women’s Gothic Fiction (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). Gina has supervised 35 PhD students to completion and has examined 47. She chaired the Heads of Education Development Group, SEDA Scholarship & Research committee, the Contemporary Women’s Writing association, and is chief editor of SEDA journal Innovations in Education and Teaching International; dark fantasy online journal, Dissections; and poetry magazine, Spokes. Gina is an HEA Principal Fellow, National Teaching Fellow & SFSEDA. Brad Wuetherick is the Executive Director, Learning and Teaching at Dalhousie University. In addition to overseeing the Centre for Learning and Teaching, he is a member of the senior team within the Office of the Provost and VP Academic. Brad is also an Associate Member of the Centre for Higher Education Research and Evaluation at Lancaster University in the UK. In addition to working on threshold concepts, his research includes work on undergraduate research, mentorship, academic development, the scholarship of teaching and learning, and academic analytics. Bert Zwaneveld is professor emeritus in mathematics education and computer science education. He graduated in Mathematics with Probability and Mathematical Statistics as major. After teaching mathematics in High School, he moved to the Open Universiteit (of the Netherlands) where he completed his PhD about structuring mathematical knowledge with Knowledge Graphs as tool. His current fields of research interest are teaching mathematical modelling and the history of mathematics education.

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PART 1 THEORETICAL DIRECTIONS

RAY LAND

1. THE LABYRINTH WITHIN Threshold Concepts, Archetype and Myth

ABSTRACT

The Threshold Concepts Framework has many correspondences with archetype and myth, in particular with wider metaphorical meanings of the labyrinth, and with the patterns and stages found in the classical ‘Hero’s Journey’ identified in Joseph Campbell’s classic work (2008), with its call to adventure, descent, ordeal, transformation and return, as well as its archetypal figures of heralds, mentors, guides, allies, threshold guardians, shapeshifters and tricksters. This chapter discusses these correspondences with the TCF, viewed also through feminist critiques of Campbell which posit an alternative ‘Heroine’s Journey’. Analogies with, and implications for, the learner’s journey are considered. ‘IN WAND’RING MAZES LOST’: A TOMB STORY

One faraway summer, during my undergraduate days, I was invited by an Egyptian student friend to stay with his family in Cairo during the vacation. Later I set off alone down the Nile exploring various sites and reached Luxor. In a hotel bar, I met an American art professor who invited me to join his annual visit to a tomb site several miles into the adjoining valley, the decorative murals of which he was researching. The day before our proposed visit he fell ill but encouraged me to go regardless and gave me directions. After spending the morning crossing the Nile and travelling to this remote site, my arrival coincided with that of four German students travelling in a jeep from the opposite direction, out of the Eastern desert. We woke the sleeping guardian of the site, a young boy about twelve years of age (clutching a rifle) and entered together. The entrance, a large hole in the ground, immediately narrowed into a passage before opening into a large, high, magnificently decorated chamber furnished with several empty sarcophagi. The chamber was dimly lit by naked lightbulbs hanging from wires attached to acid batteries outside the entrance. We scrambled through the passage on all fours and descended to the floor of the chamber down a long, rickety duckboard. In the middle of the floor a hole had been broken through into another, older, equally splendid chamber below. We descended by a similarly precarious duckboard and began to explore the many intricately painted ante-chambers which led off each other through archways into smaller

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004419971_001

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Figure 1.1. Pattern of Cretan Labyrinth (Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cretan-labyrinth-round.svg)

spaces, all of them rectilinear. Eventually the Germans departed, offering me a lift, but in the wrong direction. I declined, planning to explore further until the midday heat lessened. Several minutes after our farewells the lights went out. I was in one of the furthest antechambers on the lower level in total blackness. I discovered (when I finally got out), that our young guardian had mistakenly, though understandably, assumed we Europeans had arrived, and hence departed, together. He’d locked up and gone. This was my first experience of being stuck in a dark labyrinth. I had no torch. It took many hours of circuitous groping back and forth along dusty walls in pitch-black to find my way out of the antechambers into the main lower space and eventually to the wooden duckboard that would take me to the higher chamber and thence to the entrance passage. Though I felt at risk of descending into panic, I also knew that there was a pattern and shape to this space, a vague representation of which I had internalised during my (illuminated) time in the tomb. This was a human structure and design. There was a path within its complexity that could lead me back, and out. When I finally reached the latticed entrance, it was locked. I was in this dark space for nearly 24 hours. After I was eventually released it felt like a re-birth, a re-entry to life. THE RED THREAD

The myth of Theseus negotiating his way through the labyrinth to confront and defeat the Minotaur within it, and to find his way onwards with the aid of a ball of red thread given to him by Ariadne, is one of the most beguiling and suggestive tales from antiquity. As Pat Barker has observed of her own feminist reworking of Homer’s Iliad, ‘History is then. Myth is now’. The metaphor of the labyrinth or maze retains its power to raise questions of what it means to be caught in uncertainty at

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points in life, to lose and find one’s way, to deal with confusion and unpredictability, to make sense of complexity, to be obliged to make decisions, to pursue a ‘strange and intriguing journey, full of unexpected connections and surprising pleasures’ (Higgins, 2018, p. ii). Sofia Grammatiki argues that: We are always in the middle of the labyrinth. This is an inescapable part of our existence. We are in the story, but we cannot tell the end or see the shape of the labyrinth. This is one reason we like to tell stories – so as to impose order and pattern onto our existence, which otherwise seems chaotic. (Grammatiki, 2018, p. 11) The Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges (1941) viewed literature itself as a form of labyrinth, with every book in a library a potential departure point for new landscapes, new worlds with infinite potential for experience and existence. These labyrinths within stories are constructed by their writers, who act like Ariadne in providing the reader with a red thread to help them find their way through the twists and turns and endless possibilities of the tale. The liminal space identified within the Threshold Concepts Framework has been characterised as a labyrinth (TRANSark, 2018) and Rattray (2016) has characterised conceptual and affective difficulty within the liminal space as an encounter with the Minotaur. In this conceptual and disciplinary ‘labyrinth within’, constructed by earlier generations of scholars, it is now the teacher who offers a red thread to help the learner through unfamiliar landscapes and anxieties into a new space. For Borges the labyrinth gave rise to the boundariless anxiety of oceans, deserts or forests. But for Grammatiki (2018, pp. 8–9), the constructed nature of the labyrinth can also provide a source of security: These are, yes, confounding and frightening places. And yet the labyrinth is never so terrifying. A maze or a labyrinth has always been designed by a person. This means that another person has always the possibility of breaking its code. To be inside a maze or a labyrinth is to be bewildered, confused or afraid. But it is, nonetheless, also to be inside a structure. It is to be lost, but only up to a point. It is also to be held within a design and a pattern. Charlotte Higgins, in her recent study of labyrinths and mazes Red Thread, points out their hybrid nature, much akin to that of the half-man half-bull Minotaur itself. Like the creature that inhabits it, the labyrinth has two natures. On the one hand it conveys beauty, pattern and order; on the other, chaos, fear and bewilderment. To contemplate the shape of a labyrinth is to stand back and allow the eye to enjoy the intricacy of line and design, to feel a sense of mastery and comprehension. But to be inside the labyrinth is something else: the body, not just the mind, is implicated, and the experience is not cerebral and intellectual but physical. In that confined and controlled space, walking

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between high walls or upon a narrowly delineated pathway, comes an intense awareness of one’s own heft and height, of one’s way of moving. Higgins speculates that this intense visceral awareness of confinement, of feeling ‘trapped within the labyrinth’s intestinal coils’ relates back to the journey through the birth canal, with ‘thoughts of entrails, of the strange unremembered red tunnels out of which we all, once, emerged’ and, in turn, with ‘intimations of death: there is something crypt-like about its dark, catacombish twists’. It becomes possible to see correspondences between characteristics of the labyrinth that Higgins identifies and the learner’s experience within liminal states of learning. She speaks of the labyrinth as ‘a gesture of optimism that a corner of the universe can be mastered and given pattern and order by the human mind’ in much the same way that threshold concepts can integrate disparate concepts into a new pattern of understanding. She speaks of the ‘dual pleasures of detachment and immersion’ offered in labyrinthine space and its appeal to ‘our deepest and most basic desires –the longing to be held within a containing structure’. The labyrinth is about power and powerlessness, mastery and terror; it is also a coiled line, a thread, a narrative, a fabrication, a fiction. Labyrinthine space, like liminal space can also be transformative. Towards the conclusion of the film of J. K. Rowling’s novel Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Professor Dumbledore’s students must face a final challenge which involves the navigating of a magical hedge-maze. As they prepare to enter it the Professor informs them that ‘People change in the maze’. He gives them a warning: ‘Be very wary. You could just lose yourselves along the way’. In encounters with liminal states provoked by threshold concepts, learners are obliged to relinquish not only their prior understanding but often their earlier ontological state. They are reconstituted by the new knowledge they encounter and ‘lose themselves along the way’. This is noted in Higgins’ analysis of the labyrinthine journey. I cannot find my way through the thicket. I cannot navigate. The path that lies ahead of me is a riddle. But the path that lies behind is indistinct, too: its myriad and confusing turns already half forgotten, the significance of the landmarks encountered along the way misunderstood, misinterpreted. Interestingly, whereas in Rowling’s book the maze contains monsters and obstacles to be faced, much in the fashion of Daedalus’ labyrinth in the myth, in the film version it is the maze itself which is the monster, ‘shifting, unpredictable, potentially lethal’ (Haynes, 2018). This raises the question of what it is that we must encounter within the labyrinth or in the liminal state. Picasso’s fascination with the Theseus myth led him eventually to portray himself as the Minotaur. Perhaps the Minotaur is our old self (or our prevailing view) that must be confronted and killed off in order to move on. Hence the difficulty and affective discomfort of such encounters.

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THE HERO’S JOURNEY

We have to date tended to focus in Threshold studies on the metaphor of the portal. But there is of course the other metaphor of the journey, and of travelling: I am part of all that I have met Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’ Gleams that untravell’d world, whose margin fades For ever and for ever when I move. (Tennyson Ulysses) Tennyson’s poem suggests that we are always moving through spaces into untravelled territory, unfamiliar worlds. What I would like to focus on here is the notion of journeying as a metaphor for learning, and the encounters and ordeals that journeys often entail. The comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell drew on five years or so of fieldwork to produce his masterwork, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. There would seem to be interesting parallels between The Hero’s Journey identified in Campbell’s work as a recurring pattern in classical mythology and what in the TCF we might consider to be the learner’s journey. What is notable in Campbell’s work is how the same underlying story recurs repeatedly in religions, in myth, in folklore, in song, all over the world, taking many forms across cultures which historically had never had any connection with each other. And the story is still with us. It can be found in Hollywood movies, in comics, in computer games – sometimes quite self-consciously so, as in Christopher Vogel’s screen play for The Lion King or George Lucas’ epic Star Wars series. More pointedly for our purposes, as will be argued here, it seems also to inform the idea of threshold concepts and liminal space. It would seem to offer a useful analogy, a synectic or tool of discernment to illuminate our understanding of what might be happening when learners experience and traverse states of liminality. Towards the end of his work Campbell emphasised that these ancient mythological stories are really about the heroic journey of all of our personal lives. It might be instructive, and perhaps entertaining also, to draw on less familiar disciplinary lenses to consider educational experience than the more usual approaches of cognitive psychology. What we see in Figure 1.2 is a cycle representing the morning of life moving into the afternoon and evening of life and going then into a darker space. What Campbell and others have pointed out is that perhaps human beings are born too soon. Through the size of their heads they are obliged to be born early to fit through the birth canal, but as a result must remain close to the mother for a much longer time than other animals which are designed for almost immediate escape from predators. There then ensues a very difficult severance away from this protective mother-space. Even though the child has left the uterus it is still in a safe protected space and it becomes difficult for the child to move away from that into the challenges of life. So a pattern emerges of moving away from a protected space into riskier spaces, and much of Freudian analysis would seem to be about the difficulties entailed in 7

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such a shift. Jung on the other hand seemed to be concerned with leaving of this life and a further shift away from the material world into disintegration, dissolution, dismemberment. We struggle to emerge from the tomb-like womb of the mother but subsequently must then enter the womb-like tomb. Many of the myths that Campbell studied involve a re-entry into the womb. We come out of the mother’s womb and then go back into another one, often in the form of an underworld, the world of Pluto and Proserpina, a dark world in contrast to Apollo and Zeus’ world of light. The world of light is characterised by libido and an energy towards life and achievement and maturity. The dark world, in contrast, is characterised by what the Italian psychoanalyst Eduardo Weiss termed destrudo, the opposite of libido, an energy towards destruction. For example, in the myth of Eden, Adam and Eve are obliged to move away from the protective womb, the innocent space of the garden, into the harsher world of adult maturity. In the Book of Jonah in the Hebrew Bible Jonah, in being swallowed into the belly of the whale, is seen to go back into a dark womb-like space from where he undergoes a re-birth and a reconfiguration. He is in the ‘belly of the fish’, a kind of liminal entity, for three days and three nights. (The number three is often associated in ancient texts with the notion of transformation.) After the whale-womb spits him out he is a changed person with a dramatically changed perspective.1 So, as we come to look more closely at Campbell’s idea of the Hero’s Journey, we should keep in mind this notion of emergence from protected space and entry into riskier space. Campbell called the recurring pattern he found in the various ancient narratives he studied the ‘Monomyth’, a myth which is omnipresent. The hero’s existing routine is disrupted by the approach of a shadow presence, or enemy force, which must be overcome. The mythological hero, setting forth from his common-day hut or castle, is lured, carried away, or else voluntarily proceeds, to the threshold of adventure. There he encounters a shadow presence that guards the passage. The hero may defeat or conciliate this power and go alive into the kingdom of the dark … or be slain by the opponent and descend in death. (Campbell, 2008, p. 211) Entrance to the ‘kingdom of the dark’ is through a threshold, from the ordinary world into the special world which is both familiar and strangely unfamiliar, like the world of dreams. (There are in fact three thresholds within the hero’s journey, as we shall see). And there will be tests there, and monsters, but also helpers. The journey will lead to a supreme ordeal in this space. There is within the special world an innermost cave, another womb-like space, which presents a second threshold. (One might bring to mind, for example, the intestinal interiors of the space ship in the film of Alien, where Sigourney Weaver faces a supreme ordeal with the creature). Beyond the threshold, then, the hero journeys through a world of unfamiliar yet strangely intimate forces, some of which severely threaten him (tests), some of

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which give magical aid (helpers). When he arrives at the nadir of the mythological round, he undergoes a supreme ordeal and gains his reward. (p. 211) If the hero successfully survives the ordeal, the triumph often brings a reward, boon or elixir, which the hero carries back on his return to the ordinary world. Prometheus bringing fire would be an example. The descent into the special world brings ‘an expansion of consciousness and … being’. The triumph may be represented as the hero’s sexual union with the goddessmother of the world (sacred marriage), his recognition by the father-creator (father atonement), his own divinisation (apotheosis) or again – if the powers have remained unfriendly to him – his theft of the boon he came to gain (bridetheft, fire-theft); intrinsically it is an expansion of consciousness and therewith of being (illumination, transfiguration, freedom). (p. 211) The final part of the journey involves the return, often involving pursuit and risk, and is beset by uncertainty, as with Orpheus’ return with Eurydice. Re-entry to the ordinary world, with the trophy, or boon, transforms the world. The final work is that of the return. If the powers have blessed the hero, he now sets forth under their protection (emissary); if not he flees and is pursued (transformation flight, obstacle flight). At the return threshold the transcendental powers must remain behind; the hero re-emerges from the kingdom of dread (return, resurrection). The boon that he brings restores the world (elixir). (p. 211) STAGES OF THE JOURNEY

The stages in the journey can be characterised as in Figure 1.2. If we map the Thresholds Concepts Framework to the Hero’s Journey we can see that the learner’s prevailing state of knowing (Ordinary World) is similarly disrupted or provoked by an encounter with troublesome knowledge (Call to Adventure), as perhaps in Eve’s encounter with the serpent in Eden. The call to adventure is exciting but also daunting. Just as the hero often refuses the call – as when Frodo, for example, in Lord of the Rings, first refuses the burden of the One Ring, trying to push it back into Gandalf’s hands, or when Adam initially declines Eve’s offer of the apple – so the learner may often seek to evade or turn away from the learning challenge, or try to accommodate the troublesome knowledge in terms of his or her existing meaning frame. The hero however at this point often meets a Mentor who stiffens their resolve and encourages them to cross the threshold, in the same way that the learner may be encouraged by a supportive tutor, or fellow students, to persist and rise to the learning challenge. The Mentor is usually an experienced traveller of these strange spaces and can provide the hero with training or necessary equipment, and with wise advice for the journey, as Dante

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Figure 1.3. John William Waterhouse: Psyche entering Cupid’s Garden, 1903 (Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston, UK)

and she is lost forever. The liminal space for learners is similarly beset by anxious oscillation, and unexpected reversals in understanding when it had been assumed that conceptual mastery had been achieved. Some three-quarters of the way through the journey, the hero seeks to complete the adventure, crossing a third threshold to leave the Special World and bring the treasure home to the Ordinary World, a stage known as the Return with the Elixir. Once the hero’s transformation is complete, he or she is in a position to return to the Ordinary World with the elixir – a great treasure or a new understanding to share. This may take the form of love, wisdom, freedom, knowledge. It always involves a changed perception and a transformation of the heroic figure. Within the journey this 11

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constitutes a ‘Resurrection’, akin to the transformation, reinvention or re-authoring of self experienced by passing through the learning threshold. We might recall Dorothy’s return to her Kansas home in The Wizard of Oz (1939) after her journey along the Yellow Brick Road. She recounts her adventures to her family and friends and her new insights into the value of home, of friendship, of imagination, and of the personal capacity to achieve one’s dreams without external assistance. There are correspondences here with the boon of transformed understanding gained through the mastery of a threshold concept and the concomitant ontological shift. Transformative learning, like the illusory stage scenery of the Yellowbrick Road, can bring the learner to a similarly powerful realisation that one’s prior understanding or prevailing schema had the nature not of solid reality but of cardboard stage scenery which falls away to reveal new vistas. In the hero’s journey, unless a trophy or elixir is brought back from the ordeal in the inmost cave, the hero becomes doomed to repeat the adventure, in the same way that an inability to integrate the understanding required by a threshold concept can render the learner stuck in a liminal state for an indefinite period. THE ARCHETYPES OF THE HERO’S JOURNEY

The myths that Campbell studied contain (Jungian) archetypes. These can be considered as recurring patterns of human behaviour, often symbolised by standard types of characters in mythology, literature, folk tales, movies, computer games and psychoanalysis. Such characters take the form of heroes such as Ulysses, of shadows, ogres and enemies (such as the Minotaur, or Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter novels), or of mentors, guides and allies (such as Mufasa in The Lion King who prepares Simba for his future heroic role by teaching him to hunt, or Virgil, Dante’s guide in The Divine Comedy). There are also heralds such as the Angel of the Annunciation, or the figure of Rubeus Hagrid in Harry Potter. There are threshold guardians such as Cerberus who keeps the gate of the Underworld and blocks Orpheus’ entry, or in The Wizard of Oz, Professor Marvel, the travelling salesman whom Dorothy encounters as she is running away with Toto and who persuades her to return home. (A further threshold guardian in the film will be the tornado itself which blocks her entry to the basement shelter and later transports her to the Land of Oz.) The threshold guardians tend to thwart the hero’s desires and provide essential tests to prove the hero’s commitment and worth. There are also deceiving shapeshifters and tricksters who seek to lead the hero astray and away from their task. Satan tempting Christ in the desert, the sorceress Circe who seeks to prevent Odysseus returning home to Ithaca, or Zeus changing his shape to that of a Bull to seduce Europa in the Minos myth, or as a swan to ravish Leda. These are figures or creatures who do not stay the same. They start as one form but become something other, like the beautiful female figure in Keats’ poem Lamia who is transmuted into a serpent. Campbell commented that though these ancient deities and mythic figures have gone they are still deep inside the driver ‘waiting at the traffic lights at 42nd

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Street in New York’. They are still with us and surface in dreams, in psychotherapy, in creative production and so forth. LEARNING ON A HEROIC SCALE: THE LEARNER’S JOURNEY

It is interesting to consider how these archetypes might emerge within the liminal experience of our students and how they might be encountered. The learner is of course the central figure in the learning journey. We are all the heroes of our own myths and personal narratives. The shadow or ogre, as in myth, may well be the enemy within, the repressed possibilities of the hero. In terms of learning this might appear as our own lack of confidence, fear of failure or frustration which must, like the Minotaur, be overcome if we are to progress. Or it may be an external challenge of assessment examination, a literal test that must be passed. The obvious mentor and ally in the learning journey would be the teacher or supervisor, though might equally well take the form of fellow student, friend or family member, or the author of a helpful text that brings clarification. The ally, like Virgil steadying Dante as they pass through the circles of Hell, acts as the holding environment, as we might say within the parlance of the TCF. The herald that brings the call to learning might be a person or an event, a teacher or an inspiring conference or text, or it might well be the initial encounter with troublesome knowledge which provokes the state of liminality. The threshold guardians, like night club bouncers, are the elements which block our progress, and, of course, could well be the threshold concept itself, with the ensuing conceptual difficulty that it entails, or it might be the programme design, though it might equally take the form of our own doubts and inhibitions. The tricksters and shapeshifters represent change and shift. To the learner the curriculum itself may appear as a shapeshifter and making sense of it like a struggle with Proteus the god of elusive sea change. Within the learning journey the tricksters may appear as our own changing perceptions and misconceptions, or our oscillations and confusions as we seek to make sense of complexity and integrate troublesome knowledge. Campbell himself suggests, in a Jungian sense, that the shapeshifters could be within ourselves. Transformation in the learning threshold itself requires that our own ontology needs to shift and be re-shaped, and our beliefs and understanding shift likewise. The tricksters can also be mischief-makers, or jesters, like the Fool in Shakespeare’s King Lear, who is in fact trying to change the King’s way of seeing, to educate him in order to save him. And Jung argued that our own subconscious, through raising doubts and confusion, can act as the clown or the mischief-maker in order to change us. Davis and Weeden (2009, p. 70) advocate the benefits of teachers adopting a trickster role: For tens of thousands of years, teachers have used stories to promote learning. Today’s teachers can do the same. In particular, we can employ Joseph Campbell’s “monomyth”—with its stages of separation, initiation, and return— as a model for structuring learning experiences. Within the monomyth, one 13

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CAMPBELL’S HERO'S JOURNEY

VOGLER’S CHARACTER ARC (as basis for the Learner’s Journey)

1

Ordinary World

Limited awareness of a problem

2

Call to Adventure

Increased awareness

3

Refusal

Reluctance to change

4

Meeng with the Mentor

Overcoming reluctance

5

Crossing the Threshold

Comming to change

6

Tests, Allies, Enemies

Experimenng with first change

7

Approach to Inmost Cave

Preparing for big change

8

Ordeal

Aempng big change

9

Reward (Seizing the Sword)

Consequences of the aempt (improvements and setbacks)

10 The Road Back

Re-dedicaon to change

11 Resurrecon

Final aempt at big change

12 Return with the Elixir

Final mastery of the problem

Figure 1.4. The Hero’s Inner Journey as basis of The Learner’s Journey (adapted from Vogler, 2007, p. 205)

tempting role for teachers is the sage, but we should resist this temptation. Instead we should acknowledge, and benefit from, our role as tricksters. To do so is to accept and illuminate the dual responsibility of the teacher as both supporter and challenger. So if we think of the Learner’s Journey as comparable to the Hero’s Journey we might begin with the learner having a limited awareness of a particular issue, followed by an increasing awareness of the need for change, a moment of recoil or resistance to change, an overcoming of the fear and a committing to the change, an experimenting with new conditions and preparing for change, the major challenge or ordeal itself, and finally an acceptance of the consequences of having learned and changed. 14

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THE HEROINE’S JOURNEY

There have been feminist critiques and variants of Campbell’s analysis (Murdock, 1990; Schmidt, 2001; Hudson, 2009; Frankel, 2010). To some extent these works can be seen as ‘a backlash against Joseph Campbell’s original stance that a female doesn’t need a journey (as they are the home the hero returns to)’ (Emkay, 2015 n.p). In other words, they are themselves the destination. Although they find interest in the idea of the Hero’s Journey these later writers identify a different journey or pattern for the heroine. Murdock (1990, p. 5) argues that the heroine’s journey begins with ‘separation from the feminine’ and ends with the integration of masculine and feminine, having passed through the stages outlined in Figure 1.5. The first four stages represent a telescoped version of the Hero’s Journey. They start with a severance from the mother, a problematic mother-daughter split. The departure is to embark on the hero’s journey to embrace the masculine and follow

Figure 1.5. The Heroine’s Journey (adapted from Murdock, 1990, p. 5)

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a male normative model. Similar trials, ogres and ordeals are encountered but the heroine gains the boon quite early in this sequence. In Murdock’s model the sense of achievement and reward palls fairly quickly for the heroine. There follows a spiritual aridity, a kind of death that constitutes a moment of crisis. There follows the crossing of a threshold into the special world but this time it is a descent within. The Goddess resides within. As the poet Blake noted, ‘All deities reside within the human breast’. The goddess, the power, the wisdom and the guide actually lie within the heroine, but she is not aware of this whilst still externally focused on the Hero’s Journey. Tang (2013) describes this descent as the moment of the ‘Big Realisation’. This is a painful critical juncture in which the heroine often makes a sacrifice. In the film Educating Rita (1983), the heroine, to achieve her educational aspiration is obliged to ditch her marriage, and to some extent her social class – a painful transformation. There is a desire to reconnect with the feminine, but this time differently, not as the woman she was at the outset of the journey. She no longer has to deny herself. There is a healing of the wounded masculine, an integration, a sense of connection, wholeness and peacefulness. This is sometimes characterised as the Healing Journey. In the models suggested by Murdock and Frankel, the condensed version of the hero’s journey leads to a point of disaffection, often at the moment of what appears to be success. But the success proves empty and worthless. There is a crisis, an epiphany, and descent to the world within (to the goddess) which brings self-understanding and transformation. The heroine finds a new narrative but on her own terms. As Emkay (2015, n.p.) observes: The Heroine’s Journey differs from the hero’s journey in one other major aspect – a heroine’s journey isn’t about an epic action adventure (the external journey) into a different world, then returning; it’s about changing the world around them – perhaps slowly and by changing their selves from a state of being dependent on some aspect of that world, to a state of independence and happiness. We see this pattern recurring in the Hollywood dramas of women in the legal profession in Erin Brockovich (2000) and the comedy Legally Blonde (2001). As Tang (2013, n.p.) observes: The heroine moves forward toward her goal with renewed strength and determination. She is transformed into a better person by her ordeal of Death and the support she receives. This is a moment of action and heroism as she defeats her enemy herself – it doesn’t have to be guns and explosions, it can be her own internal enemy or an emotional enemy. Either way, she saves herself and others through her own strength, courage, bravery. Often at this point she will willingly sacrifice herself somehow, whether physically, socially, emotionally or spiritually, for the good of others. She is completely surrendered to her goal/purpose and her new self.

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CONCLUSION: ON THE ROAD AGAIN

As metaphors of learning and transformation both the Hero’s and the Heroine’s Journeys ‘can supplement and/or complement each other, and are relevant to both female or male – or non-gender-specific characters’ (Emkay, 2015, n.p.). The analogy with learning is maybe too neat. Actual learning journeys are perhaps more spiral, with many detours (as in the Odyssey). And, like Ulysses, perhaps the notion of the return is too finite. He wishes to keep travelling, seeking further experience: How dull it is to pause, to make an end … Some work of noble note may yet be done. (Tennyson Ulysses) Modern learners, furthermore, may view themselves less as heroic, and more as discerning consumers. But though these archetypal models depict the journey, the liminal state, as ordeal, and challenge, they also emphasise adventure, and what Biesta (2014) has termed ‘the beautiful risk of education’. Roebben (2009 p. 19) suggests that ‘You can travel like a tourist: consuming, greedy and always demanding. You can also travel like a pilgrim: contemplative, open to surprises and taking time to digest the experience quietly’. The point of journeying, he maintains, and we might add of transformative learning, is to remain not defended, but ‘open and receptive to what you encounter on the way and what rearranges your course of life’ (p. 19). True travellers, and learners, are alert and observant, recognising differences and important things missing from their current frame of reference of which they have been unaware. ‘Travelling like a pilgrim supposes the willingness and the skills to change one’s perspective on the road. True travellers are at home on the road’ (p. 19). NOTE 1

My own choice of exemplars derive from Western cultures with which I am more familiar but Campbell draws on myths from all cultures.

REFERENCES Barker, P. (2018, August 28). Start the week. BBC Radio 4, 9am. Biesta, G. J. J. (2014). The beautiful risk of education (Interventions Education, philosophy, and culture). Boulder, CO: Paradigm. https://doi.org/10.5117/ped2014.1.pols Borges, J. L. (1941). El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan [The garden of forking paths] (A. Boucher, Trans.). Buenos Aires: Sur. Campbell, J. (2008). The hero with a thousand faces. Novato, CA: New World Library. Davis, K. W., & Weeden, S. R. (2009). Teacher as trickster on the learner’s journey. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 9(2), 70–81. Emkay, H. (2015, October 26). The heroine’s journey narrative structure. Word Hunter. Retrieved from https://hunterswritings.com/2015/10/26/the-heroines-journey-narrative-structure/ Frankel, V. E. (2010). From girl to goddess The heroine’s journey through myth and legend. Jefferson NC: McFarland.

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R. LAND Grammatiki, S. (2018). cited in Higgins, C. (2018). Red thread On mazes and labyrinths. London: Jonathan Cape. Haynes, N. (2018, July 31) Red thread: On mazes and labyrinths by Charlotte Higgins – Review. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/31/red-thread-on-mazesand-labyrinths-by-charlotte-higgins-review Higgins, C. (2018). Red thread On mazes and labyrinths. London: Jonathan Cape. Hudson, K. (2009). The virgin’s promise Writing stories of feminine creative, spiritual, and sexual awakening. Studio City, CA: M. Wiese Productions. Murdock, M. (1990). The heroine’s journey Woman’s quest for wholeness. Boston, MA & London: Shambhala. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27771-9_200123-1 Oram, A. (2016). Using the hero’s journey’ arc to tell employees’ stories. Retrieved from https://www.ragan.com/using-the-heros-journey-arc-to-tell-employees-stories-2/ Rattray, J. (2016). Fear and loathing in liminality (pp. 15–17). Paper presented at Sixth International Biennial Threshold Concepts Conference, Thresholds on the Edge Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Retrieved from http://www.dal.ca/dept/clt/eventsnews/Threshold_Concepts/ program3/C1_2118b.html Roebben, B. (2009). Narthical religious learning: Redefining religious education in terms of pilgrimage. British Journal of Religious Education, 31(1), 17–27. doi:10.1080/01416200802559957 Rowling, J. K. (2000). Harry Potter and the goblet of fire. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. Schmidt, V. L. (2001). 45 Master characters Mythic models for creating original characters. Blue Ash, OH: Writer’s Digest Books. Tang, C. (2013). The story sensei heroine’s journey worksheet. Retrieved from https://camytang.com/ writers/story_sensei_worksheets/heroines_journey/ TRANSark. (2018). TRANSark From best practice’ to next practice’. Trondheim: NTNU. Retrieved from https://www.ntnu.edu/transark Vogler, C. (2007). The writer’s journey Mythic structure for writers (3rd Ed.). Studio City, CA: M. Wiese Productions. Weiss, E. (1935). Todestrieb and masochismus. Imago 21, 393. Retrieved from https://archive.org/ stream/Imago-ZeitschriftFuumlrPsychoanalytischePsychologieIhreGrenzgebiete_443/Imago_ 1935_XXI_Heft_4_djvu.txt

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MARIA NORTHCOTE, KEVIN P. GOSSELIN, PETER KILGOUR, CATHERINE MCLOUGHLIN, CHRIS BODDEY AND KERRIE BODDEY

2. AT THE TROUBLESOME EDGE OF RECOGNISING THRESHOLD CONCEPTS OF ONLINE TEACHING A Proposed Learning Threshold Identification Methodology

ABSTRACT

This chapter presents a proposed methodology for identifying threshold concepts within the context of professional development and online teaching. The chapter may be of particular interest to those responsible for designing professional development for online teachers in higher education contexts. Furthermore, scholars of the Threshold Concepts Framework may find the methodology outlined in this chapter to be useful when identifying threshold concepts in other disciplinary or professional contexts, especially for the purposes of curriculum design. INTRODUCTION

Online courses dominate global educational offerings (Adams Becker et al., 2017) and, in terms of educational technology, the world of online learning continues to extend into many sectors, especially higher education (Means, Toyama, Murphy, Bakia, & Jones, 2010). As a result, the need for professional development of online teachers and course1 designers has never been greater. Additionally, the process of identifying the threshold concepts (Meyer & Land, 2003, 2006; Meyer, Land, & Davies, 2008) and troublesome knowledge (Perkins, 2006) experienced by online teachers has the potential to further inform the design of such professional development programmes. Methods used to identify threshold concepts have recently become the focus of research in varied educational contexts. For instance, Osmond and Turner (2010) ‘chartered the identification of a threshold concept’ (p. 361) by interviewing staff and surveying and interviewing students in the context of transport and product design. By interviewing and surveying postgraduate supervisors, Kiley (2009) identified threshold concepts as a way to assist doctoral candidates ‘to become “unstuck” and to move on with a new sense of confidence and appreciation of themselves as learners and researchers’ (p. 293). Through semi-structured group interviews © KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004419971_002

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with students across two academic years, Orsini-Jones (2008) identified threshold concepts in grammar learning and Barradell and Peseta (2016) have offered advice and cautions about how to identify threshold concepts in the context of a higher education physiotherapy subject. Using a range of methods such as interviewing individual students and lecturers, focus groups, observations of teaching, document analysis and the Delphi technique, threshold concepts have also been identified in other educational contexts such as mathematics, occupational therapy and HQJLQHHULQJ -RRJDQDK  1LFRODဨ5LFKPRQG 3pSLQ /DUNLQ  4XLQODQ et al., 2012). Despite the extent of previous research into threshold concepts, little research has been conducted to investigate the thresholds concepts developed by academic teaching staff as they engage in the process of learning to teach online. Subsequently, no definite methodology to identify threshold concepts of online teaching has been published to date. The methodology outlined in this chapter has been informed by the theoretical foundations of threshold concepts drawn from a range of sources, including current literature; advice from members of an Expert Reference Group2 for the Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) Australia research project described in this chapter,3 the authors’ previous research on threshold concepts (Gosselin & Northcote, 2013; Gosselin et al., 2016; Northcote, Reynaud, Beamish, Martin, & Gosselin, 2011), consultation with Professor Ray Land (R. Land, personal communication, April 16, 2016), and discussions with other threshold concepts researchers at the 6th Biennial Threshold Concepts Conference (June 15–17, 2016). The quest for developing a methodology to identify threshold concepts of online teaching was initiated by the experiences and developing capacities of online teachers in higher education contexts. Online teachers typically undergo transformative processes as their online teaching capacities grow, and they develop threshold concepts about online teaching. Consequently, Mezirow’s theory of Transformational Learning (1978, 1981, 1997, 2000) formed the foundational theoretical framework of the first stage of this study in which data were sought for the purposes of identifying the threshold concepts of online teachers with varied levels of experience. Within the realms of this project, the theory of Transformational Learning was supplemented by using the pedagogical lenses of threshold concepts (Land, Meyer, & Baillie, 2010; Meyer & Land, 2005) and Troublesome Knowledge (Perkins, 1999, 2006). This chapter addresses the following question: ‘How can educational researchers identify threshold concepts of online teaching?’. To answer this question, a systematic methodology is proposed to guide educational researchers in their quest for an approach to identify the threshold concepts, or learning thresholds, experienced by higher education in online or blended environments. THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS OF TRANSFORMATIONAL LEARNING

This chapter is built upon three foundational ideas: (1) authentic learning has the potential to be transformational for the learner (Herrington & Herrington, 2006); 20

AT THE TROUBLESOME EDGE OF RECOGNISING THRESHOLD CONCEPTS

(2) the process of identifying threshold concepts in a field of learning may assist educators to recognise when learners reach these important learning milestones; and (3) the identification of a learner’s experience of difficulty, ‘stuckness’, or liminality, has the potential to inform educators how to determine where serious learning challenges exist, or when progression towards learning is blocked. These three foundational ideas are reflected in Table 2.1 alongside a collection of terms and analogies which have been used to refer to various stages of developing understanding of a threshold concept: learning difficulty, liminality or stuckness, and the attainment of a threshold concept. No doubt, more of these terms and metaphors will emerge as researchers and educators search for the best ways to describe threshold concepts. This idea is noted by Perkins (2010) who reminds us of ‘the very fecundity of threshold concepts, the evolutionary proclivity of the idea toward adventurous and fruitful mutation’ (p. xliii) and who expects the concept to be ‘stretched, challenged, revised, reconsidered’ (p. xliv) in the future. The idea of transformation is central to the proposed methodology outlined in this chapter. The experience of learning to teach online typically involves some form of transformation – either the transformation process of learning about online education or the process of adapting previous teaching beliefs and practices to the online realm. The process of developing understanding of a threshold concept has also been described as transformative by Meyer and Land (2003, 2005), especially when troublesome knowledge is encountered (Land et al., 2005; Meyer et al., 2008; Perkins, 2006). For transformational learning to take place, the learner needs to experience more than the development of a key understanding. Because the development or attainment of a threshold concept ‘always involves an ontological as well as a conceptual shift’ (Cousin, 2009b, p. 202), the recognition of a threshold concept must involve more than an observation that new knowledge has been learned. As Land et al. (2010) describe, the process of a threshold experience comprises a major change of view: […] a new perspective opens up, allowing things formerly not perceived to come into view. This permits a new and previously inaccessible way of thinking about something. It represents a transformed way of understanding, or interpreting, or viewing something, without which the learner cannot progress, and results in a reformulation of the learners’ frame of meaning. (p. ix) Thus, in terms of academic teaching staff crossing learning thresholds as they come to learn about online teaching, a change in perspective about learners, online learning contexts, or even their identities as teachers may become the focus of their professional learning experiences. Consequently, the process of identifying such threshold concepts may be preceded by a state of confusion, liminality, or even frustration and signposted by a major change of view, a different way of thinking, or the development of a new perspective. Fundamental to the threshold experience is the learner’s experience of being stuck or ‘stuckness’ (Ellsworth, 1997; McGowan, 2012; Savin-Baden, Sinclair, 21

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Table 2.1. Analogies and metaphors used in association with threshold concepts Category

Term used and source

Learning difficulty

‡ troublesome knowledge (Land et al., 2005; Meyer & Land, 2006; Perkins, 1999, 2006) ‡ cracks and chasms of learning (Perkins, 2010, p. xliii) ‡ troublesomeness (Meyer & Land, 2005) ‡ disorienting dilemma (Mezirow & Associates, 2000, p. 22; Roberts, 2013) ‡ bumpy moments (Northcote et al., 2011; Romano, 2006) ‡ stumbling blocks (Orsini-Jones, 2008) ‡ blockages (Wisker, 2016) ‡ dissonance (Festinger, 1956) ‡ learning frustration (Boyd, 2014) ‡ blockers and sticking points (Simon McIntyre, University of NSW, Expert Reference Group member)

Liminality or ‡ stuckness, stuck places (Ellsworth, 1997; Lather, 1998; McGowan, 2012; stuckness Osmond & Turner, 2010; Savin-Baden, Sinclair, Sanders, & Wind, 2007) ‡ conceptual bottlenecks (Pace & Middendorf, 2004), sticking points (various presentations at the 6th Biennial Threshold Concepts Conference, 1515–1717 June 2016) ‡ stuck at the threshold (Berg, Erichsen, & Hokstad, 2016) ‡ conceptual peristalsis (Boyd, 2014) ‡ stuck in the bubble (Osmond & Turner, 2010) Threshold concepts

‡ jewels in the curriculum (Meyer & Land, 2005) ‡ shifts in epistemological understanding (King & Felten, 2012) ‡ joyful breakthrough (Northcote et al., 2011) ‡ perspective transformation (Mezirow, 1978) ‡ a portal, a doorway (Meyer & Land, 2003, King & Felten, 2012) ‡ true essence of the curriculum (Cousin, 2006) ‡ transition moment (Osmond & Turner, 2010) ‡ the crossing of a learning threshold ‘rewires’ a person’s way of thinking and being (R. Land, personal communication, April 16, 2016) ‡ ‘the penny dropped’ (from data gathered from participants in the project outlined in this chapter) ‡ learning leaps, over the plateau, gateways, crossing the Rubicon, threshold experience, more than just a lightbulb moment (various presentations at the 6th Biennial Threshold Concepts Conference, June 2016)

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Sanders, & Wind, 2007) during which they may encounter troublesome knowledge (Perkins, 2006). Land et al. (2010) describe the space that often precedes the crossing of a learning threshold as: ‘a state of “liminality”, a suspended state of partial understanding’ (p. x). Timmermans (2010) further explains how this state of liminality may involve learners in ‘the emotional experience of self-doubt: the unsettling feeling that arises when one questions one’s ways of seeing, of being in the world’ (p. 10). Sometimes, learning can be defined as coming to see things in a different light, and this capacity to discern a new insight or experience is part of learning. IDENTIFYING THRESHOLD CONCEPTS OR ‘LEARNING THRESHOLDS’

The integrative quality of a threshold concept needs to be evident for a threshold concept to be identified. In terms of threshold concepts of online teaching, the researcher needs to look for evidence of a change in perspective, rather than simply the development of an idea. As noted by Ray Land (personal communication, April 16, 2016), the grasp of a threshold concept about online teaching by an online teacher will involve an ontological shift which will also impact the teacher’s confidence, their sense of teacher presence and their identity as a teacher. The process may also involve the removal of some of their ‘scholarly armour’ as they come to understand the process of teaching online. The change in knowledge stance needs to be considerable: ‘A successful transformative learning experience can lead … to acquisition of powerful knowledge and to significant shifts in ontology and identity’ (Land, 2016, p. 20). When identifying the thresholds experienced by or entered into by learners in professional development contexts, it is important, as advised by Land (R. Land, personal communication, April 16, 2016), not to labour the point, and therefore become distracted as to whether threshold concepts entail practices, emotions, skills, competencies or forms of knowledge. The process of reaching a changed mode of thinking and practising, which will most likely entail an ontological shift, is the important issue to look for when identifying a threshold concept. For instance, to use Land’s example, a swimmer approaching a certain level of aquatic confidence reaches a state that can be thought of as a learning threshold. Not only have new ways of reasoning and explanation developed, but attitudes and competencies or skills have evolved. It is likely that the swimmer’s emotions or attitudes about the swimming process have changed, as has their subjectivity as a swimmer. From an educational researcher’s position, the process of identifying threshold concepts or learning thresholds also requires acknowledgment of the learner’s state of uncertainty and the process of tussling with a new idea which may impact their knowledge and identity. Land (2016) cites the state of uncertainty almost as a precursor to the deep learning achieved through a process of transforming from one state of knowing and being to a different state of knowing and being.

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In our previous research, the experiences of online teachers in higher education have been described as being transformative within a professional learning context (Northcote, Gosselin, Reynaud, Kilgour, & Anderson, 2015) because the process of engaging in online teaching often involves the process of changing routines, modifying approaches and reviewing ways of thinking about teaching. This process can be disturbing and unsettling. Some teachers entering the realms of online course design and online teaching have even reported feeling fearful (Shepherd, Alpert, & Koeller, 2007). In addition to impacting the learner’s sense of confidence and their confidence to challenge, the process of developing a threshold concept affects a learner’s identity. This issue has been identified by other threshold concept researchers (Boyd, 2015; Cousin, 2006; Meyer & Land, 2005) and has been associated with ‘a shift in learner subjectivity’ (Land et al., 2005, p. 53). The change may also involve ‘a sense of loss’ of their identity (Meyer & Land 2003, p. 10; Osmond & Turner, 2010, p. 347). In relation to online teaching, the recognition of a teacher’s acquisition of threshold concepts about online teaching may be signposted by commentary about their online presence as a teacher, their perceived lack of teacher presence, or references to issues related to their identity or lack of identity as a teacher, online or otherwise. As advised by R. Land (personal communication, April 16, 2016), such references may signpost the stage when a teacher is developing an online teaching threshold concept or having difficulty coming to terms with developing such a concept. Similarly, Boyd and Lonsbury (2016) recognise that while threshold concepts can assist in the design of online courses, teachers may also sense an unsettling and subtle undermining, described as ‘a pernicious ethos deficit in online education’. Furthermore, McGowan (2012) reports that hesitancy expressed by those entering online teaching territories may cause barriers to the process of developing online teaching threshold concepts. THRESHOLD CONCEPTS ABOUT ONLINE TEACHING IN A PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT CONTEXT

While issues of stuckness, liminality, identity and confidence have been identified as indicators of the presence of threshold concepts or the demarcation of a learning threshold in general, more research is needed into the process of identifying threshold concepts of online teaching. Online teaching presents new challenges for teachers and, apart from developing technological expertise, it is essential that novice online teachers have an understanding of practices, pedagogy and roles of learners and facilitators. Many recommendations on how to teach online have emerged in past decades, mostly by leading educators who have researched the experiences of teachers transitioning into the online space and adopting new pedagogies (Bonk & Dennen, 2003; Garrison & Anderson, 2000). In terms of identifying threshold concepts of online teachers, the features of threshold concepts (Meyer & Land, 2003, 2005) need defining 24

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within a professional development context. Accordingly, these features have been described below by situating them in the context of online teaching and professional development: ‡ Transformative: Changes our knowledge about online teaching and the way we view online teaching. ‡ Troublesome: The idea of online teaching can be counter-intuitive to the way we have always taught. Learning about online teaching may seem too difficult or too complex. ‡ Irreversible: Concepts learned about online teaching are difficult to unlearn. ‡ Integrative: Threshold concepts about online teaching are likely also to incorporate concepts about other teaching-related issues (e.g., learning, curriculum design, assessment, etc.). ‡ Bounded: A threshold concept about online teaching is related to an academic’s scholarly practice of teaching. ‡ Discursive: Evidence of threshold concepts about online teaching will be demonstrated incidentally in an academic’s use of language. ‡ Reconstitutive: The academic’s grasp of a concept may go back and forth across stages of being sure and not sure, as they develop, ‘undevelop’, construct, and reconstruct the concept for themselves. Furthermore, in relation to liminality, as the online teacher crosses the liminal space between not teaching online and teaching online effectively, the teacher may experience some level of ‘stuckness’. For a threshold concept to be clearly identified, there must be evidence that the concept is both transformative and integrative. The presence of these two features can almost be used as a ‘litmus test’ for the identification of a threshold concept, the result of which is that a person’s way of thinking and being is ‘rewired’ (R. Land, personal communication, April 16, 2016). Thus, the methodology adopted to guide researchers in the process of identifying and analysing threshold concepts from data gathered from online teachers must first seek to recognise these two features of threshold concepts about online teaching. To date, threshold concepts have been identified in many disciplines such as mathematics, science, nursing, economics and physics (Flanagan, 2018) in relation to their challenging nature and the meaning of scholarly teaching (Bunnell & Bernstein, 2012). They have also been employed to explore the difficulties experienced by faculty engaged in professional development programmes (King & Felten, 2012). Wilcox and Léger (2013), identified four potential threshold concepts in postsecondary teaching by analysing the written responses to questions about threshold concepts provided by a group of postsecondary teachers. These threshold concepts were not intended to represent teachers who worked in online learning contexts. However, apart from the work of McGowan (2012) who reported on threshold concepts in association with faculty’s perceptions of technology, and Boyd and Lonsbury (2016) who are investigating online course design as a threshold concept, very little research, apart 25

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from the authors’ previous research (Gosselin et al., 2014; Northcote et al., 2011, 2015, 2017) has been conducted into the threshold concepts experienced by teachers who work in online teaching and learning contexts in higher education. In summary, the previously identified threshold concepts about online teaching and online course design are outlined in Table 2.2. Some of these threshold concepts are relevant to both online and on-campus teaching. Those less distinctive to online teaching were not omitted from Table 2.2 for two reasons: (1) these concepts are important for all forms of teaching, including online teaching; and (2) the researchers did not assume that online teachers were already experienced in on-campus teaching and, as such, may not yet have developed threshold concepts that were typically developed during on-campus teaching experiences. This reasoning has also been applied to the presentation of threshold concepts about online teaching throughout this chapter. A PROPOSED LEARNING THRESHOLD IDENTIFICATION METHODOLOGY

The development of the Proposed Learning Threshold Identification Methodology outlined in this chapter was designed within a research project that utilised a mixed methods case study design (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2011) augmented with a modified Delphi approach4 .HHQH\ +DVVRQ 0F.HQQD  1LFRODဨ5LFKPRQG et al., 2016; Powell, 2003) to incorporate expertise from a group of esteemed online teachers and scholars. These experts were identified through the process of a comprehensive literature review at the beginning of the project, and in consultation with the project’s Expert Reference Group. The project was funded by a Seed Grant from the Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) Australia and involved two institutions in Australia and one in the USA. Although the study was designed to answer three research questions in all,5 the aspect of the study’s methodology, as presented in this chapter, was designed to particularly seek answers to the study’s first research question: What threshold concepts about online pedagogy are perceived as essential for novice higher education teachers teaching in online contexts? The mixed methods case study approach, a form of which was applied in previous iterations of this research study (Gosselin et al., 2016; Northcote et al., 2011), enabled the project’s researchers to focus their investigations on three bounded groups of academic teaching staff from three institutions.6 These case studies constituted groups of ‘learners’ (in these cases, the learners were teachers who were learning to teach online) who were experiencing the process of developing threshold concepts about online teaching. Questionnaire responses and reflective journal data were gathered from academic staff who had experience in teaching in online contexts. These data were gathered, firstly, to identify threshold concepts about online teaching. The secondary purpose of gathering these data was to inform the future design of professional development curricula which aligns with Cousin’s (2009b) acknowledgement of 26

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Table 2.2. Previously identified threshold concepts about online teaching and online course design Category

Threshold concept

Source

Use of technology

Intellectual play and experimentation are an essential part of teaching with technology.

(McGowan, 2012)

Technology enables faculty not just to do things better, but to do better things. Technology is used for pedagogical purposes. Development of technological skills for teachers and students is essential.

(Gosselin et al., 2014; Northcote et al., 2011, 2015, 2017)

Understanding of institutional infrastructure (support and technology) available. Humanisation

Online learning requires interaction between all (Gosselin et al., 2014; participants (teacher-student; student-student). Northcote et al., 2011, Online students need same levels of attention. 2015, 2017) Personalised learning can be achieved in an online context.

Pedagogical

Teaching is more than telling; learning is more than absorbing. Clear pedagogical justification needed for teaching online.

(Gosselin et al., 2014; Northcote et al., 2011, 2015, 2017)

Online cannot simply replicate on-campus. Conceive how students may navigate through online courses. Threshold attitudes (e.g., good teaching online is possible) affect online course design and delivery. Rather than transmission of knowledge, teaching is ‘an active, inquiry-based process, in which the teacher engages in data-driven investigations into teaching and learning’.

(Bunnell & Bernstein, 2012, p. 15)

Teaching can be seen as a public act, with open dialogue, instead of seeing teaching as a private act. ‘Students as co-inquirers’ as ‘a requisite (Werder, Thibou, & threshold concept’ in the process of educational Kaufer, 2012, p. 34) development.

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the purpose of a threshold concept which, in her words, is to ‘explore difficulties in the learning and teaching of subjects to support the curriculum design process’ (p. 201). Barradell and Peseta’s work (2016) has also built upon Cousin’s (2008) ideas of ‘Transactional Curriculum Inquiry’ by presenting an example of how threshold concepts can be identified by broadening the groups of stakeholders involved in the process. In order to identify threshold concepts about online teaching that were evident in the data gathered during this study, the following Proposed Learning Threshold Identification Methodology was developed. This process was developed by drawing on a range of sources, including previous literature about threshold concepts (especially that which reported on research focused on the identification of threshold concepts); advice from threshold concepts experts, experienced online teachers and current researchers of online course design and professional development; theories of transformational learning and transactional curriculum design; and the Delphi method of drawing together a collection of knowledge from a panel of experts. The seven stages in the Proposed Learning Threshold Identification Methodology are outlined below. Stage 1: Identify Pre-existing Threshold Concepts The first stage of the methodology involves developing a draft list of threshold concepts from previous research, recognised experts and experienced stakeholders. The identification of pre-existing threshold concepts aligns with Cousin’s (2009a) description of the first stage of analysis: identifying variations in the ways the group under study experience the phenomenon (in our case, the experience of becoming an online teacher). She calls these variations ‘categories of description’ (p. 185). Furthermore, in her advice for identifying threshold concepts, Cousin (2009b) advises researchers to ‘get subject specialists to identify likely threshold concepts’ as ‘a very good starting point for threshold concept inquiry’ (p. 206). Stage 2: Categorise Draft List of Threshold Concepts Secondly, the draft list of threshold concepts is categorised into meaningful categories that reflect the context of the phenomenon being investigated. This aligns with Cousin’s (2009a) second concern in phenomenographic forms of research: ‘to inter-relate these “categories of description”, often in hierarchical form, in order to capture “the dimensions of variation” they suggest’ (p. 185). This categorisation of threshold concepts also allows for Cove, McAdam, and McGonigal’s (2008) supposition that ‘there is probably a chronological element to crossing some of these thresholds’ (p. 207). This process of categorisation was also recommended by Jan Herrington during an Expert Reference Group consultation for the project outlined in this chapter (J. Herrington, personal communication, May 4, 2016). 28

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Stage 3: Gather Further Data from Specified Context Once the threshold concept categories are formed, further data are gathered about threshold concepts from a defined set of participants within a specified context. The context and participants should be described to define the boundaries of the research setting and to ensure that data collection and analysis methods can be devised to suit the research setting. Researchers should select or devise data collection methods that allow threshold concepts to be expressed by participants within the specified context. Methods that especially reveal commentary about identity, confidence and/ or stuckness should be favoured, as these issues are often associated with the grasp of threshold concepts. Stage 4: Analyse Data Gathered During Stage 4, the newly gathered data (see Stage 3 above) should be analysed to identify the presence of threshold concepts from the specified context and participants. The analysis of data should be guided by a clear set of indicators for the purposes of identifying new threshold concepts. The following indicators, drawn from previous research and expert voices, may be used for this analysis: ‡ Transformative ideas that represent epistemological and ontological shifts: Evidence of changed knowledge about online teaching as well as changes in views about online teaching and being an online teacher. ‡ Evidence of integrative thinking, where new ideas are melded onto and interconnected to previously held ideas: Threshold concepts about online teaching are likely also to incorporate concepts about other teaching-related issues (e.g., learning, curriculum design, assessment, etc.). ‡ Mention of teacher identity or loss of identity. ‡ References to teacher presence, including either on-campus or online presence. ‡ Indications of increases or decreases in confidence or a ‘confidence to challenge’ (Osmond, 2014, p. 24) in relation to problems and solutions. ‡ Comments about uncertainty, unsettling feelings, feeling stuck, annoyance or frustration: These can be an indicator that a threshold concept is almost grasped. Commentary provided by participants that reflect aspects of the above indicators may provide evidence that a learning threshold is being entered into or crossed. Nonetheless, the process of identifying the thinking processes of another is not always straightforward. For this reason, the proposed methodology in this chapter incorporates a set of indicators by which researchers may recognise the development of a threshold concept, the concept itself or the learner’s state of liminality. Learners may express themselves using key phrases and sentiments that may be evident in the responses offered in interviews, reflective journals, questionnaires, or surveys. However, researchers should be cautioned about using the above list of indicators as a checklist or a set of criteria. Rather, data should be considered holistically. 29

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Stage 5: Refine Draft List and Categories of Threshold Concepts After the newly gathered data are analysed for the purpose of identifying further threshold concepts, those identified in Stage 1 are incorporated and the categories are further refined to reflect the content of both the previous and the newly identified threshold concepts. Before this newly categorised collection of threshold concepts is shared with the Delphi expert group in Stage 6, some justifying commentary and quotations from the original data should be added to each threshold concept to explain why the members of the research team believes each listed threshold concept is indeed a threshold concept. Stage 6: Consult Experts Stage 6 of the methodology involves consulting with experts, using the Delphi technique (Keeney et al., 2006; Powell, 2003). Experts in online teaching, professional development and curriculum design in higher education should be consulted and asked to filter the threshold concepts identified into those which are clearly threshold concepts and those which are not. In the case of our research, we used an 80% and above agreement level to indicate consensus among the experts. At this stage, experts should also be provided with opportunities to comment on the wording of any threshold concepts and to suggest any threshold concepts that may be missing from those identified thus far. This process, which may need to be repeated a number of times to reach a consensus list of threshold concepts, will ensure that the final set of threshold concepts reflects a strong foundation by being directly informed by recent research, experts in the field and relevant stakeholders. Stage 7: Publish Once the list of threshold concepts, validated by a panel of experts, is identified, the threshold concepts should be published for scrutiny and critical consideration by the scholarly community to ensure that further development of knowledge about threshold concepts and contextualisation of the threshold concepts may occur. Further evaluation of the threshold concepts by relevant experts should continually be sought. SOME PRELIMINARY FINDINGS

To date, the authors have adopted the Proposed Learning Threshold Identification Methodology to identify a group of threshold concepts about online teaching during the most recent phase of the project. Table 2.3 lists the top ten of the 46 threshold concepts identified during a combined analysis of the threshold concepts that were derived from the data gathered during the project and the average numerical rating 30

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Table 2.3. A sample of threshold concepts about online teaching Cluster

Category

Threshold concept about online teaching

Pedagogy – teaching

What is online teaching?

Course design is critical in online teaching. It may take longer to prepare for online teaching than oncampus teaching. Online teaching is more than just course design and course structure.

Pedagogy – learning

Relationships

A new mode of interaction between facilitators, students and resources is required.

Unique nature of online learning

Online learning is unique and not the same as oncampus teaching.

Interaction

Online teaching requires facilitating interaction, not only presenting content.

Course design, structure and organisation

Interaction, Communication, Personalisation

While synchronous communication can be difficult to incorporate into an online course, there are benefits in doing so. Commitment and motivation

The design of a course should include ways to motivate and engage students actively in their learning.

Communication and expectations

It’s important to have mechanisms to be able to communicate and give feedback to students. Expectations of students and teachers should be clear.

Feedback

Good online teachers provide feedback to students about their involvement in the course and their submitted assessment tasks. Timeliness of feedback is important and may be more important in an online course to counteract perceived lack of contact with students.

of agreement levels given by the expert reference group to the 46 threshold concepts. These threshold concepts will be further refined and reported in future publications as further rounds of consultation are employed. These findings are presented for the appraisal of other researchers in the anticipation that our research may change how people see threshold concepts that are developed by academic teaching staff who may also be online course designers and teachers. Furthermore, the identification of threshold concepts of online teachers that result from the use of our methodology may change the way professional development curricula are designed for novice or developing online teachers. As well as extending our knowledge and appreciation of the learning thresholds of online teachers, the proposed methodology may change how other educational researchers identify threshold concepts of online teachers. Depending on the transferability of 31

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the methodology, it may be adapted and applied in practical research contexts to identify threshold concepts in other disciplines. CONCLUSIONS

While Perkins (2010) described the outcomes of the study of threshold concepts as adventurous and fruitful, the very concept of a threshold concept or learning threshold has been described as being beneficial as a ‘very useful starting point for opening up a research dialogue’ and as a way of providing ‘a “way in” to conducting pedagogical research with staff who may have had little or no engagement of knowledge of existing pedagogical research or theory’ (Osmond & Turner, 2010, p. 348). By continuing to publish in this field, the authors anticipate that future researchers may build upon and extend the collection of threshold concepts of online teaching that have been identified to date. This chapter reported on the first phase of an international, cross-institutional project that aimed to identify threshold concepts of online teachers. As suggested by Davies and Mangan (2008), the value of identifying threshold concepts comes when this identification leads to course design implications and curriculum renewal. Similarly, Barradell and Peseta (2016) suggest that a study of threshold concepts embodies great potential for rethinking curriculum design in a way that highlights the most important aspects of learning. By identifying the threshold concepts developed by online teachers, the researchers involved in this study aim to integrate these threshold concepts in the future into professional development curricula for novice online teachers. While the identification of threshold concepts about online teaching and their subsequent classification into meaningful, contextualised categories may assist in the research-informed development of professional development curricula, the authors anticipate that the future of identifying threshold concepts may traverse ‘beyond the edge’ of traditional disciplinary boundaries and may even, in Perkins’s (2010) words, become ‘more exploratory and eclectic than categorical or taxonomic’ (p. xliv). In the future, the methodology outlined in this chapter may be applied in other disciplinary or professional contexts to identify threshold concepts, especially in relation to online teaching environments. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The research study reported in this chapter was funded by the Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT), Australia under the Seed Grant Program (Grant no. SD155203. Additionally, in-kind research support was provided by Avondale College of Higher Education, NSW, Australia; Texas A&M University, Texas, USA; and The Australian Catholic University, ACT, Australia. Approval was granted to conduct the research by each institution’s Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) or Institutional Review Board (IRB). 32

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NOTES 1

2

3

4

5

6

The word ‘course’ in this chapter is being used to mean a component of a degree program. For example, a student may enrol in four courses in their first semester of a degree. Professor Ray Land (Durham University, UK), Professor Jan Herrington (Murdoch University, Australia), Dr Sarah Howard (University of Wollongong, Australia), Dr Simon McIntyre (University of New South Wales, Australia), Dr Tony Rickards (Curtin University, Australia) and Patricia Powers (University of Wollongong, Australia) Using online teaching threshold concepts in transformative professional learning curricula for novice online educators, a research project funded by the Office for Learning and Teaching, Australia. The Delphi Method has proved to be a particularly helpful research method for researchers “who are seeking a judgement of consensus on a particular issue” (Keeney, Hasson, & McKenna p. 205). Typically, a group of renowned experts are identified and consulted in a number of ‘rounds’ until consensus is reached. (1) What threshold concepts about online pedagogy are perceived as essential for novice higher education teachers teaching in online contexts? (2) How do higher education teachers’ and students’ perceive online learning contexts? (3) Having identified teachers’ threshold concepts about online pedagogy, and students’ and teachers’ perceptions of online learning contexts, how can curricula for professional development programs be designed to transform the capacities of novice online teachers in higher education? Avondale College of Higher Education, Australian Catholic University, Texas A&M University.

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M. NORTHCOTE ET AL. Cousin, G. (2009a). Researching learning in higher education An introduction to contemporary methods and approaches. New York, NY: Routledge. Cousin, G. (2009b). Transactional curriculum inquiry: Researching threshold concepts. In G. Cousin (Ed.), Researching learning in higher education An introduction to contemporary methods and approaches (pp. 201–212). Abingdon & New York, NY: Routledge. Cove, M., McAdam, J., & McGonigal, J. (2008). Mentoring, teaching and professional transformation. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & J. Smith (Eds.), Threshold concepts within the disciplines (pp. 197–211). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Creswell, J. W., & Plano Clark, V. L. (2011). Designing and conducting mixed methods research (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Davies, P., & Mangan, J. (2008). Embedding threshold concepts: From theory to pedagogical principles to learning activities. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & J. Smith (Eds.), Threshold concepts within the disciplines. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Ellsworth, E. A. (1997). Teaching positions Difference pedagogy and the power of address. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Festinger, L. (1956). A theory of cognitive dissonance. New York, NY: Harper & Row. Finley, L., & Hartman, D. (2004). Institutional change and resistance: Teacher preparatory faculty and technology integration. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 12(3), 319–337. Flanagan, M. T. (2018). Threshold concepts Undergraduate teaching, postgraduate training, professional development and school education. A short introduction and a bibliography. Retrieved from https://www.ee.ucl.ac.uk/~mflanaga/thresholds.html Garrison, D. R., & Anderson, T. (2000). Transforming and enhancing university teaching Stronger and weaker technological influences. London: Kogan Page. Gosselin, K. P., & Northcote, M. (2013). Cross-continental research collaborations about online teaching. In D. G. Sampson, J. M. Spector, D. Ifenthaler, & P. Isaias (Eds.), Proceedings of the IADIS International Conference on Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age (CELDA) (pp. 282–289). Fort Worth, TX: International Association for Development of the Information Society. Gosselin, K. P., Northcote, M., Reynaud, D., Kilgour, P., Anderson, M., & Boddey, C. (2014). Threshold concepts about online teaching Progress report on a five year project. Paper presented at the Threshold Concepts in Practice: 5th Biennial International Threshold Concepts Conference, Collingwood College, Durham University, UK. Retrieved from http://www.ee.ucl.ac.uk/~mflanaga/ abstracts/TC14Abstract70.pdf Gosselin, K. P., Northcote, M., Reyaud, D., Kilgour, P., Anderson, M., & Boddey, C. (2016). Development of an evidence-based professional learning program informed by online teachers’ self-efficacy and threshold concepts. Online Learning Journal, 20(3), 178–194. http://dx.doi.org/10.24059/ olj.v20i3.648 Herrington, A., & Herrington, J. (Eds.). (2006). Authentic learning environments in higher education. Hershey, PA: IGI Global. Jooganah, K. (2010, July 1–2). Student transition to advanced mathematical thinking A focus on proof as a threshold concept. Paper presented at the 3rd Biennial Threshold Concepts Symposium: Exploring transformative dimensions of threshold concepts, University of NSW and University of Sydney. Retrieved from http://www.thresholdconcepts2010.unsw.edu.au/Abstracts/JooganahK.pdf Keeney, S., Hasson, F., & McKenna, H. (2006). Consulting the oracle: Ten lessons from using the Delphi technique in nursing research. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 53, 205–212. https://doi.org/10.1111/ j.1365-2648.2006.03716.x Kiley, M. (2009). Identifying threshold concepts and proposing strategies to support doctoral candidates. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 46(3), 293–304. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/14703290903069001 King, C., & Felten, P. (2012). Threshold concepts in educational development: An introduction. Journal of Faculty Development. Special Issue Threshold Concepts in Educational Development, 26(3), 5–7. Land, R. (2016). Toil and trouble: Threshold concepts as a pedagogy of uncertainty. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & M. T. Flanagan (Eds.), Threshold concepts in practice (pp. 11–24). Rotterdam/ Boston/Taipei: Sense.

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AT THE TROUBLESOME EDGE OF RECOGNISING THRESHOLD CONCEPTS Land, R., Cousin, G., Meyer, J. H. F., & Davies, P. (2005, September). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (3) Implications for course design and evaluation Improving Student Learning–equality and diversity. Paper presented at the 12th Improving Student Learning Conference, Oxford. Land, R., Meyer, J. H. F., & Baillie, C. (2010). Editors’ preface: Threshold concepts and transformational learning. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & C. Baillie (Eds.), Threshold concepts and transformational learning (pp. ix–xlii). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Lather, P. (1998). Critical pedagogy and its complicities: A praxis of stuck places. Educational Theory, 48(4), 487–497. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-5446.1998.00487.x Marton, F., & Pang, M. F. (1999, August). Two faces of variation. Paper presented at the 8th European Conference for Research on Learning and Instruction, Goteborg, Sweden. McGowan, S. (2012). Obstacle or opportunity? Digital thresholds in professional development. Journal of Faculty Development. Special Issue Threshold Concepts in Educational Development, 26(3), 25–28. Means, B., Toyama, Y., Murphy, R., Bakia, M., & Jones, K. (2010). Evaluation of evidence-based practices in online learning A meta-analysis and review of online learning studies. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development Policy and Program Studies Service. Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (2003). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: Linkages to ways of thinking and practising within the disciplines. In Enhancing teaching-learning environments in undergraduate courses project, occasional paper 4 (pp. 1–12). Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh. Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (2005). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (2): Epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning. Higher Education, 49(3), 373–388. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-004-6779-5 Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (2006). Overcoming barriers to student understanding Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge. New York, NY: Routledge. Meyer, J. H. F., Land, R., & Davies, P. (2008). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (4): Issues of variation and variability. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & J. Smith (Eds.), Threshold concepts within the disciplines (pp. 59–74). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Mezirow, J. (1978). Perspective transformation. Adult Education Quarterly, 28(2), 100–110. https://doi.org/10.1177/074171367802800202 Mezirow, J. (1981). A critical theory of adult learning and education. Adult Education Quarterly, 32(1), 3–24. doi:10.1177/074171368103200101 Mezirow, J. (1997). Transformative learning: Theory to practice. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 1997(74), 5–12. https://doi.org/10.1002/ace.7401 Mezirow, J., & Associates. (2000). Learning as transformation Critical perspectives on a theory in progress. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. 1LFROD 5LFKPRQG . 0 3pSLQ * /DUNLQ +   7UDQVIRUPDWLRQ IURP VWXGHQW WR RFFXSDWLRQDO therapist: Using the Delphi technique to identify the threshold concepts of occupational therapy. Australian Occupational Therapy Journal, 63(2), 95–104. doi:10.1111/1440-1630.12252 Northcote, M., Gosselin, K. P., Reynaud, D., Kilgour, P., & Anderson, M. (2015). Navigating learning journeys of online teachers: Threshold concepts and self-efficacy. Issues in Educational Research, 25(3), 319–344. Northcote, M., Gosselin, K. P., Reynaud, D., Kilgour, P., Anderson, M., & Boddey, C. (2017). Reversing the tyranny of distance education: Using research about threshold concepts to humanise online course design. In M. Northcote & K. P. Gosselin (Eds.), Handbook of research on humanizing the distance learning experience (pp. 232–255). Hershey, PA: IGI Global. Northcote, M., Reynaud, D., Beamish, P., Martin, T., & Gosselin, K. P. (2011). Bumpy moments and joyful breakthroughs: The place of threshold concepts in academic staff development programs about online learning and teaching. ACCESS Critical Perspectives on Communication, Cultural & Policy Studies, 30(2), 75–90. Orsini-Jones, M. (2008). Troublesome language knowledge: Identifying threshold concepts in grammar learning. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & J. Smith (Eds.), Threshold concepts within the disciplines (pp. 213–226). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.

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M. NORTHCOTE ET AL. Osmond, J. (2014). Identifying threshold concepts in design (Unpublished PhD thesis). Coventry University, Coventry. Osmond, J., & Turner, A. (2010). The threshold concept journey in design: From identification to application. In J. H. F. Meyer, R. Land, & C. Baillie (Eds.), Threshold concepts and transformational learning (pp. 347–364). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Pace, D., & Middendorf, J. (Eds.). (2004). Decoding the disciplines: Helping students learn disciplinary ways of thinking. In New directions for teaching and learning (Vol. 98). San Francisco, CA: JosseyBass. Perkins, D. (1999). The many faces of constructivism. Educational Leadership, 57, 6–11. Perkins, D. (2006). Constructivism and troublesome knowledge. In J. H. F. Meyer & R. Land (Eds.), Overcoming barriers to student understanding Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (pp. 33–47). New York, NY: Routledge. Perkins, D. (2010). Foreword. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & C. Baillie (Eds.), Threshold concepts and transformational learning (pp. xliii–xlv). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Powell, C. (2003). The Delphi technique: Myths and realities. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 41, 376–382. doi:10.1046/j.1365-2648.2003.02537.x Quinlan, K. M., Male, S., Fill, J., Jaffer, Z., Stamboulis, A., & Baillie, C. (2012, July). Understanding thresholds in first year engineering Digging beneath Mohr’s Circle. Paper presented at the 4th International Symposium for Engineering Education, The University of Sheffield. Retrieved from http://isee2012.group.shef.ac.uk/docs/papers/paper_29.pdf Roberts, N. (2013). Disorienting dilemmas: Their effects on learners, impact on performance, and implications for adult educators. In M. S. Plakhotnik & S. M. Nielsen (Eds.), Proceedings of the Fifth Annual College of Education Research Conference Urban International Education Section (pp. 100–105). Miami, FL: Florida International University. Romano, M. (2006). ‘Bumpy moments’ in teaching: Reflections from practicing teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education, 22, 973–985. doi:10.1016/j.tate.2006.04.019 Savin-Baden, M., Sinclair, C., Sanders, C., & Wind, S. (2007, March). Lurking on the threshold Being learners in silent spaces. Paper presented at the Ideas in Cyberspace Education, Ross Priory, Loch Lomond, Scotland. Shepherd, C., Alpert, M., & Koeller, M. (2007). Increasing the efficacy of educators teaching online. World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, 1, 426–432. Timmermans, J. (2010). Changing our minds: The developmental potential of threshold concepts. In J. H. F. Meyer, R. Land, & C. Baillie (Eds.), Threshold concepts and transformational learning (pp. 3–19). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Werder, C., Thibou, S., & Kaufer, B. (2012). Students as co-inquirers: A requisite threshold concept in educational development? Journal of Faculty Development. Special Issue Threshold Concepts in Educational Development, 26(3), 34–38. Wilcox, S., & Léger, A. B. (2013). Crossing thresholds: Identifying conceptual transitions in postsecondary teaching. Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 4(2), Article 7. http://dx.doi.org/10.5206/cjsotl-rcacea.2013.2.7 Wisker, G. (2016). Beyond blockages to ownership, agency and articulation: Liminal spaces and conceptual threshold crossing in doctoral learning. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & M. T. Flanagan (Eds.), Threshold concepts in practice (pp. 165–176). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.

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3. CAUTION! THEORIES AT PLAY! Threshold Concepts and Decoding the Disciplines

ABSTRACT

Although Decoding the Disciplines and Threshold Concepts appear to be similar theories, they actually operate differently and complementarily. Threshold concepts (and bottlenecks) analyse the nature of the content difficulty, while decoding provides a pedagogical model for getting students through the difficulty, including measuring student proficiency at every stage of the process. Decoding also provides a framework for cross-disciplinary discussions and for helping students negotiate both established threshold concepts and those yet-to-be discovered as disciplines evolve. AT THE CROSSROADS OF THEORIES

Threshold concepts and Decoding the Disciplines were born at almost the same time and quite independently of each other. Threshold concepts appeared in 2003 in a landmark article by Jan Meyer and Ray Land, while Decoding the Disciplines saw the light of day in a 2004 volume of New Directions for Teaching and Learning, edited and contributed to by Joan Middendorf and David Pace. What both theories have in common is a focus on disciplinary learning. Both also offer theories of ‘stuck places’, that is, the places where learners cannot improve their performances without mastering some essential element of the discipline. In the theoretical context in which Threshold concepts originated, stuck places are ‘threshold concepts’ deploying the metaphor of an entryway (albeit one frequently barricaded to the learner). In decoding theory, the stuck places are called bottlenecks, representing a kind intellectual traffic jam. This has led some writers to see the two theories as essentially the same. In this chapter, we argue that while there is some overlap in the two theories, there are some significant differences both theoretical and cultural. Understanding and appreciating these differences can show how these two theories, rather than competing for the same turf, can play well together, because they bring different strengths to the playing field. The first and most striking difference is what these two theories are theories of. Threshold concepts began as a theory of difficulty, while Decoding the Disciplines

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004419971_003

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began as a theory of pedagogy. David Perkins (2007, p. 33) articulates what is different about these two theoretical approaches: A theory of difficulty contrasts with a full-scale theory of pedagogy in a very straightforward way: The two have different objects. A theory of pedagogy concerns the teaching-learning process itself, but a theory of difficulty concerns the hurdles of content. It foregrounds what parts or aspects of content persistently prove troublesome for learners and why. In itself, a theory of difficulty provides no blueprint for better learning, any more than ideas about gravity and friction and acceleration provide a blueprint for putting a satellite into orbit. However, a good theory of difficulty defines the design challenge, posing specific pedagogical problems we can then try to address. As a theory of difficulty, threshold concepts originally focused on what is called conceptual difficulty, and particularly of the epistemic variety, although Shanahan and Meyer have made the case that threshold concepts can partake of a variety of types of difficulty (2006). This connection between the larger episteme and individually difficult concepts was sketched out early on in the threshold concepts literature, for instance, by Davies and Mangan (2007), although until relatively recently, it has been more mentioned than explored. The connection to the larger picture is captured, however, by notions expressed by scholars working within the threshold concepts framework such as ‘thinking like an historian’ or ‘thinking like a biologist’. While there are many things learners find troublesome for various reasons, threshold concepts were originally designed to deal with a subset of these, namely those that are transformative, irreversible, bounded and integrative. These concepts reframe the learner’s understanding; once seen, they cannot be unseen; and they pull together all the content of a learner’s understanding. However, they are limited (Meyer & Land, 2006). Thus, threshold concepts as originally conceived operate primarily at a middle level, in between the larger episteme (consisting of congeries of threshold concepts) and the procedural or ‘core concept’ level. In contrast, Decoding the Disciplines began as a theory of pedagogy – a theory of ‘how to organize the teaching-learning process for good results’ incorporating ‘recommendations about the kinds of activities likely to foster learning’ (Perkins, 2007, p. 33). Joan Middendorf and David Pace developed the Decoding the Disciplines theory based on a series of summer workshops they ran for faculty members. As the name of the series, the Freshman Learning Project, implies, the focus was always on figuring out where students were getting stuck early in their programmes and then on devising lessons to get the students through the bottlenecks, rather than on defining the nature of the bottleneck. Bottlenecks can happen at any level of the epistemic game: at the most basic procedural level; at the level of bounded, integrative, transformative concepts (where threshold concepts work); at the epistemic level; and even at the level of dispositions (about which we will say more below). Successfully negotiating them may deepen understanding rather than

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transforming it. What defines them is that significant percentages of students get stuck there.1 Some bottlenecks probably are the same as threshold concepts. Some examples we might give are recursion in computing, which is an essential component of much programming (Middendorf & Shopkow, 2018, p. 158). The notion of geologic time in evolution and the earth sciences is another example (Cheek, 2010; Johnson, Middendorf, Rehrey, Dalkilic, & Cassidy, 2014; Zhu, Rehrey, Treadwell, & Johnson, 2012). The conception of gender in women’s studies may fill this bill as well (Hassel & Launius, 2017). Finally, student conceptions of the role of the history teacher at the secondary level may operate as both a bottleneck and a threshold concept (Díaz & Shopkow, 2017). Other bottlenecks do not line up easily with threshold concepts. Some are competencies (the ability to generate good disciplinary questions in nearly every discipline (see Marbach-Ad & Sokolove, 2000) and almost every level of schooling (see Ritchhart, Church, & Morrison, 2011). Others are dispositions students may gradually develop over some time, for example, the ability to understand a culture on its own terms in anthropology, or tolerance for indeterminacy and ambiguity (the degree of which may vary even among professionals). Some are procedural, such as rewriting in composition or perseverance in research in history. Finally, some DUH DIIHFWLYH 0LGGHQGRUI 0LFNXWơ 6DXQGHUV 1DMDU &ODUN+XFNVWHS 3DFH 2015), such as in an evolutionary science class, the belief that the earth was recently created. All of these involve change, and may involve greater transformations, but they may not always do so. Some operate on the highest level (understanding how disciplines create knowledge and the kind of knowledge they create), while others may be fairly basic (knowing that there are direct and indirect processes in science, how they differ, and which one is at play in a given situation). Sometimes what initially seems to be a single bottleneck turns out to have a number of layers, subbottlenecks. Just as theories of difficulty require theories of pedagogy to complete them, decoding, as a theory of pedagogy, requires a theory (or theories) of difficulty to explain why students are getting stuck. The main theory of difficulty with which decoding works is tacit knowledge: namely, the tacit knowledge of the teacher. Most faculty were acculturated to their disciplines in graduate school and through a process of cognitive apprenticeship (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989; Shopkow, Díaz, Middendorf, & Pace, 2013b) in which the underlying epistemes of their disciplines and dispositions were instilled tacitly. Therefore, the teacher cannot, or does not, articulate the disciplinary knowledge that would permit students to negotiate successfully the bottleneck. The result is that faculty members can fly, but find it difficult to teach flying, because they are birds, not ornithologists.2 Furthermore, faculty members have to figure out how to guide students in a short period of time and generally with fewer materials through understandings that took them years and deep immersion to develop, a point we will return to.3

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WHAT IS THE NATURE OF THE GAME?

It is beyond dispute that in both ways of viewing stuck places, it is the students who are getting stuck, and both theories aim to get the students unstuck. However, threshold concepts posit the teacher as the representative of the discipline whose job is to invite students through a door the teacher has already passed through. In what Middendorf has referred to as ‘the bottleneck perspective’ (Middendorf & Shopkow, 2018), the teacher may well have passed through the portal, but may well no longer remember how to do so. If a stuck place is a threshold, the teacher stands within the threshold, beckoning the student to pass through. If the stuck place is a bottleneck, the teacher alternately pushes and pulls the student through something that may not seem to him or her to be a doorway at all. The former way of thinking about the problem has had considerable appeal to faculty members, as has the terminology with which it is expressed. For one thing, we think about our disciplines as being comprised of concepts (although oddly enough we don’t always teach that way). While faculty members are deeply immersed in the content knowledge of their disciplines, as practitioners they know that their job is to do things with that content, to apply concepts (or derive new concepts). In the sciences, faculty members have long used concept inventory tests to provide information about student prior knowledge and post-course comprehension (postmodule comprehension in British usage), so the language of concept is doubly familiar (Smith & Tanner, 2010). The terminology pays tribute to our understanding of our work, but also to how we think about student learning. It is, as Perkins notes, ‘user-friendly’ (2007, p. 40), because faculty members immediately understand what is meant. To think of ourselves as the benign hosts, welcoming our students through our doorways, leaves us in a comfortable place, as judges of what is and should be learned. To say this is not to dismiss the importance of this faculty comfort. If faculty members are to change the way they teach, the recognition that when students struggle, the students are not being lazy and neither are they being stupid, is highly significant. If, through thinking in terms of threshold concepts, faculty members recognise that it will take students time (sometimes lots of time) to master important concepts in a discipline, it may change faculty members’ approaches to teaching (Bain & Bass, 2011). This may well lead even competent faculty members to move beyond their ‘pretty good’ pedagogies (Perkins, 2007) to more focused and targeted ones and help faculty members get through some of the considerable resistance to new pedagogical approaches that has been documented (Brownell & Tanner, 2012). The bottleneck perspective of decoding situates the difficulty elsewhere and less comfortably for faculty members. In decoding theory, the bottleneck is the result of miscommunication between teacher and student. The teacher is asking students to do something he or she has not taught them to do and they don’t know how to do. However, the instructor has to move into the student zone, not the other way around: by definition, students who haven’t passed through the bottleneck cannot 40

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pass through. It is the instructor who needs to figure out where he or she is speaking in tongues to students, decrypt the code in which he or she speaks, teach students what the code is, and help them navigate through the narrows. The discovery that one has been speaking in tongues, that one is the closed door of the threshold as it were, is frequently a painful one that reveals to faculty members, used to being the experts in the room, that they have gaps in their pedagogical content knowledge. However, there are problems in simply working from the faculty members’ point of view. The difficulties instructors think students have may not be points where the students are really struggling, and instructors may fail to see the things students perceive as particularly difficult. A study done by Regan Gurung and Eric Landrum (2013) found just this: faculty members and students did not agree entirely on what was difficult in psychology. To be sure, Gurung and Landrum were not arguing that the student perception was necessarily correct – those birds were not ornithologists either! Similarly, what faculty members think the difficulty is may not be the actual reason for student poor performance. For instance, ‘Julie’, teaching physiotherapy, initially thought that her students’ problem was an inability to visualise anatomical structures; deeper exploration revealed, however, that the problem was that they had not had sufficient opportunities to practise applying their knowledge of those structures (Yeo, Lafave, Westbrook, McAllister, Valdez, & Eubank, 2017). Here, a systematic methodology for determining the nature of the learning impediment is crucial. PLAYING WITH METHODOLOGY

The great strength of decoding is the methodology that undergirds the theory of pedagogy. We will not go over this seven-step process in depth here, as there are many publications that review it in great detail (see Middendorf & Pace, 2004; Middendorf & Shopkow, 2018; Miller-Young & Boman, 2017; Pace, 2017). We will note that the Framework proposed by Timmermans and Meyer (2017) for creating and embedding Integrated Threshold Concepts Knowledge (ITCK) incorporates the first two steps of decoding in the process for determining the contours of a threshold concept and the steps needed to guide students through the portal. (These steps include determining where students get stuck and figuring out how the expert avoids getting stuck there.) One of us has argued elsewhere that decoding is particularly important in disciplines where concepts are fluid, or difficult to define or map, or not always agreed upon, such as in the humanities and social sciences. In the humanities in particular, scholars may not think in terms of concepts at all (Shopkow, 2010). However, we cannot here sketch out all the ways people have used the methodology, from exploring disciplinary identities (MacDonald, 2017), to understanding area studies (for example, environmental studies), which are inherently multi-disciplinary (MacPherson, 2015), to restructuring a law programme (Wilkinson, 2014), to mapping out the terrain involved in ‘thinking like an historian’ (Díaz, Middendorf, Pace, & Shopkow, 2008; Shopkow, 2010; Shopkow, Díaz, Middendorf, & Pace, 2013a). Rather, in what remains of this chapter, we would like to emphasise some 41

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strengths this robust and consistent methodology affords and some things it reveals about the disciplinary education game at the undergraduate level. Playing with the Neighbours As the example of area studies (multidisciplinary approaches to a given topic or problem) suggests, the methodology itself encourages cross-disciplinary comparison and dialogue. We have participated in a number of cross-disciplinary conversations, including discussions between history and geology (Higgs, Díaz, Middendorf, Shopkow, & Pace, 2013), history and accounting (Middendorf, Shopkow, Pace, Barnett, & Timmermans, 2014), and history and physiology (Schlegel & Pace, 2004).4 We have brought faculty members together for a decoding seminar in an National Science Foundation-funded study currently underway aimed at exploring methods to get science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) instructors to adopt evidence-based teaching methods.5 Decoding workshops, wherever possible, group participants in cross-disciplinary groups because this helps clarify what is particular to a given discipline. As we have argued elsewhere, Perhaps we can’t (in the beginning) describe the kinds of knowing in our fields, but when we see yours across the room, which might be very different from ours, perhaps somewhat similar or maybe even largely the same, our own ways of operating and the epistemology of our fields (the mechanisms of thought that produce the characteristic knowledge and meaning within a discipline) become clearer to us. (Middendorf & Shopkow, 2018, p. 8) Such cross-disciplinary conversations elicit the specifics of expert thinking in different disciplines, clarifying that disciplines sometimes require diametrically opposed procedures. For instance, many disciplines require visualisation as part of expert processing. A biologist one of us interviewed realised that he immediately visualised what was depicted in a graph (Middendorf & Shopkow, 2018 p. 69). However, the physicist Gregor Novak noted in an interview that in physics, when students try to turn graphs into real-world representations, they get stuck. Novak himself does not visualise: ‘The graphs’, as he remarked, ‘are my element’ (Novak, 2006). Yet pre-medical students in the United States take both physics and biology; in other words, the same students are being asked to think in these different ways. The more aware faculty members can become of how differently the game is played in other disciplines, the better they can encourage students to become proficient players in whatever disciplines the students engage in, while conveying the bounded nature of thinking in the faculty member’s discipline. Spelling out the Moves of the Game The second step of decoding, the step adopted in the Framework for creating and embedding ITCK (Timmermans & Meyer, 2017), uncovers the mental moves and 42

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assumptions experts make as they negotiate their disciplines. For a bird to become an ornithologist, it not only has to be able to fly, but also to develop an idea of how flying happens. Decoding posits a number of ways to do this: An interview of a disciplinary expert about a student bottleneck by at least one non-expert is probably the most powerful method, but decoding can be done with analogies, rubrics, modelbuilding, reflective writing tours, or mind maps (Middendorf & Shopkow, 2018, chapter 2). The product is a series of mental steps for students to take which render the expert’s assumptions and moves explicit. However, these steps are probably not the process by which faculty members came to their understandings originally, because they generally did so tacitly. Furthermore, the moves may not be recognisable to faculty members, since they chunk what they know and make their moves all at once. This may be another source of discomfort for faculty members being introduced to decoding, particularly if they are not savvy about the difference between content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1986). Nevertheless, the series of moves teachers derive from the decoding process represents a hypothesised process that can be tested for teaching students expert thinking. The enunciation of these steps becomes the student learning outcomes (SLOs), which serve as the basis for the rest of the process: the modelling the instructor does of how to make each move, the practice the students do on each move, and then the assemblage of moves. Negotiating the bottleneck successfully is the goal, but the methodology creates intermediate and auxiliary SLOs that can be measured along the way. How Well Can They Play the Game? Small, frequent learning assessments (often ungraded or low-stakes) set up a feedback loop so teachers can gauge students’ performance on the mental action based on evidence, not based on assumptions. In contrast, due to their summative nature, grading assessments such as midterm and final exams or large end-of-course papers can give an overall global sense of the state of the student learning, but not specific feedback highlighting areas for the teacher or student to improve. One of the greatest strengths of the decoding methodology is that it has led to a vigorous culture of assessment for learning and a burgeoning repertoire of forms of this sort of assessment (Middendorf & Shopkow, 2018, chapter 6). To do decoding is not just to pull apart the problem, but to measure student proficiency at every stage of the process. Particularly when a bottleneck is complex, it has a lot of moving parts that must be coordinated in order to be successful. To turn in flight, birds have to coordinate their wings, and different birds may achieve the same end somewhat differently because of differences in wing shape. The same is true for students negotiating bottlenecks. The parts of all of the mental moves have to be executed reasonably successfully. When teachers get the bottleneck perspective – a learning-centred view of their classes and teaching – they know they have to check on student proficiency frequently. All parts of the process need to be tested. Thus, 43

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when a faculty member has designed a lesson to teach a particular set of mental moves, the efficacy of the lesson gets tested, rather than just assumed. To give one example, a faculty member in computer science was trying to get students to understand how protected transactions, such as email messages and online purchases might be attacked. The instructor found that his first attempt was unsatisfactory: I rearranged content a bit and taught my bottleneck lesson on Monday (incorporating all of your suggestions about building further on the analogy of a locked box). The results were extremely disappointing. Not a single student came up with a remotely insightful suggestion regarding how to define secrecy, and only a couple of students seem [sic] to gain even a superficial understanding of the security game. Faced with this outcome, the instructor did not give up. Keeping the focus on the mental action (getting students to understand encryption), he tried a new approach: So today I brought 50 pennies to class, showed them how to use a very simple encryption scheme (by hand) both correctly and incorrectly, and then had them pair up and physically play several rounds of the security game. Their goal was to figure out how to win reliably both when the encryption scheme is used correctly (which is impossible) and when it is used incorrectly (which is easy). Approximately 3/4 of the teams both discovered the attack against the improperly used encryption and were able to develop an intuitive feel for why not being able to win the game implies that the encryption is secure. (R. Henry, personal communication, January 24, 2018) This powerful methodology allowed him to persist through his initial setback and get a majority of his students to understand encryption, a key concept. The learning gains were not just on one side here. The instructor reported, ‘It was surprising to learn just how much I was taking for granted when I was trying to teach students; how much knowledge I have that I wasn’t ever telling anybody about’ (Henry, 2017). For students to master a complex task, we break the task into smaller component tasks and then let them practise and assess those parts individually. With competence at these initial steps, we can then assign the culminating task (designing a secure system that protects privacy or writing an original research paper) that asks students to synthesise all of the smaller skills that make up the larger task. Getting beyond the ‘Skills Drill’ Assessment for learning is not confined to checking whether students have arrived at greater understanding immediately after a lesson. It can also check students’ prior knowledge before tackling a problem (essential in working through affective bottlenecks) and be deployed periodically after the lesson, lest the new understanding 44

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simply become one more piece of inert knowledge. While it is possible to focus simply on a bottleneck or threshold concept one knows will come up in the middle of a course, the decoding methodology permits the reorganisation of the classroom as a purposeful environment (Anderson & Day, 2005). Traditionally, teachers start planning from the course content: What readings and examples should they use? Or, if they are revamping a course, they may begin from methods: What teaching techniques might be fun or different? However, the effective use of decoding permits some prior planning, as teachers identify the stuck places (bottlenecks or threshold concepts) in the courses they teach and uncover what experts would do to get through them (uncovering the tacit knowledge of the expert is the most difficult part). They can then choose material and methods for their conceptual impact on student learning and embed the learning in the structure of the course, working with either forward or backward design (Middendorf & Shopkow, 2018; Wiggins & McTighe, 1998). We have advocated organising an entire course around systematically teaching students to negotiate an essential disciplinary bottleneck for that reason (Shopkow et al., 2013a). Naturally, this will not be the only work students will do in a class, but we have found that when the bottleneck we have chosen is truly significant, students make progress in other forms of disciplinary thinking as well, just as improving a team’s shooting in football (soccer) may also improve the defensive abilities of the goalies by giving them more practice. Integrating the material in a course in this way also avoids a problem identified in a 2010 study by Tang and Robinson. They tested the grasp of economic threshold concepts among economics students. Among these threshold concepts was ‘replacement cost’. When they compared student understanding of the concepts against the grades they received in their economics course, they found no correlation. Either the concepts Tang and Robinson examined were not really essential to the discipline of economics, or (much more probably) the course was not designed around critical understandings and therefore did not make assessing them part of the overall assessment structure of the course. For this reason, we urge all faculty members engaging in decoding to measure the results of their bottleneck assessments against student performance in their courses as a whole, to ensure that there is at least a rough correlation between the two. Testing and Extending the Theories As we discussed above, assessment plays a central role in refining our understanding of threshold concepts, or bottlenecks. But it can also play a role in testing theories we have. For instance, liminality theory suggests that students who have not yet passed through the portal are in a liminal state in which they temporise, retreat, or escape as alternatives to growth (Perry, 1999). While this may be true, Shopkow and Díaz (2017) found that, although the pre-service teachers (teachers-in-training) they studied rarely achieved the most sophisticated level of understanding of their task as future teachers, they did make progress and in fact arrived at an intermediate and fairly 45

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stable position – a ‘way station’ (Shopkow & Díaz, forthcoming). In their extension of liminality theory, Shopkow and Díaz posit the following features of such way stations: they do not involve concepts that later must be discarded, although these concepts may be refined or altered; they are stable, that is, they are a comfortable and sustainable resting place; and they seem natural, in that some students will alight there even if not all do. They suggest that in cases where one course in a subject is all that a student will take, faculty members should aim to get most of their students at least as far as the way station (Shopkow & Díaz, forthcoming). Both practitioners working with threshold concepts or Decoding the Disciplines, probably need to revisit the scholarly literature about progression in their fields. CHANGING GAMES, OTHER GAMES

As practitioners and teachers within particular disciplines, we are committed to the ways of knowing in those disciplines. However, thinking within our disciplines changes over time. Disciplines are just the products of epistemic communities (or communities of practice), groups of people who have more or less agreed (generally tacitly and frequently far from unanimously) on how they will produce knowledge and practise. Today’s concepts and understandings will very likely give way to new ones, just as yesterday’s concepts and understandings, such as bodily humours in medicine or psychomotor patterning in psychology, have been discarded. We can anticipate that new bottlenecks and new threshold concepts will arise as disciplines shift and theories and methodologies have to prepare both students and teachers for such changes. Furthermore, even as we recognise that our job is to teach students the ways of thinking in our discipline, we must also acknowledge the contextual nature of that thinking and that students may need to learn to think in other ways in other disciplines. This is even truer, as the majority of students will not become professionals in our disciplines. In that case, what do students need from us, and how can decoding and threshold concepts theory help them? Theory is particularly useful in addressing this question. Both theoretical constructs precisely refocus the attention of the instructor from the contents of instruction to the intellectual bases of the discipline. While decoding has addressed the epistemological aspect of disciplinary thinking for a while, threshold concepts, through ITCK has begun to do so also. Rather than organising classes around particular materials, teachers can organise classes around modes of thought. This does not benefit just the students who want to do what we do, because all students need to have a better understanding of what the experts around them in society have to say. Second, if through decoding and threshold concepts teachers can make explicit the thinking that permits students to move through a threshold or a bottleneck, they can help their students engage their metacognitive faculties. Biologists quite properly visualise from graphs, while physicists, equally properly, avoid turning a physics graph into a ‘movie’ because they are doing different things. If we show our 46

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students what expert thinking is like in the various disciplines, we hand students the tools to choose how to use the thinking appropriate to a given situation. Tang and Robinson (2010) gave a beautiful example of this in their conference presentation. The students in the study were presented with a word problem intended to require them to use the concept of replacement cost. The students were told they had purchased two quarts of orange juice in a one-day two-for-one sale. The next day, a neighbour from the caravan park next door, who had failed to purchase juice on the previous day, asked if they had a spare quart to sell. The students were then asked to name their price. One student replied that she would give the juice to her neighbour. When asked why, she said that she realised that she was being tested on the concept of replacement cost, but that her neighbour lived in a caravan park (with the implication that the neighbour was impoverished), and therefore she would give the neighbour the juice. What this student did was choose to think like a kind neighbour and not an economist in this particular situation. We want to help all of our students to engage in this sort of epistemic switching (Gottlieb & Wineburg, 2012) because in life, they will move from context to another. In our classrooms, we will (and need to) define the kind of thinking we are expecting, but it will help our students to know that our classrooms are not the world and to help them think strategically about the mental processes they use. We want them to notice for themselves where they get stuck and to consider how applying different ways of thinking might get them unstuck. And it will help us to recognise and appreciate the ways in which students may create new knowledge through their intellectual bricolage. It may even empower them to do so. PLAYING TOGETHER

Applying theory to instruction is for many faculty members a threshold concept or bottleneck for themselves as learners in the world of teaching. Faculty members are generally not used to thinking theoretically about their teaching, even when their disciplines are strongly theory-driven. But if they play with one (or the other) theory, whether they come at the problem from the instructor’s end, or take the bottleneck perspective, they can learn to look for the places where students are struggling to learn and find effective methods to teach the underlying modes of thought that are holding students back. Knowing about theories of difficulty – where students get stuck – and having a theory of pedagogy – how to get them through it, even if teachers don’t use this terminology – makes for powerful teaching and success for the learners. Threshold concepts/bottlenecks, Decoding the Disciplines, and ITCK can marry disciplines and good teaching. Come play! NOTES 1

However, we have argued elsewhere that any bottleneck that is catching significant numbers of students is almost certain to be related to a misunderstanding of some aspect of the epistemology of the discipline (Shopkow et al., 2013a).

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3

4

5

In an interview upon his turning 35, the novelist Jonathan Safran Foer remarked that ‘a bird is not an ornithologist’ to explain that he didn’t analyse his work, only write (Landau, 2012). The novelist Saul Bellow is often said to have made the analogy originally. The point is that while birds are expert at being birds, they are incapable of explaining ‘birdness’; for that, they need ornithologists. In one interview, a faculty member commented that students wouldn’t necessarily understand that holocaust victims didn’t foresee their fates from reading one document, but that the students would if they read hundreds of documents (Shopkow, 2010, pp. 319–320). However, reading hundreds of documents is not characteristic of undergraduate education, but of the ‘rich social contexts’ of graduate education (Perkins, 2007, p. 39). Therefore, the teachers are actually trying to design processes that differ from the ones they themselves went through, using much more attenuated materials. History has featured prominently, because one of the originators of decoding, David Pace, is an historian by training, and some of the work in decoding has been carried out by the History Learning Project, which has delved extensively into the bottlenecks experienced in that discipline (see Shopkow et al., 2013b). NSF study DUE 1525331 The Transforming Education, Supporting Teaching and Learning Excellence (TRESTLE) is a 7-institution NSF-funded project to support improvements in undergraduate STEM education through (1) supporting course design projects, (2) enhancing educational expertise in departments, and (3) building communities within and across campuses to enhance the impact of local experts.

REFERENCES Anderson, C., & Day, K. (2005). Purposive environments: Engaging students in the values and practices of history. Higher Education, 49, 319–343. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-004-6676-y Bain, K. R., & Bass, R. J. (2011). Threshold concepts of teaching and learning that transform faculty practice (and the limits of individual change). In D. W. Harward & A. P. Finley (Eds.), Transforming undergraduate education Theory that compels and practices that succeed (pp. 159–174). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Brown, J. S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher, 18(1), 32–42. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X018001032 Brownell, S. E., & Tanner, K. D. (2012). Barriers to faculty pedagogical change: Lack of training, time, incentives, and … tensions with professional identity? CBE-Life Sciences Education, 11(4), 339–346. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.12-09-0163 Cheek, K. A. (2010). Why is geologic time troublesome knowledge? In J. H. F. Meyer, R. Land, & C. Baillie (Eds.), Threshold concepts and transformational learning (pp. 117–129). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Davies, P., & Mangan, J. (2007). Threshold concepts and the integration of understanding in economics. Studies in Higher Education, 32(6), 711–726. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075070701685148 Díaz, A., Middendorf, J., Pace, D., & Shopkow, L. (2008). The history learning project: A department “decodes” its students. The Journal of American History, 94(4), 1211–1224. https://doi.org/10.2307/ 25095328 Díaz, A. J., & Shopkow, L. (2017). A tale of two thresholds. Practice and Evidence of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 12(2), 229–248. Retrieved from http://community.dur.ac.uk/pestlhe.learning/index.php/pestlhe/article/view/170 Gottlieb, E., & Wineburg, S. (2012). Between veritas and communitas: Epistemic switching in the reading of academic and sacred history. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 21(1), 84–129. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/10508406.2011.582376 Gurung, R., & Landrum, R. E. (2013). Bottleneck concepts in psychology: Exploratory first steps. Psychology Learning & Teaching, 12(3), 236–245. http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/plat.2013.12.3.236 Hassel, H., & Launius, C. (2017). Crossing the threshold in introductory women’s and gender studies courses: An assessment of student learning. Teaching & Learning Inquiry, 5(2). http://dx.doi.org/ 10.20343/teachlearninqu.5.2.4

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CAUTION! THEORIES AT PLAY! Henry, R. (2017, October 19). Bottleneck Prove simple mathematical statements using common proof techniques [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsTwYCbMmnQ&t=16s Higgs, B., Díaz, A. J., Middendorf, J., Shopkow, L., & Pace, D. (2013, October). Beyond coverage Using threshold concepts and decoding the disciplines to focus on the most essential learning. Paper presented at the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Conference, Raleigh, NC. Johnson, C. C., Middendorf, J., Rehrey, G., Dalkilic, M. M., & Cassidy, K. (2014). Geological time, biological events and the learning transfer problem. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 14(4), 115–129. https://doi.org/10.14434/v14i4.4667 MacDonald, R. (2017). Intuitions and instincts: Considerations for decoding disciplinary identities. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 150, 63–74. https://doi.org/10.1002/tl.20238 MacPherson, K. (2015). Decoding area studies and interdisciplinary majors: Building a framework for entry-level students. College Teaching, 63(2), 40–45. https://doi.org//10.1080/87567555.2014.977215 Marbach-Ad, G., & Sokolove, P. G. (2000). Can undergraduate biology students learn to ask higher level questions? Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 37(8), 854–870. https://doi.org/10.1002/10982736(200010)37:8%3C854::AID-TEA6%3E3.0.CO;2-5 Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (2003). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: Linkages to ways of thinking and practising within the disciplines. In C. Rust (Ed.), Improving student learning theory and practise – Ten years on (pp. 412–424). Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh. Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (2006). Threshold concepts: An introduction. In J. H. F. Meyer & R. Land (Eds.), Overcoming barriers to student understanding Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (pp. 3–18). London & New York, NY: Routledge. Middendorf, J., & Pace, D. (2004). Decoding the disciplines: A model for helping students learn disciplinary ways of thinking. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 2004(98), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1002/ tl.142 0LGGHQGRUI - 0LFNXWơ - 6DXQGHUV 7 1DMDU - &ODUN +XFNVWHS $ ( 3DFH '   :KDW¶V feeling got to do with it? Decoding emotional bottlenecks in the history classroom. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 14(2), 166–180. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474022214552655 Middendorf, J., & Shopkow, L. (2018). Overcoming student learning bottlenecks Decode the critical thinking of your discipline. Sterling, VA: Stylus. Middendorf, J., Shopkow, L., Pace, D., Barnett, J., & Timmermans, J. (2014, October). An accountant, a geologist, and a historian walk into a bar … Decoding disciplinary epistemologies. Paper presented at the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Conference, Quebec City, Canada. Miller-Young, J., & Boman, J. (Eds.). (2017). Using the decoding the disciplines framework for learning across the disciplines. Special issue of New Directions for Teaching and Learning (No. 150). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Novak, G. (2006). Decoding the disciplines interview with J. Middendorf [Videotape]. Retrieved from Indiana University Library, Bloomington, IN. Pace, D. (2017). The decoding the disciplines paradigm Seven steps to increased student learning. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Perkins, D. (2007). Theories of difficulty. In N. Entwistle & P. Tomlinson (Eds.), Student learning and university teaching (pp. 31–48). Leicester: British Psychological Society. Perry, W. G. (1999). Forms of ethical and intellectual development in the college years A scheme. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Ritchhart, R., Church, M., & Morrison, K. (2011). Making thinking visible How to promote engagement, understanding, and independence for all learners. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Schlegel, W., & Pace, D. (2004). Using collaborative learning teams to decode disciplines: Physiology and history. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 2004(98), 75–83. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ tl.149 Shanahan, M., & Meyer, J. H. F. (2006). The troublesome nature of a threshold concept in economics. In J. H. F. Meyer & R. Land (Eds.), Overcoming barriers to student understanding (pp. 124–138). London & New York, NY: Routledge.

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L. SHOPKOW & J. MIDDENDORF Shopkow, L. (2010). What ‘decoding the disciplines’ has to offer ‘threshold concepts’. In J. H. F. Meyer, R. Land, & C. Baillie (Eds.), Threshold concepts and transformational learning (pp. 317–332). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Shopkow, L., & Díaz, A. J. (forthcoming). Of thresholds, bottlenecks, and way stations. Teaching and Learning Inquiry Journal. Shopkow, L., Díaz, A., Middendorf, J., & Pace, D. (2013a). The history learning project “decodes” a discipline: The union of teaching and epistemology. In K. McKinney (Ed.), Scholarship of teaching and learning in and across the disciplines (pp. 93–113). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Shopkow, L., Díaz, A., Middendorf, J., & Pace, D. (2013b). From bottlenecks to epistemology: Changing the conversation about the teaching of history in colleges and universities. In R. Thompson (Ed.), Changing the conversation about higher education (pp. 15–31). New York, NY: Rowman & Littlefield. Shulman, L. S. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational Researcher, 15(2), 4–14. https://doi.org/10.2307/1175860 Smith, J., & Tanner, K. (2010). The problem of revealing how students think: Concept inventories and beyond. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 9(Spring), 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.09-12-0094 Tang, T., & Robinson, T. (2010, October). Threshold concepts and academic performance in economics. Paper presented at the International Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Conference, Liverpool, England. Timmermans, J. A., & Meyer, J. H. F. (2017). A framework for working with university teachers to create and embed ‘Integrated Threshold Concept Knowledge’ (ITCK) in their practice. International Journal for Academic Development, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/1360144X.2017.1388241 Wiggins, G. P., & McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Wilkinson, A. (2014). Decoding learning in law: Collaborative action towards the reshaping of university teaching and learning. Educational Media International, 51(2), 124–134. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0 9523987.2014.924665 Yeo, M., Lafave, M., Westbrook, K., McAllister, J., Valdez, D., & Eubank, B. (2017). Impact of decoding work within a professional program. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 150, 87–96. https://doi.org/10.1002/tl.20240 Zhu, C., Rehrey, G., Treadwell, B., & Johnson, C. C. (2012). Looking back to move ahead: How students learn geologic time by predicting future environmental impacts. Journal of College Science Teaching, 41(3), 54–60. Retrieved from http://www.nsta.org/publications/browse_ journals.aspx?action=issue&id=10.2505/3/jcst12_041_03

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4. EMBEDDING AFFECT IN THE THRESHOLD CONCEPTS FRAMEWORK

ABSTRACT

This chapter invites readers across disciplines to consider the place of affect within the Threshold Concepts Framework. We explore affect as it has been addressed in the threshold concepts literature and interweave research from Educational Psychology that may inform our understanding of the interaction between affect, cognition, and learning outcomes. We conclude by proposing ‘affective co-variation’ as a possible threshold concept worthy of investigation and explore avenues for future research in pedagogy and educational development. INTRODUCTION

We begin this chapter with an invitation – an invitation to take yourself back to a powerful learning experience, either positive, negative, or, as is more likely, some complex combination of these. Take a moment to position yourself comfortably wherever you are seated – on your chair at your desk or at a café, on your sofa, on your train seat. Think back to this experience. What was it? Was it writing your doctoral dissertation, learning how to tie your shoes (before the era of Velcro), trying a special family recipe for the first time? What did you learn? Do you remember? While the cognitive details of this experience may be clear or blurry, perhaps you will recall with greater clarity the affective context and outcome of your learning – how you felt entering into this experience (exhilarated? overwhelmed?), how the person who may have participated in or witnessed your learning made you feel (supported? isolated?), and how you felt when the learning experience was complete (proud? frustrated?). Your experience may have involved a compendium of these emotions, experienced in varying degrees over time. Did you hide them? Did you share them with your peers, or with your teacher(s)? Were these feelings invited and welcome in the learning space? One of the great strengths and contributions of the Threshold Concepts Framework is that it puts learning at the centre of teaching. Yet, do we sometimes lose sight of the very human learner who is the location of this learning? Have our investigations privileged the examination of the transformation of learners’ ideas and minds at the expense of their whole selves (including their emotions and identities)? When we engage in the creative act of module and programme design, perhaps now even making threshold concepts central to this process, what elements do

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004419971_004

J. A. TIMMERMANS & J. H. F. MEYER

we include? Research has taught us to design learning outcomes and to attend to the proper alignment of these outcomes with assessment, teaching, and learning strategies that will favour the development of these outcomes. We think of the knowledge, and perhaps we think also of the skills and values we hope to foster. We are concerned with how we will assess and teach these. Yet, perhaps less often and perhaps less intentionally, do we think of affect. With what affective elements will we infuse our teaching and learning spaces? (How) do we plan for the (inevitable) emotional trajectories/journeys of our students, and how will we accompany them through this often-unchartered emotional terrain? While it perhaps feels easier and safer to claim that our classrooms should be places for reason and not emotion, as we will see, current research shows us that approaching teaching and learning in this way would be, at best, misguided and incomplete and, at worst, negligent. This research shows that, whether we acknowledge it or not, emotions are present. And not only are they present, but these emotions influence learning and achievement. They are not unwanted guests, but are desirable and, as we will see, even necessary. Our chapter is therefore fundamentally concerned with the affective context, experiences, and outcomes of the transformative learning experience captured by the Threshold Concepts Framework. Our intent is to bring affect more fully into our awareness. In this way, affect becomes, to borrow Kegan’s (1982) term, ‘object’ – that is, something upon which we can reflect, of which we can ask questions, and which we can ‘problematize’ in the best scientific sense of the word (Bass, 1999). Bringing affect to the fore, or at least recognising it as a neighbour to cognition in our investigations of threshold concept learning perhaps leads us to restore the very human dimension of the learning experience. We begin by establishing the inextricable interrelatedness between cognition and affect in learning. This ‘co-variation’ occurs in a liminal space that is simultaneously cognitive and affective, and is integral to the Threshold Concepts Framework. We draw here on recent literature in Educational Psychology that examines the interconnectedness between cognition and emotions and draws our attention to the important role played by emotions in academic achievement. We then turn to the threshold concepts literature and examine the ways in which affect has been addressed, and we document our findings thematically. We continue by proposing that ‘affective co-variation’ may be a possible threshold concept in higher education pedagogy – one worthy of further study. Finally, we advocate for the need to explore anew the co-variation of affect in threshold concept pedagogy and, accordingly, propose several avenues for future research. LINKING COGNITION, EMOTION, AND LEARNING

Establishing the Relationship between Cognition and Emotion in the Learning Process Cognition has long held a privileged position in investigations of learning; however, recent research, noting the relative absence of emotion in research into student 52

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learning, acknowledges the need to bring emotion from the periphery to the centre of this work, (e.g., Beard, Humberstone, & Clayton, 2014; Blackie, Case, & Jawitz, 2010; Mezirow, 2000; Vermunt & Donche, 2017). The body of work by Pekrun and colleagues, leaders in the area of academic emotions and learning (e.g., Pekrun & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2014; Pekrun & Stephens, 2012; Pekrun, Vogl, Muis, & Sinatra, 2017) has begun to uncover the complexity of understanding and studying emotions and their relationship to learning and achievement. This body of work provides a rich resource for interpreting students’ learning and achievement and fertile ground for cultivating future research projects. We will explore this research throughout our chapter. Integrating emotions into studies of learning is not merely procedural, but likely requires a shift in our conceptualisation of learning. Whether implicitly or explicitly, investigations into student learning are rooted in researchers’ conceptualisations of learning. In our work, we are drawn to a conceptualisation of learning as an active process of meaning making (e.g., Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001; Belenky, Clinchy, Golberger, & Tarule, 1986/1997; Kegan, 1982; Perry, 1970). This meaning-making process is developmental. In his ConstructiveDevelopmental Theory of Meaning-Making, renowned adult developmental psychologist Robert Kegan (1982) interlaces the ideas of meaning-making and development, theorising and empirically demonstrating (e.g., Kegan, 1982, 1994) that individuals’ abilities to construct meaning evolve through regular periods of stability and change throughout their lifespan. Of great interest to us is that Kegan’s expansive perspective acknowledges the ‘equal dignity’ (Kegan, 1982, p. 107) of cognition and affect in the learning process, recognising that, as we are constructing meaning, we are also experiencing this act of construction. He poignantly notes that this conceptualisation neither subsumes affectivity to the cognitive realm, as traditional Piagetians tend to do (Schaefer and Emerson, 1964), nor makes intellectual life the offspring servant of affect, as psychoanalysis tends to do. [ …] As Piaget himself has said (despite the inability of his own work to realize it fully): ‘There are not two psychic functions, nor are there two kinds of objects: all objects are simultaneously cognitive and affective’ (1964, p. 39). This is because all objects are themselves the elaboration of an activity which is simultaneously cognitive and affective. (Kegan, 1982, p. 83) Where dualistic conceptions divide our focus and lead us to an impoverished understanding of learning and learners’ experiences, more integrative conceptions of learning that capture the process of covariation between cognition and affect may allow us better to acknowledge the ‘whole person’ (Crosby, 1995; as cited in Beard, Smith, & Clegg, 2007, p. 236) – that is, to acknowledge the humans who are the locus of meaning making. Such a perspective is timely. With concerns increasing regarding students’ mental health and wellbeing in higher education (e.g., Leahy et al., 2010), a perspective which attends only to learners’ cognitive states (in effect 53

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dis-integrating the rest of their selves from their minds) seems misguided at best and harmful at worst. The Relationship between Emotions and Learning Beard, Smith, and Clegg (2007) convincingly note that ‘[o]ne of the purposes in rethinking studentship from the perspective of a fully embodied, affective, human self is to attempt to understand the processes which foster or inhibit learning’ (p. 236). In early work, Pekrun, Goetz, Titz, and Perry (2002) establish that students experience a compendium of academic emotions and that these ‘relate significantly to students’ learning, self-regulation, achievement, personality antecedents, and instructional as well as social environments’ (p. 102). Pekrun and Stephens (2012) later note that ‘emotions are both experienced in academic settings and instrumental for achievement and personal growth’ (p. 3). And continuing research substantiates ‘that emotional experiences in educational settings strongly influence students’ learning, achievement, and long-term academic development, and form part of their well-being (e.g., Linnenbrink, 2006; Pekrun & LinnenbrinkGarcia, 2014; Schutz, Hong, Cross, & Osbon, 2006)’ (Ketonen, Dietrich, Moeller, Salmela-Aro, & Lonka, 2018, p. 10). There is now a theoretical and empirical basis for stating that academic emotions are linked to both learning and achievement (Reindl, Tulis, & Dresel, 2018). With increasing calls to acknowledge students’ perspectives in research on threshold concept learning (e.g., Felten, 2016), a Threshold Concepts Framework which explicitly acknowledges affect as a partner of ‘equal dignity’ seems called for. Our investigations must not only probe students for their cognitive experiences, but must also inquire into their associated emotional trajectories of learning. Acknowledging affect as having ‘equal dignity’ in the learning process also beckons teachers to integrate affect intentionally into the design of learning experiences. Leading educational researchers claim that he most powerful learning experiences are those than contain an element of emotional involvement (e.g., Shulman, 2005). Shulman, past President of both the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the American Educational Research Association, and Professor Emeritus at the Stanford Graduate School of Education argues that an absence of emotional investment, even risk and fear, leads to an absence of intellectual and formational yield; Alison Davis used to refer to ‘adaptive anxiety’ as a necessary feature of learning. […] When the emotional content of learning is well sustained, we have the real possibility of pedagogies of formation – experiences of teaching and learning that can influence the values, dispositions, and characters of those who learn. And when these experiences are interactive rather than individual, when they embody the pervasive culture of learning within a field, they offer even more opportunity for character formation. (2005, pp. 57–58) 54

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From these perspectives, it appears that emotions are not only present, but indeed necessary in transformative learning spaces, such as those occasioned by encounters with threshold concepts. AFFECT IN THE THRESHOLD CONCEPTS LITERATURE

We now turn to an examination of the ways in which affect has been discussed in the vast body of work on threshold concepts. We begin by describing our approach to this examination of the literature. We then categorise our findings and provide an interpretation of the findings in each area. Our Approach We began by examining the Archive on threshold concepts1 maintained by Dr. Michael Flanagan from University College London. This Archive is a repository of threshold concepts literature and is considered the ‘definitive international resource on this area of research (Flanagan, 2016)’ (Land, Meyer, & Flanagan, 2016, p. xi). It has been curated using a variety of search procedures and representing all disciplines in which research on and implementation of the Threshold Concepts Framework has been published.2 The Archive is currently organised under 276 topic headings. The entire Archive was searched by Dr. Flanagan (personal communication, November 24, 2017) using the keywords ‘affect’ and ‘emotion’, according to whether they appear in the titles of all entries in the Archive. Within the Archive, the four edited books to date on threshold concepts represent a chronological record of advances in the field based as they are on peer-reviewed publications presented at international conferences. The book chapter contents were searched using the indexed keywords of interest (affect, emotion). The Absence of Affect Our exercise revealed that there have been few systematic and intentional accounts of students’ affective experiences of learning threshold concepts, or of thresholds that may have an inherently affective quality. Indeed, affect is notably missing from current conceptualisations and discussions of threshold concepts. Several authors who do address the affective dimension of threshold concept learning simultaneously comment on the need to attend to this more deliberately in future work (e.g., Dunn, 2018; Felten, 2016; Golubchikov, 2015). This absence may have several root causes. One may be that exploring such terrain lies beyond what we feel comfortable with as researchers. Sibbett and Thompson (2008), beautifully capture this in their conceptualisation of ‘nettlesome knowledge’, which they describe as comprising elements of knowledge that are deemed taboo in that they are defended against, repressed or ignored because if they were grasped they might ‘sting’ 55

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and thus evoke a feared intense emotional and embodied response. The sting of nettlesome knowledge can make us uncomfortable and so it can be stigmatised. (p. 229) Yet, this discomfort may be keeping us from acknowledging and exploring the very dimensions of knowledge that have the power to transform students’ learning experiences. Felten (2016), reporting on undergraduate students’ experiences of the troublesomeness of threshold concepts, poignantly comments on the affective troublesomeness that may accompany cognitive troublesomeness. Felten’s findings point to a (perhaps obvious) need to conduct threshold concept studies that ask students directly about their affective learning experiences, in addition to the more prevalent approach to conducting studies that question teachers about their students’ cognitive experiences of threshold concepts. Indeed, with this latter approach, we may be missing rich opportunities to access students’ identification of affective thresholds, as well as their affective experiences of learning. These are less amenable to commentary and inference than are their cognitive counterparts. A Rainfall of Language During our reading of the threshold concepts literature, we were overwhelmed by the presence of a veritable rainfall of emotional language. This language sometimes captures (differing) experiences across learners. The students in Ross, Burgin, Aitchison, & Catterall’s (2011) study, for example, speak of the ‘joy and pleasure’ or the ‘pain and frustration’ (p. 21) of learning to write in the Sciences. Felten’s research (2016) beautifully depicts students’ experiences of the ‘troublesome affect’ occasioned by threshold concept learning. Students describe these experiences as ‘stressful’, ‘debilitating’, ‘frustrating’, and ‘intensely emotional’ (Felten, 2016, p. 4). They recount feeling ‘upset’, ‘very anxious’, ‘shocked’, ‘hopeless’, and ‘helpless’ (Felten, 2016, p. 4). Students in Ross et al.’s (2011) study describe the liminal space as fraught with ‘anxiety, stress, struggle, and high emotion’ (p. 25). For secondary school Biology students in Dunn’s (2018) study, in addition to the ‘stress’, ‘anxiety’, ‘panic’, ‘worry’, ‘struggle’, ‘shock’ and ‘terror’ of their transitions from GCSE to A level study, students share the ‘awe’, ‘wonder’, and ‘fascination’ inherent in their experiences (p. 99). In fact, Dunn (2018) catalogues over 100 affective terms used by the six participants in his study. These terms undeniably reflect complex affective episodes for learners. Other times, language in the literature captures the ‘complex continuum’ (Berger, 2004, p. 343) of emotions within a same learner, often revealing emotional oscillation (e.g., Ross et al., 2011) between stages in the transformative learning process. This process is described by Meyer and Land (2005) as potentially involving ‘temporary regression to an earlier status’ (p. 376). Bosanquet and Cahir (2015) capture this continuum and oscillation, commenting on the feelings of ‘joy, fear, pride, anger, 56

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excitement, despair, love, sadness’ and being ‘humbled’ (pp. 135–136) in the doctoral candidature journey. Students’ own emotional positionalities3 influence their experiences in the transformational space. Efklides (2006) comments on metacognitive experiences, such as ‘familiarity, difficulty, confidence, and satisfaction’ as influencing control processes in self-regulation (p. 51). The features, too, of the learning environment may influence learners’ experiences within this environment. Efklides (2006) writes of the ‘affective context’ created by various factors, such as the task, feedback, and the learner’s mood (‘positive mood’ or ‘negative mood’) (pp. 55–56). Cowart (2010) commenting on Booth’s (2006) investigation of student’s public learning of the Socratic method of questioning in philosophy remarked that ‘students can feel intimidated, embarrassed, and anxious when asked to engage in the process in front of their peers’ (Cowart, 2010, p. 133). Affective Experiences in the Transformative and Liminal Spaces As we have seen, learning spaces are not (and should not be) neutral. The transformative and liminal spaces occasioned by encounters with threshold concepts appear to be no different. Rattray (2016) comments on the ‘affective dimension’ of transformative learning, and Timmermans (2010) proposes an affective analysis of this inherently developmental trajectory. In our elaboration of the notion of Integrated Threshold Concept Knowledge (ITCK) (Meyer & Timmermans, 2016), we propose that students’ experiences in the liminal space are not only cognitive, but also affective and ontological (this intent is captured nicely by Land, Meyer, & Flanagan, 2016). Taken collectively, work that attends to learners’ affective experiences in the liminal and transformative spaces draws our attention both to the affective trajectories experienced by learners, as well as to the great variation in students’ affective experiences. These trajectories and experiences are influenced by various elements. Crucial among these are the affective positions that people bring with them into the learning environment. These trajectories and experiences are also influenced by features of the learning environment and tasks required in this environment. Affective Positions and Impacts on Learning Learners’ affective positions may influence learning and, as can be expected, there is a wide range of positions that appear to have varying effects on learning. In their investigation into tertiary students’ academic numeracy skills, Quinnell and Thompson (2010) observe that learners appear to ‘transfer’ mathematics anxiety from earlier learning situations to their current (new) context of learning in the life sciences and medical statistics. This anxiety consequently becomes an obstacle to learning, causing students to retreat from learning, and ‘inhibit[ing] students’ understanding of scientific practice’ (Quinnell & Thompson, 2010, p. 148). 57

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Rattray (2016) introduces to the field of threshold concepts the construct of ‘psychological capital’ from Luthans, Avolio, Avey, and Norman’s (2007) work. Psychological capital is a ‘higher order multi-dimensional factor that encompasses hope, optimism, and resilience, and integrates these with self-efficacy’ (Rattray, 2016, p. 70). Rattray (2016) investigates how students’ ‘psychological capital’ may influence their ability to navigate/negotiate the affective dimensions of the liminal space. For example, she reviews work showing the positive relationship between such ‘affective dimensions’ as hope, optimism, and resilience with learning. Furthermore, she eloquently concludes her investigation with the following statement: [A] learner who believes they are capable of understanding new ideas (selfefficacy), who makes positive attributions in relation to their potential for success (optimism), who can monitor and re-align goals and the pathways to attaining these goals (hope) and who does not give up in spite of the difficulties they encounter with the new knowledge (resilience) may be able to cope with liminality more effectively than those who lack these affective assets. (Rattray, 2016, p. 73) Recent research (Carmona-Halty, Salanova, Llorens, & Schaufeli, 2018) furthermore provides empirical evidence for psychological capital acting as a mediator between positive emotions and academic achievement. Emotions Ignited by Features of the Learning Environment Other work underscores the importance of considering how the learning environment may elicit, influence and/or enhance students’ affectivity (e.g., Booth, 2006). We draw here on examples from a diverse range of environments for illustrative purposes. Golubchikov (2015), for example, convincingly argues for the need to explore the affective dimensions of Geography students’ critical and cognitive experiential learning on a field trip. He therefore introduces us to the notion of ‘a “feel-trip” as an explicitly more-than-cognitive conception of field-based teaching and learning’ (p. 144). He eloquently comments that [w]hen students are taken away from the comfort of their familiar habitats and are exposed to the shock and ‘messiness’ of the field (cf. Kay & Oldfield, 2011), their emotions are exacerbated: they may feel excited, puzzled or otherwise emotionally charged and engaged. The emotional and sensory engagements as a feature of fieldwork suggest a more-than-cognitive affective mode of experiential learning, giving each fieldtrip an important sensory dimension of a ‘feel-trip’. These emotions and feelings are heavily influenced by students’ positionality – their previous life experiences and classroom and beyondclassroom knowledge. (p. 146)

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In the context of medical education, Wearn and his colleagues (Wearn, O’Callaghan, & Barrow, 2016) document the opportunity for emotional transformation afforded by medical students’ training during a six-month palliative care placement. They note that the very nature of the work was likely to pose an affective challenge as physicians-in-training confronted death, dying, and illness. Bosanquet and Cahir (2015, p. 132) comment that [w]riting is undoubtedly affective, and the development of a writerly identity is realised affectively. Scholarly writing can awaken positive and negative emotions from pleasure to anxiety in both novice and experienced writers (Cameron, Nairn & Higgins, 2009; Dwyer, Lewis, McDonald & Burns, 2012). Finally, to return to Quinnell and Thompson (2010), contexts that elicit students’ ‘numerophobia’, that is ‘a problem with manipulating and interpreting numbers’ (p. 150), create situations in which ‘a strong emotional response […] can overwhelm the student so that their work is compromised’ (p. 150). Collectively, these studies and others show that learning environments are not neutral and may indeed evoke a multiplicity of emotions in learners. Implications for Teaching Several threshold concepts studies consider the implications for teaching when considering emotions as integral to the learning process. Indeed, there is, at times, a rather disturbing mismatch between teachers’ and students’ accounts of learners’ affective experiences. For example, Ross et al. (2011) remark on the ‘abundance of extreme responses from both students and supervisors’ (p. 21) interviewed regarding Science postgraduate students’ experiences of writing. These extremes included one supervisor’s comment that they ‘usually enjoy the thesis writing’, while a student declared that ‘I hate every bit of it’. Similarly, one supervisor suggested that ‘writing is a major hurdle for four out of five students supervised’, while, other students thought that from frustration comes ‘joy’ and the satisfaction that they are ‘now a confident and proficient writer in my field’. Here, we see not only the differing perceptions of students and supervisors, but also the qualitatively less complex and nuanced perspectives of supervisors’ characterisations of learners’ experiences. Once again, we are reminded that inferences and assumptions about learners’ affective experiences are inadequate. Several studies in the threshold concepts space also draw our attention to implications for teaching – of giving affect ‘equal dignity’ in the threshold concept learning process. Doing so involves the intentional creation of learning cultures (Ross et al., 2011) and the design of ‘supportive liminal environment[s]’ (Cousin, 2008, p. 264). Such mindful preparation of the learning landscape acknowledges,

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as Cousin reminds us, that these spaces are as much about transformations of (ways of being and becoming) self as they are about transformation of ways of knowing. This mindful preparation also acknowledges an understanding of the need to be attentive to the multiple locations of student ‘affectivity’ in the learning process (Cowart, 2010, commenting on Booth, 2006). This involves considering learners’ affective positions (e.g., Cousin, 2006; Rattray, 2016), as well as the types of emotional responses that the particular learning context may elicit. Golubchikov (2015) concludes of his students’ Geography ‘feel-trip’ experience that [t]he role of the affective dimension of ‘a feel-trip’ can also be more explicit in provoking […] imaginaries. The sites and places that are (planned to be) visited, whether ‘mundane’ or ‘extraordinary’, can be thought through their possible registry in the affective domain including, for example, how they can invoke or provoke particular feelings and emotions (i.e. surprise, compassion, fear and prejudices) and sensitivities (i.e. being in place or out of place, inclusion or exclusion, aesthetic or disharmony, comfort or discomfort) and, more importantly, how these affective connections can matter for critical imaginaries. (p. 155) All of these examples call upon teachers to create a repertoire of pedagogical strategies that may be enacted to elicit, acknowledge, attenuate, and/or enhance affectivity, as the situation calls for. Teachers may need, in some instances, to craft learning experiences with an affective component to provoke certain kinds of learning. In other instances, the need may be to ‘identify […] affective barriers, and subsequently to free up these blocked spaces’ (Land, Cousin, Meyer, & Davies, 2006, p. 264). As Efklides (2006) notes, ‘students’ affective responses and ME [metacognitive experiences] along with performance are good indicators of the efficiency of the instructional method’ (p. 62). This indicates that we may consider including in assessments of teaching effectiveness specific indicators that capture variation in students’ affective experiences and trajectories. That it is possible to psychometrically capture and explicitly model such variation (within the discipline of mathematics), and relate it to learning outcomes, is clearly illustrated in the study by Meyer and Eley (1999) and earlier studies referred to therein. Perhaps universally, there is a need to employ pedagogical strategies that extend beyond the ‘technical’ and delve into the terrain of the ontological. Bosanquet and Cahir (2015) suggest that, in order to facilitate movement through the threshold concept learning process – pedagogies ‘plac[e] value on being “stuck” and the rollercoaster of oscillation between identities’ (p. 416). And this leads us to Barnett’s (2004) powerful notion of ‘pedagogies of uncertainty’, introduced to us by Land (2016). In an eloquent and convincing exploration of Barnett’s work, Land (2016) explains that pedagogies of uncertainty can help learners unfold selves that become increasingly able to live with both uncertainty and anxiety in an uncertain and complex world. 60

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(RE)TURNING TO EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR GUIDANCE

We can now return to Educational Psychology – a field fundamentally concerned with the study of teaching and learning and the ultimate goal of which is to improve practice and, specifically in relation to Pekrun and colleagues’ work – to propose a unifying language and structure for interpreting our findings in the realm of threshold concepts research and for establishing future directions. We begin by proposing the adoption of the term ‘academic emotions’ (Pekrun et al., 2002) to unify discussions of emotion in the Threshold Concepts Framework. Academic emotions are those emotions that ‘are directly linked to academic learning, classroom instruction, and achievement’ (Pekrun et al., 2002, p. 92). Pekrun and Stephens (2012) distinguish four groups of academic emotions. The first group, ‘achievement emotions’ is comprised of ‘activity emotions’ (i.e., emotions experienced during achievement activities, such as studying) and ‘outcome emotions’, which are comprised of both prospective and retrospective emotions related to success and failure – either recalling success or failure from previous experiences, or anticipating success and failure. Achievement emotions include such emotions as pride and hope, anxiety and shame. This group of emotions appears to be the focus of most studies relating emotions and learning. A second grouping of emotions is characterised as ‘epistemic emotions’. These emotions are triggered by the ‘cognitive qualities of task information and the processing of such information’ (p. 5) and are labelled as ‘epistemic’ as they relate to the ways in which learners create knowledge. These emotions may include surprise, curiosity, anxiety, and frustration. Let us consider here the following characterisation of epistemic emotions by Pekrun et al. (2017): Epistemic emotions represent a major category of human emotion serving evolutionary-based purposes of acquiring knowledge about the world and the self. A prototypical situation for the arousal of epistemic emotions is discrepant information and appraisals of cognitive incongruity that can trigger surprise and curiosity (Kang et al., 2009), confusion, frustration, and boredom when the incongruity cannot be resolved (D’Mello & Graesser, 2012; D’Mello et al., 2014), anxiety in the case of severe incongruity and information that deeply disturbs existing beliefs (Hookway, 2008), or enjoyment and delight when the problem is solved. Appraisals of the positive value of an epistemic activity should promote positive epistemic emotions (curiosity, enjoyment) and reduce boredom. (p. 1269) Recent empirical studies investigating such epistemic emotions as ‘confusion’ (D’Mello, Lehman, Pekrun, & Graesser, 2014) and ‘curiosity’ (Kang et al., 2009) are demonstrating that ‘epistemic emotions can strongly impact learning and performance’ (Pekrun et al., 2017, p. 1268). Given the inherently epistemic nature of threshold concepts, epistemic emotions may be of great interest as we unfold the emotional dimensions of the Threshold Concepts Framework. 61

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A third grouping of ‘topic emotions’ reminds us that some of the learning material with which we ask students to engage is not neutral, but it may indeed elicit emotional reactions which influence learners’ motivation and interest (Ainley, 2007 as cited in Pekrun & Stephens, 2012). Fourthly, bearing in mind the very social nature of learning, we can consider ‘social emotions’ – emotions such as gratitude or anger – which students may direct towards other members of the learning space, such as other students and teachers (Pekrun & Stephens, 2012). FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

Acknowledging affect as a central aspect to the threshold concept learning experience has implications for future research and for practice. We propose the following as productive areas of future research. ‘Affective Co-Variation’ as a Conjectured Threshold Concept in Higher Education Pedagogy In the context of educational development (specifically, teaching in higher education), is has been argued from an empirical basis that ‘variation in student learning’ is a threshold concept for university teachers (Meyer, 2012). We also see, from the analysis provided in this chapter, that there exists a strong educational psychological basis for asserting that, in general, affect cannot, and should not, be separated from cognition. It then follows that variation in emotion cannot be a separate threshold concept in its own right. That is, variation in student affect and emotion is inherently integrative to cognitive transformation and co-varies with it in a liminal space that is simultaneously cognitive and affective. The ‘transformative’ emphasis of the Threshold Concepts Framework has hitherto largely been researched within the cognitive rather than the affective domain, but there is clear evidence that scholars working within the Framework have acknowledged from the outset the presence and importance of the affective domain. In the context of learning threshold concepts there should be variation in both the cognitive and affective domains precisely because the general psychological basis for asserting ‘affective variation’ is context free in terms of subject matter. Pressing and intriguing research questions are therefore the following: With respect to threshold concept learning, what is the nature of the association between the affective and cognitive experience? How does the one resonate in sympathy with the other? And how are these joint experiences associated with learning outcomes? Affect in Teaching and Educational Development Work Learning- and learner-centred teaching are integral to the ethos of the Threshold Concepts Framework. Yet, the relative scarcity of research into learners’ emotional trajectories during threshold concept learning somewhat betrays this concern. 62

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We therefore advocate, as other colleagues have (e.g., Felten, 2016) for further exploration of affect in threshold concept learning and to root this exploration in learners’ perspectives. The work examined throughout the chapter beckons us to examine, for example ‡ the emotional resources (e.g., aspects of psychological capital) that students and teachers bring to the learning context and the origins/antecedents of these emotions; ‡ the emotional features of the learning environment, such as learning locations, topics and activities/tasks; ‡ learners’ emotional responses within these environments, in terms of variation among students, trajectory of a single student, and possible oscillation; ‡ the impact of these emotions on student learning, achievement, and wellbeing; ‡ teachers’ emotions and the impact of these on the learning environment and student learning; and ‡ the impact of various pedagogical strategies on students’ emotions at different stages of the learning process. Affect is equally the terrain of educational development. In recent work (Timmermans & Meyer, 2017), we propose a Framework to support educational developers’ work with teachers to create and embed ‘Integrated Threshold Concept Knowledge’ (ITCK) into modules and programmes. We identify emotion as one of the core principles on which the Framework is founded. This principle serves as a reminder to educational developers not only to initiate discussions with teachers regarding the role of affect in learning, but also to acknowledge the affective work required by teachers as they engage in teaching development. There exists therefore a generative capacity within the Framework in terms of engendering possibilities for qualitative research that may seek to investigate, for example ‡ how teachers focus student learning on subject matter with an affective component and which has the possibility, as Shulman (2005) so eloquently notes, for ‘intellectual and formational yield’ (p. 57); and ‡ how teachers may intentionally design modules and curricula for affect and affective co-variation. Such investigations encourage us to adopt scholarly approaches to both teaching and educational development work, and particularly so in the development of qualitative and quantitative protocols to capture ‘actionable variation’ in the students’ affective experiences. CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

Our experience and reading of the current research has led us to conclude that affect is not peripheral or extraneous to the Threshold Concepts Framework. It is essential and integrative, and, consequently, must be explicitly embedded in it. Affect is 63

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omnipresent and will continue to be so, whether or not we choose to acknowledge and embrace it. Our future investigations of learning will be richer if we intentionally expand our lenses as researchers to include affect systematically. Our work as teachers might be more fulfilling if we prepare for our role of shepherding learners through the emotional trajectories of learning with the same intentionality and assiduousness with which we prepare to lead them through content. Indeed, learning is not only experienced in our minds, but in our hearts and in our bodies. In the busyness of academic life, we may sometimes forget, minimise the need, or feel that we lack the capacity to attend to the beautiful, messy complexity of our human learners and to ourselves as teachers. Indeed, perhaps our own affective experience of being academics is not always fully acknowledged. While confronting this complex emotional landscape may be daunting for us as researchers and teachers, this is exactly as it should be. Indeed, as we may tell our students, that which we find daunting might provide an opportunity for growth. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We gratefully acknowledge Michael Flanagan’s contribution to this chapter. NOTES 1 2

http://www.ee.ucl.ac.uk/~mflanaga/thresholds.html This Archive was established by Dr. Michael Flanagan on a University College London (UCL) website c. 2008, and it initially archived TC subject-matter material in electrical and electronic engineering, and computer programming. Subsequent expansion rapidly extended coverage across all disciplines in which research on and implementation of the Threshold Concepts Framework has been published. The expanding content of the Archive (presently organised under 276 topic headings) is driven by three main search procedures: 1. Google Scholar Alerts is now the Archive’s most effective and rapid source of references. It covers most academic journals, conferences, books and an extensive base of theses depositories and technical reports. It is used to update the Archive roughly twice a week via email notifications of papers containing a designated ‘threshold concept search term’. 2. Flanagan’s own search procedure, which currently utilises a selected staggered periodic search of UCL’s extensive range of on-line databases, yields a significant number of relevant references not within the scope of the Google Scholar Alerts search. Databases include BASE - Bielefeld Academic Search Engine, The Various EBSCO Databases (e.g. British Education Index, Education Abstracts), Ethos, the various ProQuest databases, SCOPUS, and the various Web of Science databases 3. Flanagan also runs periodic searches of the internet using conventional search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing. These do not pick up missed papers, but are very useful in picking up information for the related activities part of the site (e.g., conference announcements, call for papers, prizes awarded), as many of these are posted on University Departmental Web sites. The bulk of the references are to refereed papers or refereed conference proceedings. The Archive also includes references to some on-line documents located on University Departmental Research and/or Teaching sites which are probably not peer-reviewed but which are nevertheless of high quality and relevance. Flanagan does not referee the content of archived material to determine what should or should be archived. All material published in reputable journals or conference

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proceedings is archived. Papers are no longer included in the Archive unless they also contain a substantial discussion of some aspect of the Framework. The term ‘positionality’ is used by Cousin (2006). Booth (2006), referring to Cousin (2006), comments on her description of a learner’s ‘emotional positionality’, although Cousin herself did not use this phrase.

REFERENCES Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. (Eds.). (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. New York, NY: Longman. Barnett, R. (2004). Learning for an unknown future. Higher Education Research and Development, 23, 247–260. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2012.642841 Bass, R. (1999). The scholarship of teaching: What’s the problem? Inventio Creative Thinking about Learning and Teaching, 1, 1–10. Retrieved from https://my.vanderbilt.edu/sotl/files/2013/08/BassProblem1.pdf Beard, C., Humberstone, B., & Clayton, B. (2014). Positive emotions: Passionate scholarship and student transformation. Teaching in Higher Education, 19, 630–643. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 13562517.2014.901950 Beard, C., Smith, K., & Clegg, S. (2007). Acknowledging the affective in higher education. British Educational Research Journal, 33, 235–252. doi:10.1080/01411920701208415 Belenky, M. F., Clinchy, B. M., Goldberger, N. R., & Tarule, J. M. (1986/1997). Womens’ ways of knowing (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Basic Books. Berger, J. G. (2004). Dancing on the threshold of meaning: Recognizing and understanding the growing edge. Journal of Transformative Education, 2, 336–351. doi:10.1177/1541344604267697 Blackie, M. A. L., Case, J. M., & Jawitz, J. (2010). Student-centredness: The link between transforming students and transforming ourselves. Teaching in Higher Education, 15, 637–646. doi:10.1080/ 13562517.2010.491910 Booth, J. (2006). On the mastery of philosophical concepts: Socratic discourse and the unexpected ‘affect’. In J. H. F. Meyer & R. Land (Eds.), Overcoming barriers to student understanding (pp. 173–181). Abingdon: Routledge. Bosanquet, A., & Cahir, J. (2015). ’What feelings didn’t I experience!’: Affect and identity in PhD writing. In C. Badenhorst & C. Guerin (Eds.), Research literacies and writing pedagogies for masters and doctoral writers (pp. 132–148). Leiden: Brill. Carmona-Halty, M., Salanova, M., Llorens, S., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2018). How psychological capital mediates between study-related positive emotions and academic performance. Journal of Happiness Studies (Advance online publication). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-018-9963-5 Cousin, G. (2006). Threshold concepts, troublesome knowledge and emotional capital: An exploration into learning about others. In J. H. F. Meyer & R. Land (Eds.), Overcoming barriers to student understanding (pp. 134–147). Abingdon: Routledge. Cousin, G. (2008). Threshold concepts: Old wine in new bottles or a new form of transactional curriculum inquiry? In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & J. Smith (Eds.), Threshold concepts within the disciplines (pp. 261–272). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Cowart, M. R. (2010). A preliminary framework for isolating and teaching threshold concepts in philosophy. In J. H. F. Meyer, R. Land, & C. Baillie (Eds.), Threshold concepts and transformational learning (pp. 131–145). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. D’Mello, S. K., Lehman, B., Pekrun, R., & Graesser, A. C. (2014). Confusion can be beneficial for learning. Learning and Instruction, 29, 153–170. doi:10.1016/j.learninstruc.2012.05.003 Dunn, M. J. (2018). Threshold concepts and the troublesome transition from GCSE to A level An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of students’ experiences in secondary school biology (Unpublished doctoral thesis). University of Leicester, Leicester. Retrieved from https://lra.le.ac.uk/ handle/2381/41217 Efklides, A. (2006). Metacognition, affect, and conceptual difficulty. In J. H. F. Meyer & R. Land (Eds.), Overcoming barriers to student understanding (pp. 48–69). Abingdon: Routledge.

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J. A. TIMMERMANS & J. H. F. MEYER Felten, P. (2016). On the threshold with students. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & M. T. Flanagan (Eds.), Threshold concepts in practice (pp. 3–9). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Golubchikov, O. (2015). Negotiating critical geographies through a ‘feeltrip’: Experiential, affective and critical learning in engaged fieldwork. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 39, 143–157. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03098265.2014.1003800 Kang, M. J., Hsu, M., Krajbich, I. M., Loewenstein, G., McClure, S. M., Wang, J. T. Y., & Camerer, C. F. (2009). The wick in the candle of learning: Epistemic curiosity activates reward circuitry and enhances memory. Psychological Science, 20, 963–973. doi:10. 1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02402.x Kegan, R. (1982). The evolving self Problem and process in human development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kegan, R. (1994). In over our heads The mental demands of modern life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ketonen, E. E., Dietrich, J., Moeller, J., Salmela-Aro, K., & Lonka, K. (2018). The role of daily autonomous and controlled educational goals in students’ academic emotion states: An experience sampling method approach. Learning and Instruction, 53, 10–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/ j.learninstruc.2017.07.003 Land, R. (2016). Toil and trouble. Threshold concepts as a pedagogy of uncertainty. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & M. T. Flanagan (Eds.), Threshold concepts in practice (pp. 11–24). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Land, R., Cousin, G., Meyer, J. H. F., & Davies, P. (2006). Conclusion: Implications of threshold concepts for course design and evaluation. In J. H. F. Meyer & R. Land (Eds.), Overcoming barriers to student understanding (pp. 195–206). Abingdon: Routledge. Land, R., Meyer, J. H. F., & Flanagan, M. T. (2016). Editor’s preface. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & M. T. Flanagan (Eds.), Threshold concepts in practice (pp. xi–xxxiv). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Leahy, C. M., Peterson, R. F., Wilson, I. G., Newbury, J. W., Tonkin, A. L., & Turnbull, D. (2010). Distress levels and self-reported treatment rates for medicine, law, psychology and mechanical engineering tertiary students: Cross-sectional study. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 44, 608–315. https://doi.org/10.3109/00048671003649052 Luthans, F., Avolio, B. J., Avey, J. B., & Norman, S. M. (2007). Positive psychological capital. Measurement and Relationship with Performance and Satisfaction. Personnel Psychology, 60, 541–572. doi:10.1111/j.1744-6570.2007.00083.x Meyer, J. H. F. (2012). ‘Variation in student learning’ as a threshold concept. The Journal of Faculty Development, 26, 8–13. Meyer, J. H. F., & Eley, M. G. (1999). The development of affective subscales to reflect variation in students’ experiences of studying mathematics in higher education. Higher Education, 37, 197–216. doi:10.1023/A:1003584400577 Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (2005). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (2): Epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning. Higher Education, 49, 373–388. doi:10.1007/s10734-004-6779-5 Meyer, J. H. F., & Timmermans, J. A. (2016). Integrated threshold concept knowledge. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer & M. T. Flanagan (Eds.), Threshold concepts in practice (pp. 25–38). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Mezirow, J. (2000). Learning to think like an adult: Core concepts of transformation theory. In J. Mezirow (Ed.), Learning as transformation Critical perspectives on a theory in progress (pp. 3–33). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Pekrun, R., Goetz, T., Titz, W., & Perry, R. (2002). Academic emotions in students’ self-regulated learning and achievement: A programme of qualitative and quantitative research. Educational Psychologist, 37, 91–105. http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/S15326985EP3702_4 Pekrun, R., & Linnenbrink-Garcia, L. (Eds.). (2014). International handbook of emotions in education. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.

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EMBEDDING AFFECT IN THE THRESHOLD CONCEPTS FRAMEWORK Pekrun, R., & Stephens, E. (2012). Academic emotions. In K. R. Harris, S. Graham, & T. Urdan (Eds.), APA Educational psychology handbook Vol. 2 Individual differences and cultural and contextual factors (pp. 3–31). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. doi:10.1037/13274-001 Pekrun, R., Vogl, E., Muis, K., & Sinatra, G. (2017). Measuring emotions during epistemic activities: The epistemically-related emotion scales. Cognition and Emotion, 31, 1268–1276. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/02699931.2016.1204989 Perry, W. G. (1970). Forms of intellectual and ethical development in the college years A scheme. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Quinnell, R., & Thompson, R. (2010). Conceptual intersections: Re-viewing academic numeracy in the tertiary education sector as a threshold concept. In J. H. F. Meyer, R. Land, & C. Baillie (Eds.), Threshold concepts and transformational learning (pp. 147–163). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Rattray, J. (2016). Affective dimensions of liminality. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & M. T. Flanagan (Eds.), Threshold concepts in practice (pp. 67–76). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Reindl, M., Tulis, M., & Dresel, M. (2018). Associations between friends, academic emotions and achievement: Individual differences in enjoyment and boredom. Learning and Individual Differences, 62, 164–173. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2018.01.017 Ross, P. M., Burgin, S., Aitchison, C., & Catterall, J. (2011). Research writing in the sciences: Liminal territory and high emotion. Journal of Learning Design, 4, 14–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/ jld.v4i3.77 Shulman, L. S. (2005). Signature pedagogies in the professions. Daedalus, 134, 52–59. Sibbett, C., & Thompson, W. (2008). Nettlesome knowledge, liminality and the taboo in cancer and art therapy experiences: Implications for learning and teaching. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & J. Smith (Eds.), Threshold concepts within the disciplines (pp. 227–242). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Timmermans, J. (2010). Changing our minds: The developmental potential of threshold concepts. In J. H. F. Meyer, R. Land, & C. Baillie (Eds.), Threshold concepts and transformational learning (pp. 3–19). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Timmermans, J. A., & Meyer, J. H. F. (2017). A framework for working with university teachers to create and embed ‘Integrated Threshold Concept Knowledge’ (ITCK) in their practice. International Journal for Academic Development (Advance online publication). http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/ 1360144X.2017.1388241 Vermunt, J. D., & Donche, V. (2017). A learning patterns perspective on student learning in higher education: State of the art and moving forward. Educational Psychology Review, 29, 269–299. doi:10.1007/s10648-017-9414-6 Wearn, A., O’Callaghan, A., & Barrow, M. (2016). Becoming a different doctor: Identifying threshold concepts when doctors in training spend six months with a hospital palliative care team. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & M. T. Flanagan (Eds.), Threshold concepts in practice (pp. 223–238). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.

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PART 2 LIMINAL SPACE

RACHEL THOMPSON AND MICHAEL MICHELL

5. VYGOTSKY, THRESHOLD CONCEPTS AND LIMINALITY Using Vygotsky to Illuminate the Edge of Conceptual Understanding

ABSTRACT

Over the last few decades, the cultural-historical theory of the Russian educational psychologist Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky has provided a rich resource for the development of educational theory and practice across the world (Veresov, 2009). This chapter highlights key aspects of its connections with the more recent ideas developed around threshold concepts, with a view to further developing research and practice in the field. Three intersections between Vygotskian and threshold concepts theoretical frameworks that illuminate the edge of conceptual understanding are examined – conceptual learning as a system, language and thinking, and the zone of proximal development and the liminal space. THRESHOLD CONCEPTS AND LEARNING

The Threshold Concepts Framework (TCF) has provided tertiary educators with a useful theoretical framework for identifying and responding to what might be called ‘conceptual constipation points’, those key disciplinary learning moments where students ‘get stuck’ and become discouraged in learning. This framework, originated by Meyer and Land (2003, 2005), has proved useful in helping teachers from many academic disciplines to assist learners in understanding those troublesome, transformative concepts that integrate, define, and delineate the specialist knowledge of discipline areas. Consequently, threshold concepts are now recognised in many disciplines and within post-graduate research, as crucial learning points on the way to becoming a knowledgeable, skilled and aware disciplinary expert (Kiley & Wisker, 2009; Land, Meyer, & Flanagan, 2016; Land, Meyer, & Smith, 2008). Identifying the networks of disciplinary transformational concepts has been used to prepare curricular content and develop specific learning activities to help students study these expert knowledge domains (e.g. Barradell & Kennedy-Jones, 2015; Felten, 2016; Land et al., 2016). Unfortunately, the inherently troublesome and idiosyncratic nature of conceptual learning pathways that marks the liminal space is particularly difficult to theorise, research and operationalise (Kabo & Baillie, 2010). This liminal space is the

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004419971_005

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challenging learning space where learners get stuck and lose their way before eventually ‘crossing conceptual gateways or ‘portals’ … to arrive at important new understandings’ (Land et al., 2008, p. ix). The liminal journey is described as ‘reconstitutive’ in that the learner often has to ‘reconfigure’ his/her prior conceptual understandings and his/her ways of seeing, in order to transform to a more advanced disciplinary way of knowing, seeing and being (Land, Meyer, & Baillie, 2010). In mastering a threshold concept, a student passes through two stages of conceptual learning – preliminal and liminal – in order to reach a desired postliminal stage where knowledge transformation has occurred and new disciplinary discourse is acquired (Land et al., 2010), as represented in Figure 5.1. In theorising the liminal space, researchers attempt to identify the essential nature of the process that promotes this special kind of transformational, reconstitutive conceptual learning. The process of crossing this liminal threshold is thought to be different for every individual, and is arguably both a cognitive and an affective one (Rattray, 2016; Timmermans, 2010). Hence, the construct of the liminal space is something of a ‘black box’ with many unknowns, gaps and silences (Land, Rattray, & Vivian, 2014). In particular, educators appear no nearer to understanding how students are actually changing, or the nature of that transformation. While disciplinary knowledge is observable and readily testable, the transformational moments of the liminal space are concealed from learner, teacher and researcher alike (Land & Meyer, 2010). Meyer and Timmermans (2016) have provided a new way forward with the ‘Integrated Threshold Concept Knowledge framework (ITCK)’, which has returned the research focus to the affective, cognitive, epistemic and ontological elements within the liminal space, with the practical aim of changing teaching and learning design and to embed the ITCK into practice. Furthermore, what may assist examination of this ‘black box’ is a stronger theoretical framing and

Figure 5.1. The reconstitutive nature of the learning journey across the liminal space (adapted from Land et al., 2010, p. xii)

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closer analysis of actual thinking processes that facilitate this crucial epistemic and ontological transformation (Entwistle, 2008; Land et al., 2014). This is where the near century-old, dialectic and revolutionary ideas of Vygotsky may assist further theorisation of the Threshold Concepts Framework approach. VYGOTSKIAN AND THESHOLD CONCEPTS – KEY INTERSECTIONS

Although developed in and for different times, contexts and purposes, key concepts found in both the Vygotskian and Threshold Concepts Frameworks show striking connections, parallels and resemblances. We regard these correspondences as intersections between the two frameworks, which reflect each system’s core theoretical concerns and, hence, can mutually inform and enrich each other. In taking Vygotsky’s child development theories and applying them to older learners, we view the learning and intellectual development of the adult in a new knowledge domain as a recapitulation, if not a continuation, of the learning and development of the child in ontogenesis. Our approach accords with the widespread extension of Vygotsky’s language theories and his zone of proximal development (ZPD) to adult learning, disciplinary research and pedagogical practice in higher education (e.g. Kilgore, 1999; Lantolf & Thorne, 2006). With this in mind, this chapter outlines three key theoretical intersections between Vygotskian and TCF concepts, namely: (1) conceptual learning as a system; (2) language and thinking; and (3) the zone of proximal development and the liminal space. First Intersection: Conceptual Learning as a System Recent approaches in education have looked beyond curricular knowledge as the desirable learning outcome, and led to a reexamining of curricula to focus on conceptual learning and the ability to learn (Halpern, 2014; Land, Cousin, Meyer, & Davies, 2006; Sands, 2014). As a result, higher education research has placed greater emphasis on the need to examine the development of cognitive and other ‘higher’ faculties in conceptual learning. A symbiotic relationship is widely acknowledged between conceptual learning, as fundamental to cognitive development, and cognitive development as essential to improved conceptual understanding (Entwistle, 2008; Land et al., 2006). Accordingly, the first key intersection between the TCF and Vygotsky’s ideas can be found in the notion and role of concepts and conceptual networks in learning. Vygotsky identifies two fundamental forms of thinking – spontaneous, ‘everyday’ concepts, and non-spontaneous, ‘scientific’ (academic or theoretical) concepts, which, although intersecting, are fundamentally different in origin (Vygotsky, 2012, p. 167). The different nature of these two forms of thinking arises from their different developmental origins. The distinguishing attribute of non-spontaneous, ‘scientific’ concepts (hereafter, ‘academic’) is that they are acquired through formal education and are part of an interconnected system of abstract ideas whose meanings 73

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are mediated and determined by their relationship with other ideas (Vygotsky, 2012, p. 181). In contrast, spontaneous concepts arise from an everyday, commonsense experience of the world, similar to Piaget’s idea of essential concepts that derive from a child’s experiential learning. However, Vygotsky emphasised that these concepts develop through socialisation and ‘everyday living’ (Vygotsky, 2012, p. 164), initially as unstructured, unconscious or subconscious concepts derived from informal learning from new stimuli. Vygotsky argued that such concepts comprise the tacit, implicit knowledge that facilitates progress through everyday life and day-to-day social communication. These spontaneous concepts equate clearly with the ‘tacit’ nature of the knowledge described by Land et al. (2005), where these previously learned, unconscious elementary concepts are needed for the active understanding of threshold concepts. In contrast to spontaneous concepts, Vygotsky identified higher-level, nonspontaneous academic concepts, which ‘start in the child’s mind’ as verbal definitions and are then internalised through conscious use (Vygotsky, 2012, p. 204). He emphasised that academic concepts reflect, and are part of, a wider interconnected system of concepts. In fact, he deemed a system absolutely necessary for productive thinking: Concepts do not lie in the child’s mind like peas in a bag, without any bonds between them. If that were the case, no intellectual operation requiring coordination of thoughts would be possible, nor would any general perception of the world. Not even separate concepts as such could exist; their very nature presupposes a system. (Vygotsky, 2012, p. 209) To appreciate the nature of higher learning, it was necessary for Vygotsky to understand how these different epistemic processes relate and how their transformation comes about. Instead of seeing development in Piagetian terms of separate development between the child’s spontaneous and conceptual thinking, Vygotsky saw learning as a dialectic, two way interaction between academic and everyday concepts, ‘making everyday experience fit into the scientific conceptual system and applying the systematic construct to everyday experience’ (Howe, 1996, p. 40). He postulated that spontaneous concepts ‘proceed upward’ from the elementary (subconscious/ unconscious) understanding to become more conscious and deliberate in their use, rising up to the cognitively higher level of the academic concepts. Further, under certain conditions, academic concepts can exert a meditating influence on spontaneous concepts, transforming them and restructuring the child’s thinking into a more organised, system of concepts (Vygotsky, 2012, p. 205). Thus, in the learner’s mind, spontaneous and non-spontaneous understandings connect to become ‘grounded’, more concrete, fully understood concepts – equivalent to the integration and irreversibility identified in the TCF. Vygotsky relates this dialectic interaction and fusion of concepts to transformational outcomes, epistemic and ontological shifts, which are similarly described by the TCF. Moreover, he emphasised that it

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is a learner’s conscious, voluntary control, internalisation, and systematisation of concepts that enables their generalisation and transfer: … mastering a higher level in the realm of scientific concepts also raises the level of spontaneous concepts. Once the child has achieved consciousness and control in one kind of concept, all the previously formed concepts are reconstructed accordingly. (Vygotsky, 2012, p. 203) This process explains how the previously learned spontaneous concepts assist in the learning of more complex, academic concepts, and shows how initial spontaneous concepts or tacit knowledge are transformed in this process with a further benefit that ‘(r)eflective consciousness comes to the child through the portals of scientific concepts’ (Vygotsky, 2012, p. 181). An overview of this dialectic process is depicted in Figure 5.2. Vygotsky proceeded to explain that the development of academic concepts as part of an organised system of concepts in the learner’s mind is synonymous with the development of the higher mental operations of conscious awareness and volition. He maintained that mastery of a knowledge domain derives from developing a conceptual system or structure, which develops from the integration of a new scientific concept into ‘an internal hierarchical system of interrelationships’ of concepts that allow application of these to other ‘domains of concept and thought’

Figure 5.2. Conceptual learning according to Vygotsky

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(Vygotsky, 2012, p. 216). This model accords with the TCF’s idea of conceptual networks as an integrated system of concepts characterising the epistemic status of the disciplinary ‘expert’. Additionally, Vygotsky’s ideas of the less formed spontaneous concepts being remodeled in interaction with introduced academic concepts recalls the TCF’s idea of the need to discard, unlearn or at least reassess old concepts and/or conceptual ‘schema’ prior to understanding the new ones (Land et al., 2010, p. xi). This divestment of prior knowledge is given as one of the reasons for the emotional ‘struggle’ in the liminal space, as ‘letting go’ of old understandings is not always an easy or comfortable experience (Land et al., 2005, p. 54). Vygotsky envisioned this system of concepts as a constructed, dynamic network in the learner’s mind, with concepts positioned and interrelated on a global lattice via longitudinal and latitudinal reference points. Longitude represents the movement of the ‘thought process’ involved in the conceptual thinking; latitude acts as the ‘objective reference’ and provides the concepts’ relational positions (Vygotsky, 2012, p. 211). Vygotsky gave these relational concepts names: ‘coordinate’, ‘superordinate’, ‘subordinate’, explaining that when the student creates movement within this ‘net of coordinates’ this is an actual ‘intellectual operation’ generating ‘paths of thought’ (Vygotsky, 2012, p. 211). Thus, similar abstract ideas relating to the same topic area (e.g. organisms: plants, animals, bacteria) might be positioned on the same longitude in the conceptual network but have different latitudinal positions. In addition, ‘broad concepts’ could be ‘a line’ rather than a single location in this network of ‘coordinates’ (concepts), and conceptual movement occurring across the coordinates of the globe is pathways of thought and language within a given semantic field (Vygotsky, 2012, p. 211). Conceptual network formation is the objective of most of higher educational disciplinary curricula, but difficult for students to master. Vygotsky’s threedimensional ‘global’ conceptual network provides a useful visual model of the conceptual system that learners construct as they develop a sound understanding of academic concepts within a disciplinary field. This idea of an effective selforganising system of conceptual thinking seems radical even now and is eminently useful in our attempts to distinguish how concepts connect, interrelate, collide, reform and synthesise. The system contributes to our understanding of threshold concepts by providing insight into the link between concept systemisation and mastery, and the reconstitution of thinking that accompanies its transformation. In engaging with a discipline, each learner creates his or her own internalised globe of networked concepts. Moreover, even though the resulting ‘globe of concepts’ created by each individual reflects their own learning, generalised versions of disciplinary networks may assist novices’ learning. By identifying networks of threshold concepts, we might assist students to map out where they are heading and indicate which concepts ‘fit together’ for their conceptual learning of a particular disciplinary topic. Mapping the interrelatedness of academic and spontaneous concepts involves the

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identification of more complex threshold concepts, such as: abstract or multifaceted threshold concepts; specific ‘ways of thinking’ thresholds including essential tacit concepts; and the over-arching, integrating threshold concepts that delineate the larger conceptual disciplinary theories (Davies, 2006; Perkins, 2008; Ross et al., 2010). This first intersection shows clear similarities between Vygotsky’s semantic system and the TCF’s discipline-based conceptual networks. Visualising disciplinary learning and mastery in terms of a conceptual network reveals how academic learning necessarily involves the integration and reconstitution of subordinate and super-ordinate concepts into new and larger threshold concepts. Indeed, as can be seen in the third intersection, development of such conceptual networks characterise the learning that occurs within the ZPD/the liminal space and underpins the learner’s metacognitive processes. Second Intersection: Language and Thinking In his work published in English as ‘Thought and Language’ (Vygotsky, 2012) or ‘Thinking and Speech’ (Vygotsky, 1987), Vygotsky outlined a comprehensive theory of the role of language in thinking. At the core of his theory was that human language is the key tool of signification and the making of meaning. In the course of his or her development, a child’s social and internalised social speech becomes a transformational mediating tool for concept development and thinking: Real concepts are impossible without words, and thinking in concepts does not exist beyond verbal thinking. That is why the central moment in concept formation, and its generative cause, is a specific use of words as functional “tools”. (Vygotsky, 2012, p. 115) As part of his account of the development of human thinking, Vygotsky (1987, p. 257) outlined how a child’s social speech (‘speech for others’) is internalised as ‘egocentric’ or private speech, which eventually becomes ‘inner speech’(‘speech for the self’), or verbal thinking (Vygotsky, 2012, p. 92). Vygotsky argued that, through language socialisation, mediation and internalisation, language becomes a key semiotic resource for behavioural and mental self-regulation, and a cultural means for the development of human intellect and personality. In this process, use of speech as a ‘psychological tool’ regulates its user and stimulates development of the higher mental functions of perception, memory, attention, abstract thinking and volition: … speech, being initially the means of communication, the means of association, the means of organisation of group behavior, later becomes the basic means of thinking and of all higher mental functions, the basic means of personality formation. (Vygotsky, 1998b, p. 169)

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Just as internalised social speech becomes a means of thinking, so externalised inner speech, where words are compressed into transitory, partly conscious or nonconscious thoughts or images, is verbalised as social communication: External speech is a process of transforming thought into word; it is the materialisation and objectivisation of thought. Inner speech moves in the reverse direction, from without to within. It is a process that involves the evaporation of speech in thought. (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 257) This two-way relationship between language and thought and their associated processes of semantic expression and compression underpins the role and value of collaborative dialogue in learning, in the development of learners’ concepts and conceptual networks, and in the psychological development of learners as persons. Vygotsky’s theory of the relationship between language and thinking has significant ramifications for the TCF. Firstly, within threshold concepts, language is acknowledged as troublesome as evidenced by discussion about the importance of learning definitions and terminology in conceptual learning. Disciplinary discourse is also seen as a key outcome of ‘crossing the threshold’ – the ability to think and communicate at a higher theoretical level, which has ontological as well as epistemic consequences: What is being emphasised here is the inter-relatedness of the learner’s identity with thinking and language. Threshold concepts lead not only to transformed thought but to a transfiguration of identity and adoption of an extended discourse. (Meyer & Land, 2005, pp. 374–375) Yet, the key role language plays in the thinking processes involved in conceptual learning and threshold concepts has not been fully examined. Here, the TCF could benefit from a Vygotskian perspective on the vital role language plays as a mediating tool in the dialectic interaction between disciplinary (‘social speech’) and internal self-discourses (‘inner speech’) that occurs in the shared discursive learning space. We further postulate that the type of thinking facilitated by such discursive perspectives enables critical forms of thinking, such as abstraction, synthesis and concretisation. In turn, this would promote grounded understandings of key disciplinary concepts. Furthermore, Vygotsky’s perspective on the role of language in thinking specifically introduced the ideas of internalisation and externalisation of expert discourse as a process of mediated, self-mastery and development. Such processes are also discussed in TCF research. Here also, there is agreement and acknowledgement that language is a key semiotic tool for bridging conceptual gaps and helping learners’ progress through the liminal space. Vygotsky’s notion of ‘intelligent perception’ also offers the TCF another illuminating perspective on the role of language in thinking. Within Vygotsky’s scheme of development of the higher mental functions, language mediates elementary perception transforming and developing it into a higher intellectual form as categorical or generalised perception. By being integrated with language-based 78

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thinking in concepts, perception thus becomes intellectualised as ‘intelligent perception’ (Vygotsky, 1998a, p. 90). Vygotsky illustrates this concept of intellectual perception with his analogy of how adult and child players ‘see’ a chessboard differently according to their different levels of knowledge and expertise. The analogy highlights ‘how the processes of thinking and processes of perception merge’ (Vygotsky, 1998a, p. 88) and how this merging enables us to shift our ‘way of seeing things’ to a higher level of abstraction with new possibilities for thinking and acting: The shift to a new type of inner perception means also a shift to a higher type of inner activity, since a new way of seeing things opens up new possibilities. (Vygotsky, 2012, p. 181) Vygotsky’s concept of intellectual perception highlights the role of language and thinking in the development of new, transformative, gestalt-like, understandings and insights that come from new perceptual framings and perspectives (Michell, 2016). Such events can often be sudden, ‘break-through’ threshold moments signaling ontological as well as epistemic and transformations in the perceiver. Here, Vygotsky develops our understanding of threshold concepts to one that extends to a concept of ‘threshold insights’. A powerful example of how such threshold insights can transform understanding of a discipline is given in Kennedy’s (1998) account of his new perception of the approach his economics students were taking when learning statistics. By examining his own revelatory experience of understanding the sampling distribution, a key statistical threshold concept (Bulmer, O’Brien, & Price, 2007; Downs & Robertson, 2015; Quinnell & Thompson, 2010), he was able to see where his students were ‘getting stuck’: They view statistics as a branch of mathematics because it uses mathematical formulas, so they look at statistics through a mathematical lens […] What they are missing is the statistical lens through which to view the world, allowing this world to make sense. […] My own experience of discovering this lens was a revelation, akin to the experience I had when I put on my first pair of eyeglasses – suddenly everything was sharp and clear. (Kennedy, 1998, p. 487) Similar language-mediated perceptual transformation is also generated by the conceptual tools of analogy and metaphor. Anchored in the already familiar realm of spontaneous concepts, use of analogy and metaphor is an age-old approach to concept formation, facilitating the crossing of conceptual thresholds to new perspectives and understandings. By employing these figures of speech, teachers can connect learners to familiar, everyday spontaneous concepts, concretise new and challenging disciplinary concepts encountered in the liminal space and foster new ways of seeing and thinking. The Vygotskian focus on the functional role of language in thinking highlights the importance of discipline-based discourse and self-talk as mediating tools in learners’ accomplishment of academic tasks and their intellectual development. This 79

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discursive perspective puts disciplinary texts and collaborative dialogue at the core of teacher-student, student-student interaction, and makes considered use of language tools of analogy and metaphor for scaffolding understanding of new and difficult theoretical concepts. Dialogic discourse between instructor and student, alongside the learner’s own inner discourse, aids the learner’s mastery of threshold concepts and their movement across the troublesome liminal space. Land et al.’s (2010, p. xi) call for researchers to render ‘conceptual understanding visible’ in discourse focuses attention on the role that discourse, both internal and external, plays in learning and the need for its role to be reexamined and strengthened within disciplinary threshold concept research. Third Intersection: The Zone of Proximal Development and the Liminal Space The third Vygotsky-TCF intersection considers correspondences between the semantic space of Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development (ZPD) and the transitional zone of TCF’s liminal space. In comparing the two learning frameworks, key questions arise. What is happening in these spaces where spontaneous concepts are abstracted and abstract concepts concretised? What are the paths to mastery and transformation? What are the epistemic and ontological outcomes? As previously mentioned, the liminal space is thought to involve idiosyncratic learning paths, often characterised by non-linear progressions and recursions, where

Figure 5.3. Visual representation of the zones and direction of conceptual development (after Zaretskii, 2009, Taylor & Francis Ltd: www.tandfonline.com)

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Figure 5.4. Apparent correspondences between the TCF liminal space and the Vygotskian zones of development

success in crossing the threshold may be straightforward, or may involve ‘messy journeys back, forth and across conceptual terrain’ (Cousin, 2006a, p. 5). A learner’s experience of the liminal space can therefore be an emotional one involving extreme frustration and disengagement when confusion, anxiety, and fear dominate (Cousin, 2006b; Meyer & Land, 2005; Rattray, 2016). At first glance, there are noticeable similarities between Vygotsky’s ZPD and the TCF’s liminal space. The ZPD identifies a social interactional space where new learning and development is in the process of formation, building on the already constructed learning and development in the learner’s zone of actual development (ZAD). By inference, there is an implied ‘zone of far development’ (ZFD) (Michell, 2012, pp. 116, 232) or ‘insurmountable difficulty’ (Zaretskii, 2009, p. 80), which is conceptually beyond the child’s current potential capabilities, and is therefore beyond the possibility of mastery, even with assistance (Kozulin, 2012, p. 1). Figure 5.3 shows this relationship between the ZPD and the other two zones. Since the ZPD and the liminal space are both key moments of transformative, conceptual learning, an equivalence can be made between them. However, identifying equivalence between the ZFD and ZAD, and the TCF liminal model is less straightforward. If the post-transformative, post-liminal space is understood as a stage of conceptual consolidation following the grasping of threshold concepts, then it has the characteristics of the ZAD. On the other hand, if it is understood as a stage of future conceptual possibility where the learner may see ‘glimpses at the edge’ of their understanding, but not as yet fully comprehend (Berger, 2004, p. 350), then it has the hallmarks of the ZFD, as we have depicted in Figure 5.4. In introducing the concept of the ZPD, Vygotsky described the nature of this learning and development zone from three key perspectives as: (1) a zone of cultural imitation; (2) a zone where higher mental functions mature; and (3) a zone of social ontogenesis. The first perspective, the concept of a zone of cultural imitation, framed Vygotsky’s initial understanding of the ZPD. Human culture is the key source of human development and imitation of cultural models or ‘copy from the social’ (Vygotsky, 1997, p. 106) is the mechanism of human development. Vygotsky stressed that imitation is more than mindless mimicking, rather it is an active understanding and approximation of available cultural models (Vygotsky, 1998c, p. 202). This

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‘intelligent imitation’ with its ‘sphere of imitation’ and ‘zone of imitative potential’ became the conceptual template for the ZPD, where person, mind and culture intersect, and the learner’s mental functions are raised above their actual level of development (Vygotsky, 1998c, pp. 201–202). In the second perspective, the ZPD is defined as a space where elementary mental functions (perception, memory, attention, thinking and volition) are in the process of developing into their higher, culturally mediated, maturing, but not-yet-fully-matured forms – what Vygotsky termed the ‘buds’ or ‘flowers’ rather than the ‘fruits’ of development. (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 42). The ZPD is also where new academic (scientific) concepts are engaged and mastered, in interaction with previously mastered and everyday spontaneous concepts; it is the dialectic space within which ‘disorganised’ spontaneous concepts are systematised by the ‘logic of adult reasoning’ (Chaiklin, 2003). Vygotsky’s third perspective of the ZPD focuses on the meditational and internalisation processes, that is, the socialto-individual or inter-mental to intra-mental processes (Vygotsky, 1997, p. 106) that make it a zone of social ontogenesis and the development of the whole person. Therefore, the ZPD is a dynamic cultural field created by a cooperative problemsolving interaction between learner and instructor or knowledgeable peers that indexes an individual’s new and assisted learning and development. In Vygotsky’s theory, instruction has a catalytic role in the learning of academic concepts; while spontaneous concepts are learned through everyday social interaction, intellectual development arising from academic concepts depends on collaborative learning with instructors or more learned peers (Chaiklin, 2003; Kozulin & Presseisen, 1995). Such collaborative learning essentially occurs through disciplinary discourse, either dialogically, through ‘thinking together’ or through an internal dialogue of ‘solo thinking’ (Wells, 2007, p. 249). The ZPD is not solely concerned with the acquisition of knowledge, but rather the socially mediated development of the epistemic capabilities (higher mental functions) that underpin learning and promote development toward higher levels of intellectual functioning. It is characterised by intellectual transformation and development, marked by epistemic shifts and ultimately ontological change. A major point of comparison between the Vygotskian and Threshold Concepts frameworks is that they both identify ‘thresholds’ as playing a key part in the learning process. Having identified specific threshold concepts that need to be mastered in order to access particular disciplinary knowledge, the TCF’s liminal space is theorised as a cognitive-emotional terrain that needs to be traversed in order for those threshold concepts to be mastered. In other words, the liminal space constitutes a single threshold zone through which a learner must pass while mastering the threshold concept. In describing his zone, Vygotsky, however, identifies two thresholds. These thresholds establish two developmental limits, an upper level or ‘ceiling’ of prospective development at its ‘height’, and a lower level or ‘floor’ of actual development at its ‘base’. The gap between these thresholds creates the developmental space for cultural imitation, productive instruction, mastery and

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becoming which characterises the ZPD (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 211). We surmise that the transformational result of grasping a threshold concept is equivalent to the dynamic movement from the ZPD to the ZAD, with the creation of a new ZPD from the learner’s ZFD. This transition-transformation-development becomes evident when a learner is able to function independently in intellectual activity after a period of assistance by more capable others (i.e. the instructor). Our diagram (Figure 5.5) highlights the dynamics of this development. In contrast to this transformational developmental perspective, the TCF has focused on how concepts are structured by disciplinary knowledge, and thence how movement towards disciplinary expertise proceeds; the emphasis is on the ‘epistemic shift’, the gaining of a threshold concept as a unit of knowledge. However, researchers investigating knowledge transformations (e.g. Mezirow, 1997), have brought a broader perspective by also examining emotional and ontological aspects of threshold concept learning, as well as its cognitive elements (Cousin, 2006b; Efklides, 2011; Land, 2016). This approach has tended to focus on the nature of the transformation that causes the ontological shifts and enables new ‘ways of seeing’ and ‘being’. While promising, these developments are yet to clarify what is actually happening in the liminal space in a way that can actually assist learners. With the TCF’s incorporation of broader transformational and emotional-ontological

Figure 5.5. Visual representation of learner progression through conceptual thresholds as zones of development (after Zaretskii, 2009, Taylor & Francis Ltd: www.tandfonline.com)

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perspectives, it is possible to identify elements of convergence with the relationaldevelopmental system holism of the ZPD. We conclude that the ZPD and liminal space portray the same learning processes but viewed from somewhat different perspectives. Vygotskian theory and the TCF can ‘speak to each other’ and comparative analysis can inform further investigation of the edges of conceptual learning, further illuminating the ‘black box’ of the liminal space. Importantly, we have shown that development of learners’ higher intellectual functioning is an essential part of threshold concept learning. In considering Vygotsky and the ZPD, we shift away from a focus on disciplinary mastery to the learning of conceptual knowledge as a means to development of higher mental functions. Intellectual development becomes the overall outcome, with disciplinary knowledge as the mediating tool for this development. This has echoes in Barnett’s call for higher education to develop ‘critical beings’ rather than merely knowledgeable graduates (Barnett, 1997). IMPLICATIONS FOR TCF RESEARCH AND PRACTICE

This investigation of key intersections between TCF and Vygotskian theory has revealed a number of productive areas for future research and practice around threshold concepts and the liminal space: application of a developmental perspective; pedagogic enrichment of the TCF; further study of learner experiences of the liminal space; and a stronger focus on language and discourse in the TCF. As shown in this examination of Vygotskian theory, developmental processes leading to ‘higher mental functions’ and the systematisation of conceptual networks underpin the epistemic transformations that enable knowledge acquisition in the first place. At the same time, these processes precipitate ontological transformations in the learner, which reflect holistic perceptual changes that can lead to changed ways of being. Thus, we suggest that threshold concepts may be better understood as a symbiosis of conceptual knowledge and intellectual development and, as such, should be studied as a single, integrated unit of analysis. We propose a TCF/ITCK research agenda that applies a Vygotskian focus on the processes of development to an expanded notion of conceptual learning that goes beyond disciplinary knowledge, to emphasise that metacognitive and emotional processes are essential to the development of effective, critical learners. Our examination of the ZPD has highlighted its function as a social-semiotic space where higher forms of meaning making are facilitated through the use and circulation of signs, or signification. Land et al. (2014) have made progress in this area by developing a sign system schematic to illustrate the conceptual processes involved in threshold concept learning, which provides a useful heuristic tool for supporting learners through this troublesome space. It remains for qualitative researchers to examine the contribution this semiotic tool could make. Consideration of the trials and vicissitudes of the liminal space also draws attention to the need for effective instruction and resources that can support learners’ engagement with 84

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threshold concepts and journey in ‘crossing over’ the transformational threshold. Here, Vygotskian theory offers a valuable theoretical framework for pedagogical practice. The concepts of intellectual imitation and semiotic mediation associated with the ZPD provide a template for devising structured learning supports that promote development of academic learning along with its cognitive, emotional and identity entailments. Scaffolded instructional sequences of modeled, guided and independent problem-solving are examples of possible approaches. Additionally, discourse and language, external and internal, are essential elements of conceptual learning and we call for its role to be reexamined and strengthened within the TCF. A discourse focus puts disciplinary texts and collaborative dialogue at the core of teacher-student, student-student interaction, and makes considered use of language tools of narrative, analogy and metaphor for scaffolding understanding of new and difficult theoretical concepts. At a time of great upheaval in educational design with emphasis on new technological approaches, threshold concept research stands to benefit greatly by drawing on the wealth of applied Vygotskian pedagogical research that has been conducted in school and higher education over the last few decades. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Rachel Thompson would like to thank her PhD supervisors and the UNSW Sydney postgraduate student research support scheme, which assisted her attendance at the excellent Sixth International Biennial Threshold Concepts Conference, ‘Thresholds on the Edge’, held at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, 15–17 June 2016. REFERENCES Barnett, R. (1997). Higher education A critical business. Buckingham and Bristol: The Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press. Barradell, S., & Kennedy-Jones, M. (2015). Threshold concepts, student learning and curriculum: Making connections between theory and practice. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 52(5), 536–545. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2013.866592 Berger, J. G. (2004). Dancing on the threshold of meaning: Recognising and understanding the growing edge. Journal of Transformative Education, 2(4), 336–351. https://doi.org/10.1177/1541344604267697 Bulmer, M., O’Brien, M., & Price, S. (2007). Troublesome concepts in statistics: A student perspective on what they are and how to learn them. In Assessment in Science Teaching and Learning Symposium (pp. 139–144), University of Sydney. Sydney, Australia: UniServe Science Teaching and Learning Research Proceedings. Retrieved from http://openjournals.library.usyd.edu.au/index.php/IISME/ article/view/6337 Chaiklin, S. (2003). The zone of proximal development in Vygotsky’s analysis of learning and instruction. In A. Kozulin, B. Gindis, V. S. Ageyev, & S. M. Miller (Eds.), Vygotsky’s educational theory in cultural context (pp. 39–64). Cambridge & New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511840975.004 Cousin, G. (2006a). An introduction to threshold concepts. Planet, 17, 4–5. https://doi.org/10.11120/ plan.2006.00170004 Cousin, G. (2006b). Threshold concepts, troublesome knowledge and emotional capital: An exploration into learning about others. In J. H. F. Meyer & R. Land (Eds.), Overcoming barriers to student

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VYGOTSKY, THRESHOLD CONCEPTS AND LIMINALITY Land, R., Meyer, J. H. F., & Baillie, C. (2010). Editors’ preface. In J. H. F. Meyer, R. Land, & C. Baillie (Eds.), Threshold concepts and transformational learning (pp. ix–xlii). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Land, R., Meyer, J. H. F., & Flanagan, M. T. (2016). Preface. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & M. T. Flanagan (Eds.), Threshold concepts in practice (pp. xi–xxxiv). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6300-512-8 Land, R., Meyer, J. H. F., & Smith, J. (2008). Editors’ preface. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & J. Smith (Eds.), Threshold concepts within the disciplines (pp. ix–xxi). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Land, R., Rattray, J., & Vivian, P. (2014). Learning in the liminal space: A semiotic approach to threshold concepts. Higher Education, 67(2), 199–217. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-013-9705-x Lantolf, J. P., & Thorne, S. L. (2007). Sociocultural theory and the second language learning. In B. VanPatten & J. Williams (Eds.), Theories in second language acquisition An introduction (pp. 201–224). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (2003). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge Linkages to ways of thinking and practising within the disciplines. Occasional Report 4. Edinburgh. Enhancing TeachingLearning Environments in Undergraduate Courses Project,Universities of Edinburgh, Coventry and Durham, 2003. Retrieved from http://www.etl.tla.ed.ac.uk/docs/ETLreport4.pdf Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (2005). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (2): Epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning. Higher Education, 49(3), 373–388. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-004-6779-5 Meyer, J. H. F., & Timmermans, J. A. (2016). Integrated threshold concept knowledge. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & M. T. Flanagan (Eds.), Threshold concepts in practice (pp. 25–38). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6300-512-8_3 Mezirow, J. (1997). Transformative learning: Theory to practice. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 74, 5–12. https://doi.org/10.1002/ace.7401 Michell, M. R. (2012). Academic engagement and agency in multilingual middle year classrooms (Doctoral thesis). University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10453/21824 Michell, M. R. (2016). Finding the “prism”: Understanding Vygotsky’s perezhivanie as an ontogenetic unit of child consciousness. International Research in Early Childhood Education, 7(Special 1), 5–33. https://doi.org/10.4225/03/580ff5fe07f08 Perkins, D. N. (2008). Beyond understanding. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & J. Smith (Eds.), Threshold concepts within the disciplines (pp. 3–19). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Retrieved from http://www.sensepublishers.com/catalog/files/9789087902674PR.pdf#page=26 Quinnell, R., & Thompson, R. (2010). Conceptual intersections: Re-viewing academic numeracy in the tertiary education sector as a threshold concept. In J. H. F. Meyer, R. Land, & C. Baillie (Eds.), Threshold concepts and transformational learning (pp. 147–163). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Rattray, J. (2016). Affective dimensions of liminality. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & M. T. Flanagan (Eds.), Threshold concepts in practice (pp. 67–76). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6300-512-8 Ross, P., Taylor, C., Hughes, C., Whitaker, N., Lutze-Mann, L., Kofod, M., & Tzioumis, V. (2010). Threshold concepts in learning biology and evolution. Biology International, 47(Darwin 200: Evolution in Action), 47–54. Retrieved from http://www.iubs.org/pdf/publi/BI/Vol47.pdf#page=49 Sands, D. (2014). Concepts and conceptual understanding: What are we talking about? New Directions, 10(1), 7–11. https://doi.org/10.11120/ndir.2014.00030 Timmermans, J. A. (2010). Changing our minds: The developmental potential of threshold concepts. In J. H. F. Meyer, R. Land, & C. Baillie (Eds.), Threshold concepts and transformational learning (pp. 3–19). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Veresov, N. (2009). Marxist and non-Marxist aspects of the cultural-historical psychology of LS Vygotsky. Outlines. Critical Practice Studies, 7(1), 31–49. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society The development of higher psychological processes (M. Cole, Ed.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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R. THOMPSON & M. MICHELL Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). Thinking and speech. In R. W. Rieber & A. S. Carton (Eds.), The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 1 Problems of general psychology, including the volume thinking and speech (1st ed., pp. 39–288). New York, NY & London: Plenum Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1997). Genesis of higher mental functions. In R. W. Rieber (Ed.), Collected works of L.S. Vygotsky, Vol. 4. The history of the development of the higher mental functions (pp. 97–119). New York, NY: Plenum Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1998a). Part 1. Pedology of the adolescent: Development of higher mental functions during the transitional age. In R. W. Rieber (Ed.), The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 5, Child psychology (pp. 83–149). New York, NY: Plenum Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1998b). Part 1. Pedology of the adolescent: Dynamics and structure of the adolescent’s personality. In R. W. Rieber (Ed.), The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 5, Child psychology (pp. 167–184). New York, NY: Plenum Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1998c). Part 2: Problems of child (developmental) psychology: The problem of age. In R. W. Rieber (Ed.), The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 5, Child psychology (pp. 187–205). New York, NY: Plenum Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (2012). Thought and language (Rev. ed., A. Kozulin, Ed.). Cambridge, MA & London: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Wells, G. (2007). Semiotic mediation, dialogue and the construction of knowledge. Human Development, 50(5), 244–274. https://doi.org/10.1159/000106414 Zaretskii, V. K. (2009). The zone of proximal development. Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, 47(6), 70–93. https://doi.org/10.2753/RPO1061-0405470604

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6. ANALYSING DISCOURSE IN THE LIMINAL SPACE Talking Our Way through It

ABSTRACT

This chapter is the first step to eradicating ‘language blindness’ (a proclivity for overlooking language use) within threshold concept research. Through an analysis of learners’ knowledge and language practices within the liminal space, it is hoped that insight might be gained into the discourse necessary to acquire troublesome knowledge. Though approached from the perspective of an applied linguist, this chapter offers some understanding of the discourse of the liminal space which is pertinent and applicable to learners in all disciplines. INTRODUCTION

The liminal space has been under-researched in the field of threshold concepts (Land, Rattray, & Vivian, 2014). No more so than when considering the discourse that is required to traverse it. Land et al. (2014) observe that to acquire troublesome knowledge requires a shift in discourse, but, to date, there has been no analysis of what this actually means in practice. This chapter analyses learners’ discourse offering insight pertinent to all disciplines into the language and knowledge practices required to enable passage through the liminal space. Prior to the analysis, some background will be given to the study that informs this chapter, including an overview of its purpose and methodology. ‘Theory knowledgeability’ will be introduced as the threshold concept that is the nucleus to the study, and an overview will be given of the two frameworks being employed to analyse the discourse within the liminal space. THE STUDY

Background Some background should be given to the study that has led to this chapter. The field of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) exists to prepare students, traditionally for whom English is not their first language, for their academic studies at university.

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This preparation can either exist before students embark on their studies (often due to the fact that they have not yet met the English language requirement for university entry – what is known as pre-sessional in the UK context), or in tandem with their academic studies (in-sessional). EAP is often not simply language teaching; it also includes a focus on academic skills required to succeed on university level courses and varying degrees of engagement with material directly related to the students’ academic disciplines. Herein lies a tension within the field. As many EAP practitioners are trained in language teaching, language is often foregrounded at the expense of exploring subject-specific knowledge, which, as non-specialists, the EAP practitioner may feel uncomfortable ‘teaching’. A detrimental consequence of this is that pre-sessional courses are often what Maton (2014) would term ‘knowledge blind’, defined as that which ‘focuses attention on processes of learning and whose knowledge is being learned, but obscures what is being learned and how it shapes these processes and power relations’ (Maton, 2014, p. 7). While the field of EAP is guilty of ‘knowledge blindness’, much educational research pertinent to this study in the areas of threshold concepts (Land, Meyer, & Smith, 2008; Meyer & Land, 2006; Meyer, Land, & Baillie, 2010) and Decoding the Disciplines (Middendorf & Pace, 2004; Shopkow, 2010), is also guilty of ‘language blindness’. While there may be acknowledgement of the need for an evolution in discourse in successful acquisition of a threshold concept (Land et al., 2014; Matsuda, 2016), threshold concepts literature to date fails to offer any actual discourse analysis to provide insights into how language use shapes this evolution and what language is legitimate in this context. This chapter looks to Flowerdew (2013) to provide a definition of discourse and discourse analysis. Discourse is not simply sentence-level language use, but language used in context: [T]he rationale for a contextualised … consideration of language is based upon the belief that knowing a language is concerned with more than just grammar and vocabulary: it also includes how to participate in a conversation or how to structure a written text. (Flowerdew, 2013, p. 1) Discourse analysis is a particularly interdisciplinary endeavour, employed in a multitude of fields outside linguistics, analysing language in terms of its structure and/or its function (Flowerdew, 2013). It is a predominantly qualitative methodology concerned with generating rich description, rather than measuring instances of language use in context (though strands of discourse analysis do this too) (Flowerdew, 2013). For Flowerdew (2013, p. 2) ‘the discourse analyst considers the particular meanings and communicative forces associated with what is said or written’. This paper holds with Coffin and Donohue’s (2014, p. 4) view that ‘academic knowledge does not consist of academic content and behaviours learned independently of language and literacy. Nor are language and literacy simply carriers of academic content and behaviours. Rather, knowledge, behaviours, and language develop symbiotically’ [sic]. The study that underpins this paper is an attempt to reveal

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this symbiotic development through the analysis of student discourse, focusing on knowledge and language practices within the liminal space. Methodology In order to eradicate knowledge blindness on a generic EAP programme, participants in this predominantly qualitative study discussed reading material that aims to build their ‘theory knowledgeability’. As will be explored below, it is the knowledge of what is being learned and how it shapes the process of learning (Maton, 2014) that presents itself as a threshold concept. The discussions students had manifest as semiotic mediation (Coffin & Donohue, 2014; Hasan, 2002; Vygotsky 1978), defined as ‘engaging with instructors and students, as well as engaging students and instructors with each other, in mutual inquiry and learning’ (Coffin & Donohue, 2014, p. viii). Taking this approach is a response to the acknowledgment that the EAP practitioner is not a subject specialist in the range of disciplines represented in the EAP classroom and therefore cannot ‘teach’ subject-specific material. What we can do is engage with our students in a mutual exploration of the concepts presented in the reading. To enable this mutual inquiry and learning, the students took part in a seminar discussion centred on a text that explored the theory of semiotics within the various fields they were going on to study. Semiotics was chosen by the teacher, as it is a theory that transcends disciplinary borders and is therefore, in Bernstein’s (1990) terms, of weaker classification. Bernstein defines classification as the ‘degree of insulation between categories of discourse, agents, practices, contexts’ (1990, p. 214). The greater the insularity, the stronger the classification, meaning that the less accessible a discipline is to an ‘outsider’, the stronger its classification is (as with a discipline like physics, for example). However, a discipline like cultural studies that crosses borders with a range of other disciplines in terms of discourse, agents, practices and contexts, exhibits weaker classification. Operating within the confines of one discipline is not desirable in the context of the EAP classroom where the students are often from a range of disciplines. In addition to taking part in a seminar discussion, participants also took part in a post-discussion focus group to discuss their thoughts on the activity. They also kept a diary intended to record the ‘metacognitive affect’ of taking part in the discussion. The participants’ discussion and focus group were transcribed according to transcription practices within the field of language research (Mackey & Gass, as cited in Allwright & Bailey, 1991). This paper explores, as a heuristic, the resultant discourse analysing both language practice (employing Systemic Functional Linguistics) and knowledge practice (employing Legitimation Code Theory). This performs a more holistic analysis of the discourse. The study gained ethics approval from both the author’s institution of employment and the institution of study.

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Participants The participants of the study were a sample of convenience (Dörnyei, 2007) and consisted of seven international graduates progressing onto taught Masters’ programmes in the fields of Law, Business Management, Marketing, and Economics. These students were on a six-week pre-sessional course where they entered with an International English Language Testing System (IELTS) level of 6.0 and were required to reach the equivalent of IELTS 6.5 by the end of the course in order to progress onto their academic courses. Two nationalities were represented in the sample: Chinese and Vietnamese. In this chapter, the participants have been coded first by nationality, then gender, then a number; for example, Cf1 = Chinese female one and Vm2 = Vietnamese male two. THEORY KNOWLEDGEABILITY AS THRESHOLD CONCEPT

Threshold concepts research has historically concerned itself with disciplines that exhibit stronger classification, to use Bernstein’s terminology (1990), in that from a curriculum perspective, these disciplines possess particular methodologies, concepts, and theoretical frameworks that are confined within the boundaries of the field (see Land et al., 2008; Meyer & Land, 2006, for examples). There is, however, a ‘new wave’ of research in threshold concepts that concerns itself with concepts of weaker classification. That is, these concepts can traverse boundaries across disciplines. For example, the work of Kiley and Wisker (2009) and Kiley (2009, 2015), as well as the chapters collected in Naming What We Know (Adler-Kassner & Wardle, 2016), concern themselves with more ‘generic’, skills-based concepts, particularly around academic writing (Adler-Kassner & Wardle, 2016) and graduate attributes (Kiley, 2009, 2015; Kiley & Wisker, 2009). While this shift within the threshold concepts literature may seem on the surface to align more naturally with EAP, this new direction seems to relegate subject specific knowledge in the same way that EAP has tended to do. While this might be useful in the context of those who contributed to the recent literature, this is counterintuitive to the purposes of this study. The contributions within Naming What We Know and the work of Kiley and Wisker (2009) also exhibit symptoms of language blindness. Despite naming many features shared within the EAP curriculum as threshold concepts, only one paper within Naming What We Know mentions negotiating language differences in academic writing (Matsuda, 2016), but this is merely a statement. There is no language analysis offered here. Kiley (2009, 2015) and Kiley and Wisker (2009), researching the domain of doctoral study, have identified ‘theory’ as a threshold concept. However, to say theory itself is a threshold concept is a little misleading. Much of what Kiley (2015) and Kiley and Wisker (2009) describe is more akin to theory literacy – that is, not knowledge of a prescribed theory in and of itself, but the ability to employ theory to frame research, to inform thought and argument with theory, and to ‘theorise 92

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findings’ (Kiley, 2015, p. 52). This is a good example of ‘knowledge blindness’; focusing on the process rather than the ‘what’ (Maton, 2014). It is necessary here to pause and explore what is meant by the term ‘theory’ in this chapter. Maton (2014) keenly observes that we have an incredibly limited vocabulary when it comes to theory, using one word to cover a variety of interpretations. This chapter works on the notion of theory as ‘a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something’ (OED, as cited in Stewart, Harte, & Sambrook, 2011, p. 222). Stewart, Harte and Sambrooke (2011) unpack this definition focusing on the importance of three words in particular: a theory intends to explain something. A theory therefore is explanatory, it is not a given that it is successful in its intention and it is separate to that which it tries to explain. This is the understanding of theory that is it hoped the students will acquire. Archer speaks of an agent’s knowledgeability, whereby ‘agents have different degrees of ‘discursive penetration’, ‘practical knowledge’ or ‘unconscious awareness’ of their situations which in turn affect their social practices’ (1995, p. 131). The aim of this study is to increase the students’ knowledgeability and, consequentially, affect their academic discourse practice. The issue that this study is trying to address is not that students need theory literacy, but that they need ‘theory knowledgeability’. What is meant by this is that, before students can be literate with theory, they need knowledge of theories first. Students themselves acknowledge the need to develop theory knowledgeability, as can been seen from the following extracts from the focus group. The first extract is a succinct illustration of the student identifying theory knowledgeability as a threshold concept, if not in those terms, then certainly identifying the ‘stuckness’ of it. Cf1: I think we don’t know what is theory. We can explain in a dictionary way but when we talk about theory use we are stuck. A second excerpt reveals the student’s awareness of a common phenomenon within the liminal space: mimicry. Kiley and Wisker claim that, ‘while in the liminal state students may mimic the language and behaviours that they perceive are required of them, prior to full understanding’ (2009, p. 432). The mimicry observed by the student below is an acknowledgement of an unawareness of what theory actually is, which is compounded by the fact that these students were incognisant of any actual theories. Vm2: We can repeat what is said and paraphrase but we don’t really understand what is theory. This excerpt is also an insightful observation of the students’ behaviour during the discussion of their texts. Students often rely heavily on the texts, repeating what is written within it, with their gaze firmly fixed on the text to avoid having to speak independently of it. Discursive penetration is limited, and there is certainly an awareness of existing in the liminal space. 93

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Of course, this one discussion did not solve the troublesomeness of theory knowledgeability. However, it did highlight the need to continue to engage with actual theories. All students agreed that talking about theory was helping them to understand what it is and enabling them to feel a little less troubled about encountering a discussion of theory on their impending postgraduate studies: Cf1: So in the future when tutor asks you to discuss something you won’t panic. It is now time to turn to the analysis of the discourse that took place within the discussion of a theory. SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS

Overview Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) is a framework that has proved highly influential in EAP practice. Halliday’s rather dense framework essentially sees ‘text as language functioning in context’ (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014, p. 3). To understand language use, it is necessary to understand the lexicogrammatical choices made by the speaker when there is a variety of other choices (Halliday, 1978). Halliday argues that ‘just as you choose what to do, and what to say, you also choose what to mean’ (2013, p. 17). By employing SFL to analyse choice, we gain a more in-depth understanding of the meaning within our language choices. In SFL, the basic unit of analysis for understanding these choices is the clause (Flowerdew, 2013). The clause is considered ‘a multi-functional construct consisting of three metafunctional lines of meaning’ (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014, p. 211): the textual, the interpersonal, and the ideational. While it should be highlighted that these three metafunctions coexist simultaneously within the structure of the clause (Coffin & Donohue, 2012; Eggins, 2004; Flowerdew, 2013), the ideational metafunction is the sole focus for analysis in this chapter. ‘Ideational meanings realise what is called the field of discourse (the purpose of the communication and what it is about)’ (Flowerdew, 2013, p. 12). In order to identify the ideational and the meanings they construe, it is necessary to perform what is known as a transitivity analysis of the clauses. This involves exploring the processes (verbal groups), participants (nouns) and circumstances (adverbial groups or prepositional phrases) (Flowerdew, 2013) of a clause and therefore signifying the role of each in the clause: when we analyse the roles of the participants, the processes and the circumstances in a text, we can see the relationships between the people and the things involved, the processes they engage in and the sort of circumstances in which they occur. (p. 17) There are six Process types: Material, Mental, Behavioural, Verbal, Existential, and Relational (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014). Put simply, Material processes are 94

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This has implications for how this study needs to go forward. In future iterations, there needs to be an exploration of what role agency has to play in helping students cross the liminal space presented by theory knowledgeability. There also needs to be more explicit engagement with the processes expected of postgraduates when deepening their discursive penetration. This is not only true in this case. Donohue’s (2012) excellent example from film studies uses SFL to analyse the Processes necessary in students’ acquisition of mise en scene as a threshold concept. SFL can be a very powerful tool in helping students understand the Processes that will enable them to traverse the liminal space and internalise the threshold concept in question. LEGITIMATION CODE THEORY

Overview Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) has become increasingly popular in educational research in the past decade. LCT’s ambition is to gain better insight into knowledge practices that are deemed legitimate in a given context. LCT reveals ‘the fundamental ‘rules of the game’ or bases of achievement (“legitimation”) of different contexts, the ways they develop over time, what they enable or constrain, and how they relate to the dispositions actors bring to those contexts’ (Van Krieken et al., 2014, p. 173). LCT is a framework comprising five dimensions that allow researchers to capture ‘a set of organising principles underlying dispositions, practices and contexts’ (Maton, Hood, & Shay, 2016, p. 11). Here, the dimension of Semantics is employed to explore knowledge in terms of semantic gravity and semantic density. Semantic gravity (SG) refers to ‘the degree of context-dependence of meaning – the stronger the semantic gravity (SG+), the more knowledge is dependent on its context to make sense; the weaker the semantic gravity (SG-), the less dependent knowledge is on its context for meaning’ (Van Krieken et al., 2014, p. 175). Semantic density (SD) on the other hand ‘refers to the degree of condensation of meaning within socio-cultural practices […] The stronger the semantic density (SD+) the more meanings are condensed within practices; the weaker the semantic density (SD-), the less meanings are condensed’ (Maton, 2014, p. 129). The relative strengths of semantic gravity and density are then mapped onto the semantic plane (Figure 6.1) which has four codes: ‡ rhizomatic codes (SG-, SD+) […] relatively context-independent and complex stances; ‡ prosaic codes (SG+, SD-) […] relatively context-dependent and simpler stances; ‡ rarefied codes (SG-, SD-) […] relatively context-independent stances that condense fewer meanings; and ‡ worldly codes (SG+, SD+) […] relatively context-dependent stances that condense manifold meanings (Maton et al., 2016, p. 16). Maton et al. (2016) state that rhizomatic and prosaic codes respectively represent the theoretical and practical knowledges that divide many in the field of education. 96

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Figure 6.1. The semantic plane (from Maton, 2016, p. 16)

LCT affords a more nuanced understanding with the four quadrants of the semantic plane, rather than allowing an overly simplistic and considerably unhelpful binary. Shay and Steyn (2016) illustrate how curricula can develop students from ‘naïve’ and ‘novice’ (situated within the rarefied code), through to ‘expert’ and ‘master’ (situated in the worldly code). This rather succinctly mirrors the journey from pre- to post-liminal. Analysis As can be seen from the extracts below (words in italics are words from the original texts that students read), within the discussion, the participants seem unable to move beyond the rarefied code. Turns generally exhibit the abstract nature of the knowledge being discussed in that the turns are independent of a particular context (SG-), yet turns are unable to build constellations of meaning, indeed unable to build much meaning at all (SD-). Cm2: I found out er, that efficiency and er creativity is er are the main part in their […] and er market economy. That’s all I read for understand this. Cf2: I think semiotics is a, is a, is a significant symbols of of brand or of product because because in same kind of product a lot of brand how can the consumer know very well about your brand. It should be kind of semiotic? 97

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Cm2: I agree with the idea that creativity can create the value of society not the efficiency and I also agree that economic is dynamic not aesthetic. So what yours opinion? Students are not able to unpack and repack the complexity within their reading in order to navigate their way through it. Cf2 is attempting to unpack the complexity of semiotics in Marketing, but with limited success. Cm2 is unable to create any real meaning, let alone relate to a specific context or generalise. The two extracts from Cm2 are almost limited to a random list of words extracted from the article. What is evident is that participants’ turns are short and signal that the students have limited resources to cope with the complexity of building a shared understanding of a given theory. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

As the study that has informed this chapter was a pilot, there are many limitations to consider. Firstly, the sample size was very limited. Only two nationalities were represented within the sample, and most disciplines represented were businessbased. The data are also limited, as they mainly come from one discussion. While this offers some insight into the linguistic and knowledge practices of the liminal space, this needs to be repeated over a series of discussions building a richer picture of both language practice and knowledge practice. As mentioned in the methodology section, participants were asked to complete a diary recording the ‘metacognitive affect’ of taking part in the discussion. These diaries yielded poor data, and future participants need to be better supported in ‘actively engag[ing] with metacognition relating to the threshold concept’ (Orsini-Jones, 2010, p. 281) as it can contribute to learners’ readiness to traverse the liminal space (Orsini-Jones, 2010). CONCLUSION

Land et al. (2014, p. 201) rightly observe that ‘learning in the liminal space further entails the acquisition and use of new forms of written and spoken discourse and the internalising of these’. However, we cannot make claims such as these without committing to developing a fuller understanding of what this change in discourse demands of the learner. This chapter has attempted to make an initial contribution to do just that by showing that in order to help international postgraduate students traverse the liminal space opened up by the threshold concept of theory knowledgeability, we must analyse the linguistic and knowledge practices involved. The complementary frameworks of Systemic Functional Linguistics and Legitimation Code Theory provide insightful analysis of discourse within the liminal space. It is of course no surprise that these participants found their engagement with theory troublesome and lacked agency in their language choices and complexity in their knowledge practice. 98

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In Shay and Steyn’s (2016) terms, these participants were ‘naïve’. The future study will build on this pilot and aim to plot the participants’ journey from ‘naïve’ to ‘master’, or from pre- to post-liminal, across a series of discussions providing much richer data and a greater understanding of the discourse practices within the liminal space. REFERENCES Adler-Kassner, L., & Wardle, E. (Eds.). (2016). Naming what we know classroom edition: Threshold concepts of writing studies. Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado. Allwright, D., & Bailey, K. M. (1991). Focus on the language classroom An introduction to classroom research for language teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Archer, M. S. (1995). Realist social theory The morphogenetic approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bernstein, B. (1990). The structuring of pedagogic discourse, Vol. IV class, codes and control. London: Routledge. Coffin, C., & Donohue, J. (2014). A language as social semiotic-based approach to teaching and learning in higher education (Language Learning. Monograph series). Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons. Donohue, J. (2012). Using systemic functional linguistics in academic writing development: An example from film studies. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 11(2), 4–16. https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.jeap.2011.11.003 Dörnyei, Z. (2007). Research methods in applied linguistics Quantitative, qualitative and mixed methodologies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Eggins, S. (2004). An introduction to systemic functional linguistics (2nd ed.). London: Continuum. Flowerdew, J. (2013). Discourse in English language education. London and New York, NY: Routledge. Halliday, M. A. K. (1978). Language as social semiotic The social interpretation of language and meaning. Victoria: Edward Arnold. Halliday, M. A. K., & Matthiessen, M. I. M. (2014). Halliday’s introduction to functional grammar (4th ed.). Abingdon: Routledge. Hasan, R. (2002, July). Semiotic mediation, language and society Three exotropic theories – Vygotsky, Halliday and Bernstein. Presentation to the Second International Basil Bernstein Symposium: Knowledges, Pedagogy and Society, Cape Town, South Africa. Kiley, M. (2009). Identifying threshold concepts and proposing strategies to support doctoral candidates. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 46, 293–304. doi:10.1080/14703290903069001 Kiley, M. (2015). ’I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about’: PhD candidates and theory. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 52(1), 52–63. doi:10.1080/ 14703297.2014.981835 Kiley, M., & Wisker, G. (2009). Threshold concepts in research education and evidence of threshold crossing. Higher Education Research and Development, 28(4), 431–441. doi:10.1080/07294360903067930 Land, R., Meyer, J. H. F., & Smith, J. (Eds.). (2008). Threshold concepts within the disciplines. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Land, R., Rattray, J., & Vivian, P. (2014). Learning in the liminal space: A semiotic approach to threshold concepts. Higher Education, 67(2), 199–217. doi:10.1007/s10734-013-9705-x Maton, K. (2014). Knowledge and knowers Towards a realist sociology of education. London: Routledge. Maton, K., Hood, S., & Shay, S. (Eds.). (2016). Knowledge-building Educational studies in Legitimation Code Theory. London: Routledge. Matsuda, P. K. (2016). Writing involves the negotiation of language differences. In L. Adler-Kassner & E. Wardle (Eds.), Naming what we know classroom edition Threshold concepts of writing studies (pp. 68–70). Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado.

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S. COWLEY-HASELDEN Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (Eds.). (2006). Overcoming barriers to student understanding. London: Routledge. Meyer, J. H. F., Land, R., & Baillie, C. (Eds.). (2010). Threshold concepts and transformational learning. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Middendorf, J., & Pace, D. (Eds.). (2004). Decoding the disciplines: Helping students learn disciplinary ways of thinking. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 2004(98), 1–12. Orsini-Jones, M. (2010). Troublesome grammar knowledge ad action-research-led assessment design: Learning from liminality. In J. H. F. Meyer, R. Land, & C. Baillie (Eds.), Threshold concepts and transformational learning (pp. 281–299). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Shay, S., & Steyn, D. (2016). Enabling knowledge progression in vocational curricula: Design as a case study. In K. Maton, S, Hood, & S. Shay (Eds.), Knowledge-building Educational studies in legitimation code theory (pp. 138–157). London: Routledge. Shopkow, L. (2010). What decoding the disciplines can offer threshold concepts. In J. H. F. Meyer, R. Land, & C. Baillie (Eds.), Threshold concepts and transformational learning (pp. 317–331). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Stewart, J., Harte, V., & Sambrook, S. (2011). What is theory? Journal of European Industrial Training, 35(3), 221–229. https://doi.org/10.1108/03090591111120386 Van Krieken, R., Habibis, B., Smith, P., Hutchins, B., Martin, G., & Maton, K. (2014). Sociology Themes and perspectives (5th ed.). Sydney: Pearson. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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7. INTENSIVE MODE TEACHING EXPLAINED USING THRESHOLD CONCEPTS

ABSTRACT

In this chapter, we outline findings of research into the impact of intensive mode teaching (IMT) on student experiences of threshold concepts. In attaining threshold concepts, student learners must enter and traverse the liminal space – the state when a threshold concept has come into view, but the student has yet to completely master it. Our research identifies and explains factors that support students in traversing the liminal space within the shortened delivery time of IMT. INTRODUCTION

Intensive mode teaching involves students attending classes on fewer days and for longer on each day than is traditional in the discipline. The mode is increasingly popular in higher education in the 21st century, and also for professional development and training activities for people in the workforce. It allows students to fit classes around work or personal/family commitments; and similarly accommodates teachers visiting remote campuses for blocks of classes, or industry-based teachers visiting campuses for blocks of classes. Intensive modes are increasingly convenient because technology now allows students to access learning materials and to interact outside class. Examples of intensive mode teaching are: ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

one to three week-long blocks of teaching; weekends of classes; classes taught for more than two hours every day over half a semester; and day-long weekly classes for half a semester.

In most models, students have opportunities for face-to-face and/or electronic interactions with peers and teachers between classes, and in the first two of the above models, this interaction can be as long as weeks after classes. Despite the popularity of intensive mode classes especially in health and education (Davies, 2006), little evidence is available about how to teach in intensive mode. This chapter describes the findings of a study into the impact of intensive mode teaching on student attainment of threshold concepts and the development of threshold capabilities, and the teaching strategies that may prove useful in helping students traverse these thresholds when studying in intensive modes. The original

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study on students’ experiences of learning with intensive mode teaching in business units at two universities is described. The discussion describes how features of threshold concept theory and threshold capability theory offer an explanation for the findings about factors that supported and hindered students and recommendations for supporting students’ learning when teaching with intensive mode. PREVIOUS RECOMMENDATIONS FOR INTENSIVE MODE TEACHING

Evidence-based recommendations for intensive mode teaching have been limited but consistent (Male, Alam, et al., 2016), and include the following: ‡ Encourage students to commit from the start (Kuiper, Solomonides, & Hardy, 2015). ‡ Maintain student motivation using a well-structured course (Kops, 2014; Kuiper et al., 2015) and by being organised (Scott, 2003). ‡ Introduce “important and complex concepts early” (Kops, 2014, p. 12). ‡ Teach for deep learning rather than breadth (Scott, 2003). ‡ Use “well-sequenced assessments” that are carefully selected and timed (Kops, 2014; Kuiper et al., 2015, p. 13) and “meaningful assignments that require students to apply or experience the material personally” (Scott, 2003, p. 34). ‡ Carefully select reading (Kops, 2014). ‡ Facilitate active learning cycles of theory, practice, and feedback (Lee & Horsfall, 2010; Scott, 2003). ‡ Facilitate “experiential and applied learning” using teaching practices such as “problem solving, role playing, simulation exercises, field-trips and skill-training practice” (Scott, 2003, pp. 32–33). ‡ Encourage social learning experiences by facilitating peer support; guidance and feedback; classroom interaction and discussions; and a non-judgemental, comfortable, and relaxed learning environment (Lee & Horsfall, 2010; Scott, 2003). All of the above recommendations are consistent with good teaching in any mode, although it is reasonable to expect that they are more critical in intensive mode than in traditional modes of teaching. Encouraging students to commit from the start, using selected and timely assessments, being organised and carefully selecting readings are logistical recommendations that are likely to be more important in intensive mode. The final three recommendations which point to supporting active learning and social learning experiences are also good practice in any mode but the long classes in intensive mode offer exceptional opportunities for these practices. Further understanding about supporting students’ learning in intensive mode was required. In particular, it was important to understand the impact of intensive mode teaching on student experience of threshold concepts, and the teaching approaches that best support students in navigating these threshold concepts. Therefore, we

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investigated the students’ experience of learning in intensive mode to improve knowledge about teaching in this mode. This chapter addresses the question: How do threshold concept theory and threshold capability theory contribute to understanding how teachers can support learning in intensive mode teaching? CONTEXT

This chapter is based on studies of learning experiences of masters students in business units in two well-established research intensive Australian universities: ‘A’ and ‘B’ (Crispin et al., 2016). Both universities offer an extensive range of undergraduate and postgraduate business courses and have had significant experience at delivering business courses in intensive study modes. We refer to a ‘unit’ as a subject worth one eighth of a full annual student load. At University A, the units studied were an accounting unit taught in intensive mode with seven five-hour days over seven weeks, and the same unit taken in ‘flexi-mode’ with eight threehour classes and two six-hour classes over 10 weeks. At University B, we studied a strategic management unit taught in an intensive mode which involved five one-day workshops over five weeks followed by three and a half weeks without classes to complete the major assessment. This study is part of a larger project that used the same method to study the current three units and an additional six intensive mode units and two matched traditional mode units. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

The study was framed by threshold concept theory and threshold capability theory. Threshold concept theory is widely used for curriculum development in a broad range of disciplines as demonstrated by the disciplines represented on the bibliography maintained by Flanagan (2011). Threshold concept theory proposes that most disciplines include concepts, namely ‘threshold concepts’ that are transformative for students in the sense that they open new perspectives, ways of thinking, and capabilities. Due to their transformative nature (Scott, 2014), threshold concepts are critical to future study and practice in the discipline, and usually troublesome (Meyer & Land, 2003; Perkins, 2006). Threshold concepts have common features such as being difficult to forget once understood, and connecting other concepts, which are sometimes used to identify them (Meyer, Land, & Davies, 2006). Teachers can focus curricula on the most critical learning by identifying threshold concepts (Cousin, 2010). Baillie, Bowden, and Meyer (2013) merged threshold concept theory with variation theory to develop threshold capability theory. Threshold capabilities are transformative as are threshold concepts, and threshold capabilities usually depend on one or more threshold concepts. However, capabilities can be more directly 103

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relevant to learning outcomes than are concepts alone. For this reason Male (2012) found it most useful to work with both threshold concepts and threshold capabilities in a study on curriculum development in engineering, and this approach was followed for the current study. Threshold concept theory describes the ‘liminal space’ (Meyer & Land, 2003, p. 10) as the state that a student is in when a threshold concept has come into view but the student is not yet comfortable with that concept. For this study, we extend the liminal space to threshold capabilities. Hence, the liminal space is the state that a student is in when a threshold concept or a threshold capability has come into view for the student but the student is not yet comfortable with that concept or capability. Threshold concept theory explains that the liminal space can be traversed directly by some students but is likely to involve troubling confusion and discomfort for many students (Meyer & Land, 2005, 2006). Some students never enter the liminal space because they do not realise that they do not understand a threshold concept or have not developed a threshold capability. Other students might traverse the liminal space quickly, but many will take a considerable time to traverse the liminal space, and perhaps never achieve this even after finishing their enrolment. The concept of the liminal space raises a particular concern in intensive mode. By definition, intensive mode teaching involves students attending classes on fewer days than is traditional in the discipline, with learning in a unit being consolidated in a shorter time period (for example a unit of study delivered in intensive mode might be completed in just four weeks, as opposed to the normal semester-long duration). It is possible that this increases the risk that students will not have sufficient time to traverse the liminal space during their enrolment in an intensive mode unit. Therefore, the theoretical framework led us to ask not only how teachers can support students’ learning in intensive mode, but also specifically, how teachers can support students to traverse the liminal space in intensive mode. Figure 7.1 demonstrates the problem that the concept of the liminal space raises. If for any threshold concept or threshold capability, students do not enter the liminal space early enough or they take too long to traverse the liminal space, they will likely finish the unit without understanding that threshold concept or developing the threshold capability. To make recommendations for pre-empting the risk shown in Figure 7.1, we studied students’ experiences of threshold capability development in intensive mode units. The approach involved identifying the threshold concepts and threshold capabilities that students experienced and, from students and teachers, the factors that supported and hindered students in developing threshold capabilities. METHOD

A two-phase method adapted from that used by Male and Baillie (2011) to identify threshold concepts and threshold capabilities was employed in this study. The first phase of research was exploratory, and identified threshold concepts and threshold capabilities in the different units included in this study. In the flexi-mode accounting 104

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Figure 7.1. Problems if students are not supported to enter and traverse liminal space

unit (taught at University A) and the intensive mode strategic management unit (taught at University B) students participated in in-class workshops during their final class for the unit. For the intensive accounting unit (taught at University A), students instead participated in a focus group. Details including participant demographics are reported elsewhere (Crispin et al., 2016; Male, Alam, et al., 2016). At the beginning of the focus group and workshops, the theoretical framework was introduced to students by a member of the research team, followed by a brief discussion with them to check their understanding of the theory. Next, the researcher and students engaged in a discussion of their experiences of threshold concepts and threshold capabilities in the unit, how they were transformative and troublesome, what they did to traverse these thresholds, and what aspects of unit delivery (such as direct teaching, support materials, and peer-to-peer discussions) supported and hindered their experience of these thresholds. After this group discussion, students were asked individually to complete a questionnaire which gained further details on the threshold concepts and capabilities in the unit and the factors that helped and hindered their experience of these factors. In the exploratory phase, teaching team members for the units were also interviewed about their understanding of thresholds in the units and their observations of students experiencing thresholds in the units. The first author analysed student written responses, the student focus group transcript, and the transcript of the teaching team interviews, to identify: the thresholds; types of trouble, such as troublesome language, that have been identified within threshold concept theory (Perkins, 2006); what students did to overcome the thresholds; and what supported and hindered them.

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The second phase was designed to confirm and rationalise the findings from the first phase. After students had received their grades for the units so that the research could not influence their grades, a focus group was held for each unit. Participants were the teaching team members for all three units. In the focus group, the first author presented the themes that had emerged from the exploratory phase and also questions about terms, practices, and theory that students had mentioned that the teachers were able to explain. Participants clarified queries about students’ responses that had arisen in the analysis. They also negotiated the main threshold capability and main themes among supporting and hindering factors. For the accounting units, the findings were then confirmed in an online survey of students in the units. This chapter contributes an analysis of how threshold concept and threshold capability theory offers explanations for supporting students’ learning in intensive mode. The analysis was undertaken by considering how the factors that were found to support and hinder students’ development of threshold capabilities could influence the liminal space. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

Factors that Hindered Students Participants reported that the following hindered students’ development of threshold capabilities in the intensive mode units (Crispin et al., 2016): not initially realising that the unit was intensive and required intensive effort; non-study time commitments; long classes being tiring; too much to learn in one class and this being overwhelming; combining intensive units with traditional units; class-time being spent on simple capabilities and challenging capabilities being rushed in class; and ‡ difficulty picking up new terminology, especially for students who were not native English speakers, and difficulty knowing how to read tables in accounting. ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

Factors and Practices that Supported Students Participants reported that the following supported students’ development of threshold capabilities in the intensive mode units (Crispin et al., 2016): ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

previous or current work experience; set reading material; self-management and established study skills; sourcing information and examples from the internet; multiple choice quizzes completed in-class and designed to check preparation for class;

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‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

applying theory to businesses that were familiar to the students; opportunity to ask questions in class; learning from and with peers in class and in online discussion boards; and learning from and with peers outside class or formal discussion boards.

Recommendations for Teaching and Comparison with Previous Recommendations The teaching recommendations that emerge to utilise the opportunities and minimise the risks that arise from intensive mode are consistent with recommendations from previous studies. Recommendations for teaching with intensive mode can be derived by addressing the factors that hindered learning. To address the hindrances identified above teachers could: ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

warn students about the intensive mode when they enrol; support students to prepare for intensive mode before the unit starts; engage students in activities that motivate them towards their learning; focus curriculum so that it is not overwhelming in scope; focus on troublesome concepts and capabilities in class; and prepare students before class or early in class to overcome simple hindrances such as new terminology and conventions in the discipline.

Similarly, teachers can facilitate the supporting factors. Almost all of the factors that supported students’ development of threshold capability development are consistent with the intensive mode recommendations from previous studies. Only sourcing information and examples from the internet was new and this was not limited to the intensive mode units. Supportive factors are achievable in intensive mode, while they are often more difficult logistically in traditional modes, but even in intensive mode these factors must be intentionally designed into the curriculum. Conversely, the likelihood of some risks is higher in intensive mode and curriculum must be designed to mitigate these risks. Significance of Thresholds Framework to the Study The theoretical framework grounded students’ responses. By asking students to first identify a threshold concept or capability, we collected their reflections on specific learning of a critical and challenging concept or capability rather than general statements about their learning. This was designed to guide them to reporting their own experiences of learning rather than ideas based on what they thought they should report or responses they thought we hoped they would report. Students named specific concepts and capabilities in their responses. Similarly, students frankly selfreported unflattering attributes and practices such as laziness, lack of motivation, paid work interfering with studies, and disliking reading or socialising.

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Recommendations Explained by Thresholds Framework Using a thresholds lens, focusing on the influence of factors and practices on the liminal space, threshold capability theory offers explanations for effective intensive mode teaching practices as described below. Focus the curriculum on threshold concepts and threshold capabilities. Students noted that it hindered their learning when class-time focused on easy capabilities and challenging capabilities were rushed. Using the threshold capability framework, this complaint would be addressed by focusing on the threshold concepts and capabilities during class time and leaving simpler concepts and capabilities for students to learn outside class. This recommendation is consistent with Scott’s (2003) recommendation to teach deep learning rather than breadth and also addresses the hindrance reported by students that covering too much to learn on one day was tiring and overwhelming. Support students to enter the liminal space early. Figure 7.1 illustrates the hazard if students enter the liminal space too late and take too long to traverse the liminal space. The findings include three hindrances that would delay entry to the liminal space. First, students reported that applying their learning in real contexts and in team simulations supported them in overcoming thresholds. Related to the recommendation to focus on thresholds is a recommendation to engage students in applying the threshold capabilities early and meeting the troublesome features of threshold capabilities as early as possible to support them in entering the liminal space. This recommendation is consistent with Kops’ recommendation to introduce important and complex concepts early. Second, students who do not recognise the need to be heavily committed to the unit from the start would be unlikely to meet the troublesome features of thresholds initially, and therefore their entry to the liminal space would be delayed. The recommendation by Kuiper, Solomonides, and Hardy (2015) to encourage students to commit early is consistent with ensuring students enter the liminal space early. Third, threshold concept theory recognises pre-liminal variation (Meyer & Land, 2005, p. 384). This is variation in the preparation that students have for understanding a threshold concept or developing a threshold capability. Students’ comments in the study were consistent with this. Students recognised that they developed threshold capabilities more easily if they had accounting experience or relevant work experience, and if they understood the language, terminology and conventions such as how to read tables in accounting. Conversely, students without these supporting factors were more likely to take longer to traverse the liminal space. We recommend identifying and mitigating pre-liminal variation where possible so that all students enter the liminal space early and preferably concurrently so that they can support each other to learn together. Glossaries or even online tutorials can be provided to students. Additionally, peer tutoring and placing students in diverse teams could assist in achieving reliable early entry to the liminal space. 108

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Summarising, recommendations that could contribute to ensuring students enter the liminal spare early are: ‡ ensure students are made aware of the intensive mode at the time of enrolment; ‡ engage students in applying threshold capabilities and meeting troublesome features early; ‡ ensure students understand the need to fully commit to the heavy workload from the start; and ‡ identify relevant pre-liminal variation and provide resources and support to assist students who are not well-prepared. Support students to traverse the liminal space. Factors identified by students as supporting them in developing threshold capabilities are consistent with supporting them to traverse the liminal space by engaging intensively with the threshold capabilities. These factors include active learning, carefully selected reading, and a well-organised curriculum to support the student to self-manage. Maintaining student motivation and encouraging students to prepare for class can be explained as supporting students to traverse the liminal space. Supportive factors that were reported by students and are consistent with maintaining motivation include engaging students in applications that are interesting or relevant to them and using assessment for which they must apply threshold capabilities and struggle with troublesome features of the capability. The regular multiple-choice quizzes to test students’ preparation for class are also recommended. Figure 7.2 illustrates how threshold capability theory explains the benefits of supporting students to enter the liminal space early and to traverse the liminal space.

Figure 7.2. Improvements if students are supported to enter and traverse liminal space

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Figure 7.3. Improvements if students are supported to enter and traverse liminal space and form learning communities

Support students to form and engage in learning communities. A strong theme in participants’ responses was support provided by learning communities. Students reported that asking questions in and outside class was important to supporting their learning, learning from each other supported their learning, and indeed learning from a global community through the internet supported their learning. The factors all support students to traverse the liminal space by engaging in interaction about and using threshold capabilities. Practices that supported students to engage in learning communities in this study were discussion boards, team-based activities such as team simulations, and team-based quizzes. Providing learning environments in which students feel safe and relaxed, as recommended by Lee and Horsfall (2010), and by Scott (2003) are also necessary for encouraging students to develop learning communities. Figure 7.3 illustrates how threshold concept and threshold capability theory offers an explanation for benefits of supporting students to establish learning communities (Wenger, 1998). CONCLUSION

Based on a study framed by threshold concepts and capabilities, understanding of student and teacher practices that support learning in intensive mode were identified. The framework offers possible explanations for the effectiveness of practices recommended by others as well as additional recommendations based on this study. The effective practices are not specific to the mode but opportunities are logistically more feasible in the mode and there is a higher likelihood of risks in 110

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the intensive mode. Teachers must intentionally design curriculum to optimise opportunities and mitigate risks. The effective practices can be explained using the concept of a liminal space as described in threshold concept theory. Effective practices are likely to contribute to supporting students to enter the liminal space early and to traverse the liminal space. Further Research The study reported here was limited in the number and diversity of units studied and the number of universities. In other parts of the project, teachers who coordinated intensive mode units were surveyed, teachers with extensive experience with intensive mode were interviewed, an Intensive Mode Teaching Guide (Male, Baillie, et al., 2016) was drafted, and the guide was reviewed by teachers at workshops, and by students in an online survey. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The participants are gratefully acknowledged. We thank Project Team Members Firoz Alam, Caroline Baillie, David Harte, Jeremy Leggoe, Cara MacNish, and Dev Ranmuthugala; collaborator, Peter Robinson; the Project Evaluator, Grace Lynch; and Reference Group Members Allan Goody, Peter Hoffman, David Lowe, Erik Meyer, Kathleen Quinlan, and Robin King. Linda Barbour is gratefully acknowledged for graphic design and administrative assistance. Support for this project has been provided by the Australian Government Department of Education and Training. The views in this presentation do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Government Department of Education and Training. REFERENCES Baillie, C., Bowden, J. A., & Meyer, J. H. F. (2013). Threshold capabilities: Threshold concepts and knowledge capability linked through variation theory. The Journal of Higher Education, 65(2), 227–246. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-012-9540-5 Cousin, G. (2010). Neither teacher-centred nor student-centred: Threshold concepts and research partnerships. Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, 1(2), 1–9. Retrieved from http://journal.aldinhe.ac.uk/index.php/jldhe/article/viewFile/64/41 Crispin, S., Hancock, P., Male, S. A., Baillie, C., MacNish, C., Leggoe, J., … Alam, F. (2016). Threshold capability development in intensive mode business units. Education + Training, 58(5). http://doi.org/10.1108/et-02-2016-0033 Davies, W. M. (2006). Intensive teaching formats: A review. Issues in Educational Research, 16, 1–18. Retrieved from http://www.iier.org.au/iier16/davies.html Flanagan, M. (2011). Threshold concepts Undergraduate teaching, postgraduate training and professional development – A short introduction and bibliography. Retrieved from http://www.ee.ucl.ac.uk/~mflanaga/thresholds.html Kops, W. J. (2014). Teaching compressed-format courses: Teacher-based best practices. Canadian Journal of University Continuing Education, 40(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.21225/D5FG7M

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S. A. MALE ET AL. Kuiper, A., Solomonides, I., & Hardy, L. (2015). Time on task in intensive modes of delivery. Distance Education, 36, 231–245. https://doi.org/10.1080/01587919.2015.1055058 Lee, N., & Horsfall, B. (2010). Accelerated learning: A study of faculty and student experiences. Innovative Higher Education, 35(3), 191–202. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10755-010-9141-0 Male, S. A. (2012). Engineering thresholds An approach to curriculum renewal (Final report). Retrieved from https://ltr.edu.au/ Male, S. A., Alam, F., Baillie, C., Crispin, S., Hancock, P., Leggoe, J., … Ranmuthugala, D. (2016, July). Students’ experiences of threshold capability development with intensive mode teaching. Paper presented at the Research and Development in Higher Education: The Shape of higher Education, 39th HERDSA Annual International Conference, Fremantle, Australia. Retrieved from http://herdsa.org.au/publications/conference-proceedings/research-and-development-highereducation-shape-higher-18 Male, S. A., & Baillie, C. A. (2011). Threshold capabilities An emerging methodology to locate curricula thresholds. Paper presented at the Research in Engineering Education Symposium, Madrid. Retrieved from http://rees2009.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/63149087/REES%202011%20proceedings.pdf Male, S. A., Baillie, C., Hancock, P., Leggoe, J., MacNish, C., Crispin, S., … Alam, F. (2016). Intensive mode teaching guide. Retrieved from http://www.uwa.edu.au/imt/guide/ Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (2003). Enhancing teaching-learning environments in undergraduate courses (Occasional report 4). Retrieved from http://www.etl.tla.ed.ac.uk/docs/ETLreport4.pdf Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (2005). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (2): Epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning. The Journal of Higher Education, 49(3), 373–388. DOI:10.1007/s10734-004-6779-5 Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (Eds.). (2006). Overcoming barriers to student understanding Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge. London & New York, NY: Routledge. Meyer, J. H. F., Land, R., & Davies, P. (2006). Implications of threshold concepts for course design and evaluation. In J. H. F. Meyer & R. Land (Eds.), Overcoming barriers to student understanding Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (pp. 195–206). London & NewYork, NY: Routledge. Perkins, D. (2006). Constructivism and troublesome knowledge. In J. H. F. Meyer & R. Land (Eds.), Overcoming barriers to student understanding Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (pp. 33–47). London & New York, NY: Routledge. Scott, J. B. (2014). Forging the jewels of the curriculum: Educational practice inspired by a thermodynamic model of threshold concepts. Waikato Journal of Education, 19(2), 115–121. Scott, P. A. (2003). Attributes of high-quality intensive courses. New Directions for Adult & Continuing Education, 2003(97), 29–38. doi:10.1002/ace.86 Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice – Learning, meaning and identity. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1023/A:1023947624004

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8. EDGING TOWARDS UNDERSTANDING Illuminating Student Experiences of Liminality in Introductory Sociology

ABSTRACT

This chapter describes research examining how students grapple with a threshold concept in introductory sociology. Tracking individual learning trajectories via weekly written responses throughout the semester revealed considerable variation in their experiences of liminal uncertainty, while test data and a follow-up survey indicated how complete a grasp of this concept students ultimately achieved. Though the focus is on one particular disciplinary threshold, both the study methods and findings have much broader relevance. INTRODUCTION: SOCIOLOGY AS TRANSFORMATIVE

The fascination of sociology lies in the fact that its perspective makes us see in a new light the very world in which we have lived our lives … this also constitutes a transformation of consciousness. (Berger, 1963, p. 21) Berger’s view of sociology as both enlightening and transformative is widely shared within the discipline and is often represented to students as one of its defining characteristics (Puddephatt & Nelsen, 2010). The Canadian Sociological Association refers to sociology as having a ‘revelatory mission’, enabling students to see things that are not always apparent to the ‘untrained eye’, such as the pervasiveness of social inequality (CSA, 2014, p. 2). Though there are various features of sociology that have the capacity to transform student thinking in this way, the central one is the concept of the ‘sociological imagination’ (Mills, 1959), which requires students to recognise that people’s lives are largely shaped by the social structures that surround them. In a study of what sociology professors thought to be the most important learning goals for students in introductory courses, this concept was the one most often cited as key to enabling students to ‘think like a sociologist’ and it was identified accordingly as a ‘threshold principle of sociology’ (Persell, Pfeiffer, & Syed, 2007, p. 305). It is, moreover, a way of thinking which has the capacity to have an impact beyond the classroom (Haddad & Lieberman, 2002). Since it involves questioning the individualistic idea that success depends solely on personal agency, and instead directs us to acknowledge the extent of structural disadvantage, it can radically alter the way students view social

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004419971_008

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inequality, effectively making them more thoughtful, compassionate, and engaged citizens (Howard & Zoeller, 2007). What is therefore most important to sociologists about the potential of the sociological imagination is its capacity to enable students to think differently (Rusche & Jason, 2011). It is apparent to all who teach sociology that students themselves often experience their first exposure to the discipline as transformative, with many referring to it ‘opening their eyes’ or ‘broadening their perspective’. However not all react so positively to the challenge the sociological imagination may pose to their habitual way of thinking; both Eckstein, Schoenicke, and Delaney (1995) and Haddad and Lieberman (2002) reported that some of the more privileged students in their classes actively resisted this, preferring to continue attributing social inequalities to individual inadequacies or misfortunes, rather than structural disadvantages of race, class and gender. It thus appears that the sociological imagination can meet several of the criteria for a threshold concept (Meyer & Land, 2003); it is potentially transformative but can also be troublesome for students and they may spend a considerable time in an uncomfortable liminal state, as they struggle to grasp it. For example, Eckstein et al. (1995) found that fewer than 50% of students showed an adequate grasp of it after two consecutive semesters of introductory sociology.1 This is important, since most students in introductory sociology courses never pursue the subject any further (Wagenaar, 2004). Sociologists have also noted that we lack evidence of whether, once achieved, this is learning that is irreversible and enduring (Szafran, 1986; Wylie & Parcell, 1982). These questions, arising within the disciplinary literature, led me to find a threshold concepts framework fruitful as I embarked on research investigating how readily students grasp the sociological imagination. In addition to addressing an important pedagogical issue for sociologists, this study was designed to offer further empirical evidence of student experiences of liminality in a subject area not examined in previous threshold concepts research (Entwistle, 2008). In particular, given the evidence that students may differ markedly in their readiness to develop a sociological imagination, I was interested in identifying factors affecting variation in student learning in this domain (Meyer, 2010; Meyer & Land, 2006). RESEARCH DESIGN

The research2 consisted of two parts – a main study,3 involving data-collection throughout the teaching semester, and a follow-up study, involving an online survey sent to students at least twelve months after course completion.4 The main study was intended to provide ‘real time’ data on the learning process, as students’ understanding of the concept of the sociological imagination altered over the course of the semester. In the case of the follow–up study, this was designed to assess whether students had acquired a sufficient grasp of the concept for it to become deep, irreversible and transformative learning, and to explore how they viewed this learning experience in retrospect. I explain both parts of the research in some detail, 114

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so as to make the methods I employed (and their rationale) explicit, as recommended by Quinlan et al. (2013). Main Study Data-collection5 started in Week 1 of the semester with a short survey, in which students provided background information about their programme of study, their reasons for taking this course and their expectations of it. The main body of data came from students’ weekly ‘learning dossier’ entries, consisting of responses written in class to questions tapping their ability to apply their sociological imagination in particular topic areas. I also used as data students’ performance on test questions on this concept in Week 4 and Week 14. This combination of qualitative and quantitative data enabled me to trace students’ developing understanding of the concept over the course of the semester.6 An example of the data collection schedule is shown in Table 8.1. Follow-up Study The main questions in this survey involved responses to a set of 11 Likert-scale items relating to students’ experience of the course. These were designed to identify what students believed they had learned, what they perceived to be the general benefits of taking the course8 and how challenging they had found it. One item also asked specifically about students’ recall of the sociological imagination and then tested their ability to explain it. Two open-ended questions invited respondents to state how Table 8.1. Sample data collection schedule: Winter 2015 Week

Data collected

Week 1

Survey: student profile, motivation for taking course

Weeks 2,* 8, 10*

Learning Dossier: Questions based on textbook reading for that week

Week 3

Learning Dossier: ‘ Velcro’7 questions on course content Weeks 1–3

Week 4

Test 1: included questions on the ‘sociological imagination’, ‘agency’ and ‘structure’

Weeks 5, 9, 11,* 12,* 13

Learning Dossier: Questions based on class discussion of that week’s topic

Week 7*

Learning Dossier: Questions on applying sociology to everyday life

Weeks 1,14

Learning Dossier: Individual and Society mind-map + explanatory notes

Week 14

Learning Dossier: Final ‘Velcro’ question for course as a whole

Final Exam

Final exam included questions on the ‘sociological imagination’ and the ‘American Dream’

* Questions which specifically stated: ‘Hint: use your sociological imagination’

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they thought the course had affected them; these were intended to elicit responses that would demonstrate students’ actual ability to apply a sociological imagination in their everyday lives. Study Participants Over the three years in which I collected data from my first year classes, a total of 365 students from twelve classes took part in the main phase of the study (a participation rate of 92%); of the 227 students who also agreed to be contacted 12 months later, 106 took part in the follow-up study (a response rate of 47%). Seventy-two of these students chose to provide their name, thereby enabling me to link their responses to the data obtained from them in the main phase of the study. These individuals are the focus of this analysis. Examining the background data they provided in Week 1, and in the follow-up survey, demonstrated that, demographically at least, these participants were not noticeably different from the general profile of students in any introductory sociology class at this institution.9 RESEARCH FINDINGS

Main Study Data: Insights into Student Learning within the Liminal Space The data collected throughout the semester provided various indications of how students grappled with the sociological imagination, which was introduced in Week 1 of the course. Their weekly learning dossier entries show that a few seemed confident that they had grasped it early on: as one wrote in Week 3, ‘I feel confident that I understand this and could explain it to someone else’ (S14-0110). However, this was uncommon, and though by the time of the first test most students were able to explain the concept satisfactorily, several ‘confessed’ that this was the result of memorising from the textbook, with one admitting quite openly that she doubted her real grasp of it: To be completely honest I don’t understand the concept of the sociological imagination. I could remember the definition of it from the textbook but I don’t understand the concept itself. (S12-24) Though many students remained unsure of their understanding of the concept for several more weeks, it became clear that they could sometimes apply it in thinking about specific issues. For example, roughly half-way through the course students were asked to employ their sociological imagination to explain how they had become the person they were. By this time some were able to identify how their social environment had an impact on their personal agency: I think that where I was born (Vancouver) and who I was born to (white, middle-class parents) have defined who I am socially and culturally … I think 116

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the opportunities I have had are definitely affected by my circumstances … So much of my culture and social status has been predetermined in ways I had not considered before. My level of agency is far less than I would have assumed. (S15-22) Towards the end of the semester, many more students were able to employ a sociological imagination in their learning dossiers when addressing the problems sociologists perceive with the ideology of the American Dream. This can be seen in the example below, where social inequalities, rather than a lack of individual effort, are identified as the basis for failing to achieve material success: The American Dream … portrays a flawed reflection of reality in our society. It overlooks the underlying issue of inequality and instils the belief that everyone can and should be able to succeed. Such [an] assumption is dangerous as it might put the burden of poverty on the poor itself (sic), not on the system. (W15-17) However, for some students it was only when reviewing their learning at the end of the semester that they were able to integrate what they had learned and feel confident of their understanding11: While studying for the final and looking back at this I was able to make more connections. It seems like now everything falls together. (W15-28) Other evidence of students’ grasp of the concept came from their performance on formal tests. In addition to testing their ability to explain the sociological imagination in the first test, in Winter 2013 I introduced a question about the American Dream on the final test, so as to assess students’ ability to apply the concept. A year later, I also started including another question on the final test, broadly equivalent to the explanatory one used in Test 1. Adding these new test questions enabled me to assess differences between students’ grasp of the concept in Week 4 and again in Week 14, and to compare their ability to define and to apply or ‘contextualise’ it (Hallden, 1999). Table 8.2 shows that the majority of students were able to obtain a passing mark on all three of these questions; however, the mean scores for the first two questions show that, overall, students actually explained the concept significantly less well on the final test than they did on the first one (t (39) = 2.035, p = 0.049). At the individual level, although eight students (20%) showed a marked improvement from Test 1 to Test 3 in their ability to explain it (as one might hope to see), three times as many students did less well on the Test 3 question and for sixteen students their mark was 10% or more lower. These results, though disconcerting, also provide intriguing evidence of the unpredictability of student learning trajectories. Of the various possible explanations for these results, the most likely one is that the students who performed so much better on Test 1 than on Test 3 probably did so on the basis of what Meyer (2010) characterises as ‘cram and dump’ learning, consistent with 117

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What are sociologists trying to do when they use their sociological imagination? Please provide an example to demonstrate this.

What do sociologists mean when they talk about the sociological imagination and why do they consider it to be so important for Sociology students to understand this concept?

How is the tendency to ‘blame the victim’ consistent with the ideology of the American Dream? What is the problem with this perspective from a sociological standpoint? How else can social inequality be explained?

Test 1 Q7

Test 3 Q1

Test 3 Q2 M = 68.4% SD = 17.69

M = 68.9% SD = 11.99

M = 74.1% SD = 11.60

Mean and Standard Deviation

17.5

7.5

15

A 85% and over

32.5

42.5

50

B 70–84%

37.5

42.5

30

C 55–69%

7.5

5

2.5

PASS 50–54%

5

2.5

2.5

FAIL 50% and under

Percentage of answers in each grade band (n = 40)

Table 8.2. Test marks for student answers to questions on the sociological imagination, Test 1 and Test 312

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the student ‘confessions’ reported earlier. This would underline the argument made by Land and Meyer (2010) regarding the flaws of a single ‘snapshot’ approach to assessing student learning, since it seems clear that this test failed to produce an accurate measure of their true grasp of the concept. Their lower marks on the Test 3 question may therefore represent a more reliable indicator of their eventual level of comprehension since it appears that by then they were no longer making active efforts to memorise the concept but had obtained and retained a general (though still imperfect) understanding of it. This illustrates the important difference between surface and deep learning, made by Marton and Säljö (1976). However, what is also interesting about these results is the comparison between marks for the Test 3 questions involving explaining the concept (Q1) and applying it (Q2). Although the average mark on the applied question (Q2) was barely any different than for the explanatory question, more than twice as many students produced A grade answers, and some did noticeably better on this question than the conceptual one, suggesting that they found it easier to apply this concept effectively than to explain it. Overall, then, data from the main study point to considerable variation in how easily students develop an understanding of the sociological imagination. Some students seemed to ‘get it’ almost immediately, but many others found this concept challenging in various ways, and the inconsistencies in their understanding, as demonstrated both in test answers and in their learning dossiers, are indicative of how much their grasp of it fluctuated. Nevertheless, by the end of the course many claimed that they now understood the sociological imagination and would remember it even after the course was over. For example: One thing I am sure I will remember is the sociological imagination, because it explains what sociology is all about – i.e. the relationship between individual experiences and the larger society. (W15-01) I think the most important thing I will remember from this course is the part that society plays in an individual’s life. A person needs society to develop to their fullest capabilities but … it is also society that can stop a person from achieving this because social inequalities stand as obstacles. (S14-48) While this was encouraging, having witnessed the blank looks on many students’ faces when asked about the sociological imagination at the start of upper-level sociology courses, I was interested to discover how much my research participants would actually remember one year later, in the follow-up study. Follow-up Study Data: Looking for Evidence of Transformative Learning Student responses to the follow-up study indicated that taking this course had had an important impact on many. Mean scores on the Likert-scale items13 showed that most students agreed that the course had made them more interested in difficult social issues (M = 4.1, SD = .808) and had changed their views about the causes 119

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of social inequality (M = 3.63, SD = .971). There was also widespread agreement that taking it had made it possible for them to apply what they were learning to their everyday life (M = 3.76, SD = .847) and to relate their own experiences to the wider world (M = 4.17, SD = .787). All of these provide encouraging evidence to support the claims sociologists make regarding the general benefits of exposure to a sociological perspective. However, does this mean that they had also experienced the transformation of consciousness that Berger (1963) associated with acquiring a sociological imagination? Sadly, relatively few students reported confidence in their recall of this concept (M = 2.97, SD =1.053) and of the twenty-two who did claim to remember it, only a handful were actually able to explain it satisfactorily.14 Although this is disappointing, it is probably not surprising in light of the test evidence from the main study. Indeed, just as students were better at applying the concept than explaining it in their final test, the same was true in this survey. Forty-five students (67%) demonstrated a good practical grasp of the sociological imagination when responding to a question asking them to explain how the course had influenced their thinking,15 even though over half of them had previously indicated that they felt unable to explain the concept itself. The following response comes from one such student: This course made me realize that many of the actions we take and choices we make are impacted by the social constraints of society and that as individuals we in turn shape society. (S13-02) Many students (63%) also reported some form of transformation in their perspective, attitudes or actions in response to another question, regarding the most valuable thing they thought they had gained from taking the course. For example: The most valuable thing I gained was a more open-minded understanding of our society. (W15-40) It opened my eyes … and made me question the assumptions and values I have. (S13-33) [I gained] a new perspective and enhanced my level of empathy. (W14-09) Summing up, although disappointingly few students reported a strong recall of the concept of the sociological imagination in the follow-up survey, a majority were nevertheless able to demonstrate their ability to employ this lens when explaining how individual behaviour is largely shaped by society, and many also reported being aware of how taking the course had affected them. Taken together, this evidence, obtained twelve months or more after course completion, suggests that encountering the sociological imagination had in fact had a significant (transformative and irreversible) impact on their thinking. Indeed, since ‘thinking like a sociologist’ (Middendorf & Pace, 2004) is something individuals can continue to practise in their everyday lives, it is likely that this new way of viewing the world can become habitual, as sociologists hope is the case.16 120

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DISCUSSION

Much recent work within the Threshold Concepts Framework focuses on what goes on within the ‘black box’ of liminality (Land, Meyer, & Flanagan, 2016), while another important strand of theory and research involves exploring variation in student learning in relation to thresholds in a variety of different disciplines (Meyer, 2010). This study yielded relevant findings in both areas. Peering into the ‘Black Box’ As Land (2016) argues, in an era in which there is (too) much emphasis on identifying and assessing learning outcomes, the study of learning thresholds instead orients our attention towards the difficult and often uncomfortable process of learning – one that is typically invisible, unlike student pass and fail rates. Until I started this research, I had made the convenient assumption that if my first-year students passed the final exam they must have grasped the sociological imagination. Indeed, most sociology textbooks continue to present this as a learning outcome for Chapter 1 and few make explicit reference to it thereafter, implying that students are expected to have understood it straightaway (Thomas, 2015). It was only after coming to conceptualise the sociological imagination as a threshold concept – and as the crucial indicator of their learning in introductory sociology – that I even considered testing students’ understanding of it at any point after the first test. Yet by re-focusing on their learning as a process and assessing it over many weeks, I have discovered that this way of thinking seldom results from any instant epiphany but is rather something that most students require considerable time to develop. Thus, in order to help students navigate learning thresholds such as this we must be willing to pay close attention to their struggles with liminality, peering into this ‘black box’, even if doing so reveals things we would rather not see, such as student uncertainty and confusion.17 One particular reason why students may struggle with this and other threshold concepts in sociology is the fact that grasping them typically does more than pave the way for future learning in the discipline; instead, these concepts have the power to transform students in ways that go beyond their classroom experience (Howard & Zoeller, 2007). For this reason, encountering the sociological imagination may generate not only cognitive resistance but also a defensive response (Schwartzman, 2010) at an emotional level, since it may threaten not just academic knowledge but everyday ontologies. Not all students welcome this transformation. As one student wrote at the end of the semester, ‘things are a lot more grey now, as opposed to black versus white’, and though she personally found this exciting, for others this may represent an unwanted challenge to their customary way of thinking. This underlines the importance of being aware of differences between students and gauging how to provide the appropriate balance of challenge and support to all, but especially those who experience particular difficulty in making this learning transition (Mezirow, 2000). 121

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Tracing Variation in Student Experiences of Liminality There was certainly ample evidence of variation in student learning experiences in this study. At one extreme, three students reported that the course did not really change their thinking, so much as provide them with a vocabulary for something that they already sensed (i.e. a tacit understanding, as described by Pang and Meyer, 2010). Others who could relate it to their own experiences also tended to grasp the concept sooner than most, as other sociologists have observed (Haddad & Lieberman, 2002). For example, several female students who were immigrants to Canada noted how very different their lives would have been had they remained in their country of birth, and this enabled them to understand the powerful influence of society on the individual. Another student was able to see how the concept connected to her experiences at work: As a child and youth worker I apply all these issues in many aspects of my life. I work with a variety of children so I use my sociological imagination to better understand my clients and their behaviours … I’ve started to think like a sociologist outside of class … (S14-46) Students like these thus manifested a degree of preliminal readiness to engage with this threshold concept (cf. Pang & Meyer, 2010). However, those students with strongly held beliefs about personal agency found it much harder to accept this way of thinking. One student in particular clearly struggled to resolve this clash of perspectives throughout the semester, with this coming to a head in a very confused and contradictory set of learning dossier responses that she wrote in relation to the sociological critique of the American Dream. Yet this ultimately culminated in a turning-point, noted in her final learning dossier entry: This course has opened my somewhat closed mind to new ideas and ways of looking at things …. I have decided to take more sociology courses in the Fall. (S15-30) These findings therefore confirm that one important reason for variation in students’ ability to grasp a threshold concept is their individual readiness for change (Timmermans, 2010), which is itself complicated by many factors such as age and other demographic variables, as well as prior educational and life experience. In addition, Rattray (2016) has emphasised the importance of psychological factors, arguing that students differ in their ability to tolerate uncertainty as they struggle in the liminal space. This, too, may be relevant for students encountering a sociological concept that some are reluctant to embrace. CONCLUSIONS

This research was designed to explore how students cope with a potentially troublesome threshold concept in sociology, to identify how long it takes them to 122

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grasp it and to establish whether this constitutes transformative and irreversible learning. By employing a mixed-methods approach, drawing upon a variety of data (including assessing students’ long-term retention of this concept), the study provides a better understanding of each of these issues. Though most students appeared to have acquired a basic grasp of the sociological imagination by the end of the course, their learning dossiers provide important evidence of the variability of their experiences while coming to grips with this concept and point to the need to provide more support to those who struggle with it. Another important finding of this study is that students may cross a learning threshold and demonstrate this in their thinking without being able to name or explain the concept itself. While that inconsistency may matter a lot in some contexts, it is arguably the change in thinking that matters most. As Bain (2004, p. 17) suggests, ‘learning has little meaning unless it produces a sustained and substantial influence on the way people think, act and feel’ and it is precisely this that most sociologists really want their students to have achieved, especially if this introductory course is likely to be their only exposure to the discipline (Buechler, 2008; Howard & Zoeller, 2007). ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am grateful to the College for granting me a period of research leave in which to complete my data analysis, and to my colleagues for their support and interest throughout. Above all, I am indebted to the many students who were willing to participate in this study, with whom I shall also be sharing my findings. NOTES 1

2 3 4

5

6

7

8

9

Indeed, some research (McKinney, 2007; McKinney & Naseri, 2011) suggests that even in their final year of study, not all sociology majors feel confident of their understanding of this concept. The study was approved by the Douglas College Research Ethics Board in May 2012. The main phase of data-collection took place between Summer 2012 and Summer 2015. Owing to a delay implementing the follow-up survey, students who took the course between Summer 2012 and Summer 2014 completed the survey in Fall 2015 – i.e. up to 3 years after taking the course in some cases, whereas those taking it in Winter or Summer 2015 completed the survey no more than 18 months after course completion, in Fall 2016. Student consent to participate in the main study was requested both at the start of the semester and again in the final week, when students were also asked whether they would be willing to be contacted to participate in an online follow-up survey. The use of learning dossiers was not only invaluable as a method of data-collection, but also had the benefit of promoting student awareness of their own learning over the course of the semester, as a number of students informed me. ‘Velcro’ questions are a form of classroom assessment technique (CAT) designed to indicate students’ grasp of relevant course material via written responses to each of the following questions: (1) ‘What do you feel confident about (i.e. what is sticking with you)?’ (2) ‘What have you found most difficult, challenging or confusing?’ (3) ‘What have you found most interesting about [X]?’ Several of these questions were based on similar items used by Howard and Zoeller (2007) in their study of student perceptions of the general impact of taking a sociology course. Fifty-two of these students (72%) were female and twenty (28%) were male. Participants were fairly diverse in terms of their ethnic origins: although 56% identified their cultural background as either

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10

11

12 13 14

15

16

17

Canadian or European, many other origins were also identified (some in combination with these). The majority of the students (81%) were no more than 24 years old at the time when they took this course, with a median age of 20, and 58% took it in their first year of post-secondary education. Slightly more than half of them reported taking the course because it was either a requirement for their programme (35%) or a recommended elective (22%). Only nine students had taken any previous sociology courses and the majority (76%) reported in the follow-up survey that they had taken no further sociology courses since this one. As a further check I also noted their final grades in the course, which followed a fairly normal distribution, with 61% of students obtaining grades in the B range, 17% in the A range and 13% in the C range. This, too, indicated that study participants did not differ markedly from others who have taken this course, making it possible to infer that the range of their learning experiences is also likely to be fairly typical. Student responses are identified by the semester in which they took the course and the number subsequently assigned to them to protect their identity. Though it should be noted that several students who took this course in a condensed format in just 7 weeks commented that this was insufficient time in which to adequately process what they were learning. It was only from Winter 14 onwards that students wrote both of these test questions (n = 40). Responses to these items were scored from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Respondents were asked to indicate how strongly they agreed or disagreed with the statement: ‘I still remember the concept of the sociological imagination well enough to explain it to somebody’. If they agreed they were then asked to write in their explanation. Q5 asked: ‘In what ways (if at all) has taking this course made you think differently about how people act and the choices they make in their everyday lives?’. One of the many personal motivations for undertaking this research came from my realisation that I had no recollection of learning about the sociological imagination as a student; yet I had incorporated it into my everyday thinking for so long that I had no idea when I might otherwise have first started to think like this. This brings to mind the many metaphors (Pandora’s Box, the genie in the bottle, the can of worms) which allude to the problems we only become aware of once we open them up for scrutiny.

REFERENCES Bain, K. (2004). What the best college teachers do. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Berger. P. (1963). Invitation to sociology. Garden City, NY: Anchor. Buechler, S. (2008). What is critical about sociology? Teaching Sociology, 36(4), 318–330. Canadian Sociological Association. (2014). Opportunities in sociology. Mississauga: CSA. Eckstein, R., Schoenicke, R., & Delaney, K. (1995). The voice of sociology: Obstacles to teaching and learning the sociological imagination. Teaching Sociology, 23(4), 353–363. Entwistle, N. (2008). Threshold concepts and transformative ways of thinking within research into higher education. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & J. Smith (Eds.), Threshold concepts within the disciplines (pp. 21–35). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Haddad, A., & Lieberman, L. (2002). From student resistance to embracing the sociological imagination: Unmasking privilege, social conventions and racism. Teaching Sociology, 30(3), 328–341. Hallden, O. (1999). Conceptual change and contextualization. In I. W. Schnotz, S. Vosniadou, & M. Carretero (Eds.), New perspectives on conceptual change (pp. 53–65). Amsterdam: Pergamon. Howard, J., & Zoeller, A. (2007). The role of the introductory sociology course on students’ perceptions of achievement of general education goals. Teaching Sociology, 35(3), 209–222. Land, R. (2016). Toil and trouble: Threshold concepts as a pedagogy of uncertainty. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & M.T. Flanagan (Eds.), Threshold concepts in practice (pp. 11–24). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Land, R., & Meyer, J. H. F. (2010). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: Dynamics of assessment. In J. H. F. Meyer, R. Land, & C. Baillie (Eds.), Threshold concepts and transformational learning (pp. 61–79). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.

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EDGING TOWARDS UNDERSTANDING Land, R., Meyer, J. H. F., & Flanagan, M. T. (Eds.). (2016). Threshold concepts in practice. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Marton, F., & Säljö, R. (1976). On qualitative differences in learning: Outcome as a function of the learner’s conception of the task. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 46(2), 115–127. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/20448279 McKinney, K. (2007). The student voice: Sociology majors tell us about learning sociology. Teaching Sociology, 35(2), 112–124. McKinney, K., & Naseri, N. (2011). A longitudinal, descriptive study of sociology majors: The development of engagement, the sociological imagination, identity and autonomy. Teaching Sociology, 39(2), 150–164. https://doi.org/10.1177/0092055X11400438 Meyer, J. (2010). Helping our students: Learning, metalearning and threshold concepts. In J. Christensen Hughes & J. Mighty (Eds.), Taking stock Research on teaching and learning in higher education (pp. 191–214). Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (2003). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: Linkages to ways of thinking and practising within the disciplines. In C. Rust (Ed.), Improving student learning Theory and practice – 10 years on (pp. 412–424). Oxford: OCSLD. Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (2006). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: An introduction. In J. H. F. Meyer & R. Land (Eds.), Overcoming barriers to student understanding Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (pp. 3–18). London: Routledge. Mezirow, J. (2000). Learning as transformation Critical perspectives on a theory in progress. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Middendorf, J., & Pace, D. (2004). Decoding the disciplines: A model for helping students learn disciplinary ways of thinking. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 98, 1–12. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/15360768 Mills, C. W. (1959). The sociological imagination. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Pang, M., & Meyer, J. H. F. (2010). Modes of variation in pupils’ apprehension of a threshold concept in economics. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & C. Baillie (Eds.), Threshold concepts and transformational learning (pp. 365–381). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Persell, C., Pfeiffer, K., & Syed, A. (2007). What should students understand after taking introduction to sociology? Teaching Sociology, 35(4), 300–314. Puddephatt, A., & Nelsen, R. (2010). The promise of a sociology degree in Canadian higher education. Canadian Review of Sociology, 47(4), 405–430. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1755-618X.2010.01245.x Quinlan, K., Male, S., Baillie, C., Stamboulis, A., Fill, J., & Jaffer, Z. (2013). Methodological challenges in researching threshold concepts: A comparative analysis of three projects. Higher Education, 66(5), 585–601. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-013-9623-y Rattray, J. (2016). Affective dimensions of liminality. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & M. T. Flanagan (Eds.), Threshold concepts in practice (pp. 67–76). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Rusche, S., & Jason, K. (2011). “You have to absorb yourself in it”: Using inquiry and reflection to promote student learning and self-knowledge. Teaching Sociology, 39(4), 338–353. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/0092055X11418685 Schwartzman, L. (2010). Transcending disciplinary boundaries. In J. H. F. Meyer, R. Land, & C. Baillie (Eds.), Threshold concepts and transformational learning (pp. 21–44). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Szafran, R. (1986). What do introductory sociology students know and when do they know it? The results of pre-testing students. Teaching Sociology, 14(4), 217–223. Thomas, A. M. (2015). “Threshold concepts”, dissonance and disorientation in transformative learning Exploring student encounters with “troublesome knowledge” in introductory sociology. Paper presented at the 35th Annual Conference of the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, Vancouver, Canada. Timmermans, J. A. (2010). Changing our minds. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & C. Baillie (Eds.), Threshold concepts and transformational learning (pp. 3–19). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Wagenaar, T. (2004). Assessing sociological knowledge: A first try. Teaching Sociology, 32(2), 232–238. Wylie, M., & Parcell, S. (1982). A study of attitude change in college classes. Teaching Sociology, 9(4), 411–422.

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9. BRINGING THE APPLE AND HOLDING UP THE MIRROR Liminal Space and Transformation in Visual Art Making

Conceptually, art education has become something of a goldfish bowl floating in a larger sea of issues and considerations. The world within the bowl is not invalid or unrealistic, but it is not cognisant of wider, equally relevant horizons. – Nadaner (1984, p. 26) ABSTRACT

This chapter presents a case study exploring how the visual art making process might give us a glimpse into the liminal journey. It considers the complex threshold of self and identity and attempts to show how we might get purchase on one young woman’s experience of crossing this threshold through her art work. The chapter will be of interest to those interested in liminality and how we might gain purchase on this elusive aspect of the TCF. INTRODUCTION

This exploratory study was conducted in the context of an International Baccalaureate (IB) visual arts course in an American secondary school where the IB curriculum has been formally assessed since 2001. The chapter will introduce a case study of a student installation as a basis to explore the potential application of the Threshold Concepts Framework (TCF) and transformation theory to the IB visual art-learning context. We argue that threshold concepts can provide an important theoretical lens through which to analyse the visual art process and learning environment. We argue, further, that through continued research, art education may find new relevance in the curriculum and 21st century education by providing a means for teacher reflection upon the epistemic potential of visual art, and new pedagogical approaches. The relevance of this stated aim originates in our criticism of common assumptions as to the role and practices of visual art as they pertain to the education of young people. The most common assumption is that student participation in the art-making process, in any form, results in the cognitive development of problem solving, critical thinking, and the presumptive affective dimension of self-expression (Lampert,

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004419971_009

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2006). While these are certainly possible outcomes, it is a sweeping generalisation to think these outcomes are inherent and automatic without considering the manner of student engagement with the art-making process in the classroom context. Prescribed teaching limits art education to a production process, focusing on the development of competencies in skill, achieved by precise teacher directed objectives (Illeris, 2007). Freire (1970) considered traditional education as the ‘banking method’ of learning, where the teacher deposits information to those students whom the teacher deems worthy of receiving the gift of knowledge. Art classrooms are often orientated in the same manner as traditional academic classrooms where the teacher acts as a gatekeeper and access to learning and to tasks is granted through the teacher (White, 1998). The major problem with this form of education is that students become dependent on the teacher for knowledge and do not learn to think for themselves, which in the context of visual art removes the most essential ingredient to achieving the aforementioned development. Eisner (1981) suggests that art is a process in which ‘skills are employed to discover ends through action’, whereas craft is a process whereby skills are used to arrive at a preconceived end (as cited in May, 1993, p. 212). As a result, assessment is often focused upon aesthetic appeal and the demonstration of technical skills, which is an inherent contradiction to the common presumption that education in the arts fosters cognitive development of critical and conceptual thinking. In reality, the emphasis is placed upon facility with material and media, reducing the conceptualisation of learning to nothing more than students proving themselves worthy to the teacher. Within Cognitive Development Theory, Kegan (2000) argues that the student is held subject to the curriculum rather than holding it as object, or as a launching point or tool for obtaining relevant or personal knowledge. Dewey (1938) claims that: the history of educational theory is marked by opposition between the idea that education is development from within and that it is formation from without; that it is based upon natural endowments and that education is a process of overcoming natural inclination and substituting in its place habits acquired under external pressure […]. (p. 17) He states further (as reported in Glassman, 2001) that there is little to be gained by getting the learner to simply exhibit the required product of activity, and places emphasis on the disposition of the student towards the process. Applying the Thresholds Concepts Framework to Dewey’s ideas, we infer that the issue of visual art as cognitive and affective development inherently involves the potential to cross thresholds. Empirical to the Theoretical: Threshold Concepts and the Affective Dimension Felten (2016) argues that there is a need to address how the student experiences threshold encounters in the learning process. We argue that liminality is at the core

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of the student experience in regard to learning. In the thresholds literature, liminality is often described as a transformative state or a ‘liquid space with great potential for learning, experimentation and growth’ (Felten, 2016, p. 5). According to Meyer and Land (2003) It represents a transformed way of understanding, or interpreting, or viewing something without which the learner cannot progress. As a consequence of comprehending a threshold concept there may thus be a transformed internal view of subject matter, subject landscape, or even world view. (p. 412) In other words, troublesomeness and liminality are intertwined (Meyer & Land, 2006). Within this paper, tacit and ontological knowledge are regarded as forms of troublesome knowledge. More specifically, in the case study of Ramesha that will be discussed below, Ramesha experiences troublesomeness and a liminal state as it pertains to her identity as woman, on both cognitive and affective dimensions. Rattray (2016) emphasises the importance of the affective dimension in threshold concepts, arguing that threshold transformations cause the individual to experience the world differently, not just in terms of intellectual understanding, but also the way they feel about or experience the world. Rattray considers the extent to which liminality might be experienced as both a cognitive and affective state which is navigated by some students more easily than others (Rattray, 2016). Rattray’s observation raises a salient point and interesting questions that open a door of relevance for research in the domain of the visual arts within the threshold literature. More specifically, does variation in the ability to navigate liminality have to do with individual attributes, the discipline, or the media that are employed as the means of navigation? Does visual art offer a unique means of navigating liminality which necessitates the inherent involvement of the affective dimension of threshold concepts? Meyer and Land (2006) discuss the issue of thresholds being ‘bounded’, in that there are terminal frontiers. This seems applicable to visual art. When taken into account as a conceptual subject, the visual arts are bounded in that there is development specific to the field itself in regard to the use of material and form. But when considered in relation to the affective dimension, there is meaning and expression of experience that transcend the formal elements of visual art. For example, Ramesha’s artwork has a more holistic purpose to learning than just becoming a better artist. Boundedness is a crucial issue in regard to visual arts and threshold concepts. There are instances within art education where it is appropriate to limit art education to an exercise in technical skill. However, Wenger (1998), in research on communities of practice, argued that ‘learning at the boundaries is necessary if communities of practice do not want to lose their dynamism and become stale’. Therefore, it is essential that art education involve boundary crossing and that educators understand the full potential of the art discipline within the classroom context.

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Transformative Theory We argue that integral to the underpinnings of the IB philosophy is transformative theory, which, according to Mezirow (2000, p. 3), is predicated upon the ‘urgent need to understand and order the meaning of our experience’. Piaget (as reported in Wadsworth, 1996) conceptualises this process as ‘accommodation’. More specifically, accommodation occurs when the organism changes itself to take in new influences from the surrounding environment in order to maintain equilibrium and avoid a prolonged state of disequilibrium (Illeris, 2007). Disequilibrium occurs when individuals engage in and with new experiences that conflict with their existing knowledge (Wadsworth, 1996). In other words, transformative theory builds upon the assumption of the human need to understand and make meaning of our experience and to integrate it with what we know. According to Mezirow (2000, p. 5), ‘learning is understood as the process of using a prior interpretation to construe a new or revised interpretation of the meaning of one’s experience as a guide to future action’. Mezirow (1990), in earlier work, argued that ‘revised interpretations are challenged by our habits of mind or sets of assumptions that influence our interpretations of experiences’ (p. 1). Mezirow (2000) argues that transformative learning represents a significant change in the structure of thought. involving emotions and actions. Mezirow (2000, p. 6) contends that transformative learning is often ‘an intensely threatening emotional experience’ due to its subjective challenge to our taken-for-granted frames of reference. There is an inherent affective element to transformative learning that makes an important distinction in regards to the conceptualisation of learning and the role of pedagogy and the learning environment. Kalantzis and Cope (2008) consider transformative learning as an open-ended struggle rather than a clear destination, a process rather than a formula for action. The work of Dewey (Glassman, 2001) prioritises the focus of learning upon vital experience and more specifically on the human development of the desire to engage with experience which may be perceived as foreign. One may also construe these types of experiences to be troublesome (Meyer & Land, 2006), or a state of disequilibrium. Dewey, along with Mezirow (1990), differentiates learning to perform from learning to understand experience. According to Mezirow, Taylor, and Associates (2011), transformative theory urges the recognition of a critical dimension of learning that enables one to recognise, reassess and modify the structures of assumptions and expectations that frame our tacit points of view and influence our thinking, beliefs, attitudes and actions. (p. 39) The transformative literature provides a conceptual lynch pin in that transformative theory provides a conceptualisation of the construct ‘learn’ and insight into the cognitive and affective processes involved. More specifically, the IB philosophy places emphasis upon the development of attributes, such as international-mindedness, holistic education, and intercultural understanding (IBO, 2009). As discussed in the former section, an inherent element of this philosophy is education that focuses upon 130

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the understanding and meaning of experience among assessment performance. This changes the balance of agency in learning relationships, encouraging learners to construct their own knowledge, negotiate global and local differences, and extend the breadth and scope of their education beyond the walls of the traditional classroom (Illeris, 2007). Consequently, the affective element in the construction of knowledge and engagement with experience becomes highly relevant and present within the learning process. Furthermore, this is indicative of a conceptualisation of knowledge that according to Perkins (1999) is troublesome, tacit, and ontological. Student Case ‘You know what Mr. Ravenstahl, I realized I don’t need a man to be happy’. ‘You know what Ramesha,1 I think you just graduated high school’. This exchange occurred while one of the authors was assisting the student in preparing for her IB visual art exam, which occurred during the spring semester of the school calendar. The student made huge changes in her artwork over the length of the course. In the beginning of the course, her work consisted of trite and unresolved drawings of skulls and skeletons that were expressive of low self-esteem and angst. However, over the course, a relationship and trust evolved between the student and teacher, which led to personal conversations about the student’s experiences and perceptions. The work presented in the following pages evidences the changing nature of Ramesha’s art. From Ramesha’s perspective, the work (completed in the form of an installation) addressed issues of her identity as a woman, of power, and of low self-esteem and low self-worth in the context of her home. Ramesha was born in Sri Lanka, but had been raised predominantly in the United States; therefore, her home culture reflected that of Sri Lanka rather than American culture. However, Ramesha was an otherwise typical American teenager in terms of dress, mannerisms, and taste. In her view, she attended school in America but lived in Sri Lanka. This cultural context is important because it informed her observations of conflicting experiences as a young woman. More specifically, when at school, she felt as though she was treated as equal to any other student despite gender or ethnic background. Moreover, she felt accepted for who she was. At home, however, she was treated distinctly differently from her brother, often citing differences in permitted freedoms and obligations to the home. Ramesha referenced conversations with her father and his expectations of her as being a good woman around the house who could cook and clean. More importantly, her job was to get married to a Sri Lankan man whom she would make happy. In the course of working with Ramesha, her work evolved from mundane and typical drawings that were indicative of negative self-image (for example skulls and skeletons with wounds) into a sophisticated sitespecific installation that consisted of domestic objects deliberately manipulated and assembled to comment on her experience and perception of being a woman in her 131

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family context. The following account presents images and some basic analysis of the meaning and intention of the work, drawn from her perspective. The installation was created in the school gallery (Figure 9.1), which is triangular, with two carpeted walls and one wall consisting entirely of glass. As the photographs demonstrate, Ramesha used ink to mark the glass windows with words and sketches (Figure 9.2). The words are written in Sinahala or Tamil, the official languages of Sri Lanka and are excerpts from a letter exchange between Ramesha and her aunt. The aunt was supportive of Ramesha’s more progressive and modern views of womanhood, as well as of her views of self-esteem and self-concept expressed in the installation. Ramesha often referred to the value she had placed upon her exchanges with her aunt, who continued to live in Sri Lanka and had divorced her abusive husband. According to Ramesha, her father disapproved of the aunt’s divorce and described his sister as a bad woman, solely for the reason of her divorce. The relevance of this brief context is to offer insights into the underpinning assumptions and attitudes that informed dialogue and dynamics in the student’s home. It is important to note that Ramesha chose to exhibit in this space because she wanted people to ‘see in’ from outside the space. The writing and marking on the glass was a means to claim the significance of the transparency of the barrier in a visual and expressive manner. In other words (literally), the marking on the glass places emphasis upon the transparent but solid barrier separating the internal space of the gallery and external space of the hallway.

Figure 9.1. Looking into the gallery, from the outside, through the glass covered with the writings between Ramesha and her aunt

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Figure 9.2. Ramesha writing on the glass with brush and ink

The significance of this visual element is that it brings the viewer into the experiences, feeling, and thoughts of Ramesha as one enters the gallery. One metaphorically walks through her thoughts and words. The installation becomes a representation of her version of home as interpreted through feeling and perception. The installation breaks the gallery into several smaller spaces that are representative of an abstracted domestic environment. The respective images are the ‘front room’ of the installation, which is created by five doors attached together, one of which opens as a proper doorway. Ramesha also used ‘found’2 industrial light coverings, made of metal and plexi-glass that were partially transparent. These were used in order to create a smaller room within the installation, one wall of which helps create the ‘front room’. Within the front room is a circular coffee table partially covered with a lace doily and an open family photo album which contained scanned and printed family photographs that had Ramesha in them (Figure 9.3). She then digitally erased her face from the pictures, which left an obvious white circle on her remaining body (Figure 9.4). In the student’s view, this was an expression of a lack of identity or personhood. It can be argued that leaving her body is indicative of her presence, whilst the replacement of only her face with a circular white void is a significant expressive choice commenting on personhood. The coffee table and photo album further articulate the reference to domestic life and home. At the other end of the room is a ‘found’ skeleton placed in a seated position upon which Ramesha smashed a large number of the found plexi-glass light coverings, 133

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Figure 9.3. The front room of Ramesha’s installation. The coffee table and photograph album on one side and the skeleton covered in broken glass on the far side with Ramesha working on writing on the glass

Figure 9.4. The three photographs provide details of the photograph album, with Ramesha’s face removed, and the skeleton

leaving the skeleton partly buried in shattered plexi-glass. Above the skeleton was a clock that made a loud consistent buzz. In Ramesha’s view, this element of the installation was expressive of her psyche and emotional state in regard to the complexity of her experiences. The skeleton makes an overt, almost clichéd reference to herself, whilst the composition as a whole (including the smashed plexi-glass) suggests aspects of low self-esteem and low self-worth. Although these elements are expressive of internal feeling and psyche, there is an impression of the viewer observing Ramesha. More specifically, we are still aware of her physical being whilst we gain insight to her internal state of being. 134

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Within the installation, Ramesha built a smaller room out of some of the found light coverings formerly mentioned and photographed. There is the implication that the room had been used as a dark room where photographic negatives were made into black and white prints. The primary reference to the dark room and photographic process was a table upon which three labelled trays of chemicals used to print photographs were placed and a clothesline, which could be used to dry prints. In addition, there are prints hung to dry with wooden clothes pegs with multiple prints scattered on the floor, as well as some in the chemical trays (Figure 9.5).

Figure 9.5. The make shift dark room that suggests the printing of photographs of Ramesha

As formerly discussed, Ramesha claimed the significance of the internal and external underpinning of the space by writing on the glass walls with ink. More specifically, by entering the gallery we are, figuratively, entering her feelings, mind, and experience. Therefore, this smaller room constructed inside the installation is suggestive of a deeper internal element of the self. Furthermore, there is clear reference to a processing of sorts. Although the photographic process is referenced, missing equipment and the constant presence of light indicates the photographic process is not literal, but a metaphor for mental processing. The images are selfportraits, taken in a natural setting and in opposition to the domestic world of the installation. One may interpret this room as a deeper layer of the mind and experience, a means by which Ramesha perceives herself. In the detailed images of the black and white prints the mood is clearly contemplative and in ‘another place’. In one image, although somewhat clichéd, Ramesha stares at her own reflection. It can be argued that the difference of place, as well as the contemplative mood of the images – in conjunction with considerations of process and space – provide evidence from which interpretations can be made. It may be construed that this element of the installation addresses the idea of self-perception and the struggle to define and understand herself outside of the home. The final element of the installation is a crib made of splintered wood and the found elements of a teddy bear and respective cloth elements associated with infancy in daily life (Figure 9.6). Ramesha intentionally splintered the wood and painted it a pink colour, as well as chose found objects to be placed in the fabricated crib. On the floor next to the crib is a found woven basket which holds resin cast bones, indicative of being human. The reference of the crib and other objects in this element 135

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Figure 9.6. The pink crib is made from wood that was split in order to show a contrast of the soft blankets and suggestion of comfort

of the installation make obvious (and again almost clichéd) reference to domestic life and childhood – or innocence in particular. These references are in contrast to the manipulation of the wood material. More specifically, the blanket and teddy bear stand in stark contrast to the splintered wood and the form of the crib. This contrast, along with the cliché of the bones, suggests a conflict between the two elements of innocence and damaging experience. Another manner of thinking is that the blanket (protection) and bear (affection) are ideal representations of innocence or childhood while they are contained in the contrasting (uncomfortable and perhaps threatening) form and material of the crib. This suggests either a conflict of the ideal with her reality, or that the crib may represent the parental structure or support containing her. TROUBLESOME, TACIT AND ONTOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE AND THE LIMINAL STATE

Perkins (1999) provides a foundation for the later framework of threshold concepts (Meyer & Land, 2003) with his earlier work addressing nuances of knowledge. He identifies troublesome knowledge as knowledge that seems counter-intuitive, foreign, or even intellectually absurd as an individual first engages with it. Presumably, troublesome knowledge holds a relationship to ‘construct disequilibrium’ mentioned earlier, implying that troublesome knowledge does not align with an individual’s 136

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existing knowledge. Moreover, Meyer and Land (2003) state that troublesomeness is a commonly experienced characteristic of the liminal state and the crossing of thresholds. Troublesomeness, in the case of Ramesha, takes the form of tacit and ontological knowledge. Meyer and Land (2003) conceptualise tacit knowledge as that which remains mainly personal and implicit, and Polanyi (1958) clarifies it as a level of practical consciousness. Giddens (1984, p. 9) conceptualises tacit knowledge as being ‘emergent but unexamined understandings’. One may construe the meaning of Ramesha’s installation as a form of subconscious thought or knowledge yet to be engaged on a more direct and conscious level of awareness. Ellsworth (1989, 1997) conceptualises ontological knowledge as inherent knowledge that results from the unique experiences associated with race, religion, ethnicity or economic, physical or mental disadvantages that shape perception and understanding. One may simplify ontological knowledge as being implicit to one’s being and inextricable from an individual’s experiences. In the context of this case study, there are clear correlations with the constructs of tacit and ontological knowledge which highlight the relevance of the visual art-making process as a means of learning or navigating the liminal state. In regard to the case, there is a clear indication that Ramesha experiences troublesomeness in the differing understandings of her identity and power/esteem as a woman. More specifically, her experiences in the community and the letter exchanges with her aunt provide differing experiences and perceptions (from those derived from her home environment) with which she ultimately engages and which, arguably, push her into the liminal space. As previously discussed, the creation of this installation was a time that was extremely productive and creative for Ramesha. Moreover, it was a radical departure from her typical visual language up to that point in time, as she moved from unresolved drawings on paper to creating an installation that filled an entire gallery. Ramesha began perceiving everyday found objects as possessing meaning and holding potential to become forms of representation of her affective experience at that period. This change in perception is representative of a shift from a safe and traditional manner of working into an entirely foreign medium and with material that was completely new to her. Furthermore, this sudden change was a potentially high-stakes decision, in that the IB assessment exhibition and interview were in the very near future. However, this more complex manner of representation was accomplished with greater success, understanding, and resolve than all of her previous work. There is no direct explanation for this change; there was no ‘lesson’ provided by her teacher on installation or any specific rationale intended to provoke her into working in this particular medium or with these specific materials. The only consistent factor in the classroom experience was informal discussion of her struggles with identity and self-esteem as a woman. Therefore, it can be argued that the installation acts as a means of engagement with these tacit and ontological forms of troublesomeness. As formerly discussed, liminality has been described as a transformative state, or a ‘liquid space with great potential for learning, experimentation and growth’ (Felten, 137

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2016, p. 5). When the troublesome knowledge is considered in conjunction with the generation of the art installation, there is evidence of great experimentation, growth and learning as they pertain to Ramesha’s development as an artist. As previously stated, she generated artwork that held complex meanings and did so with greater success than in any of her previous work, more specifically in regard to knowledge construction inherent in the art-making process and method of representation of meaning derived from her experience. The work now expresses a meaning that can be perceived by others in the interpretation of symbols and manipulation of materials. It can be argued that these present evidence of Ramesha being in the liminal state and of the installation itself being a physical manifestation or representation of her attempt to navigate liminality. Ramesha’s statement about not needing a man to be happy suggests evidence of some reconciliation of the troublesome knowledge and, ultimately, of the liminal state. We are not attempting a causal argument or arguing evidence of an actual crossing of a threshold, but rather a possible glimpse of a threshold related to the navigation of the liminal state. Furthermore, the navigation of liminality occurred within the knowledge construction inherent to the art-making process. Visual Art as Evidence of the Liminal State What makes material a medium is that it is used to express a meaning which is other than that which it is in virtue of its bare physical existence. (Dewey, 1938, p. 201) The strongest evidence of the ability of visual art to give form to the liminal state is found in the domain of art therapy. Sibbett and Thompson (2008) predicate their research upon an inherent correlation of the liminal state with what Turner (1995, p. 128) calls, ‘an urge to generate, symbols, rituals and works of art’. Sibbett and Thompson (2008) further argue (p. 230) that it is essential to utilise effectively the ‘reflexive symbolic and art expression generated by liminality as a means of navigating it’. Eisner (1981) argues that arts-based educational research (ABER) provides emotional and interpersonal description that allows for unique understanding within social sciences that departs from the limitations of literal scientific description. In Method Meets Art (2009), Patricia Leavy argues that ABER practices offer researchers ‘new pathways for creating knowledge within and across disciplinary boundaries’ (p. ix). Furthermore, these practices are employed in all phases of research including data collection, analysis, interpretation and representation resulting in more holistic and engaged ways in which theory and practice are intertwined (Leavy, 2009). The ABER literature frequently conceptualises the researcher as merging ‘their artist self with their scholar self‘ (Leavy, 2009, p. 2) which is further understood in the a/r/tography3 literature as the practitioners occupy in-between space which merges knowing, doing and making (Springgay, Irwin, & Kind, 2005). The relevance 138

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of understanding this point is that in this chapter we make the implicit argument that Ramesha is acting in a similar capacity. More specifically she is employing the artmaking experience to engage with troublesomeness and navigate the liminal state by capitalising upon the ‘urges’ for expression and form. In order to be explicit, we are not arguing that Ramesha is engaging in art therapy or ABER, but is drawing from the same epistemic characteristics that were mentioned earlier. When considered in this manner, one may construe the role of the arts educator as being to utilise the creative process as a means of leading students towards troublesomeness and, ultimately, the liminal state. Jaspers (1948, p. 716) discusses the revealing function of art and argues that ‘Arts-based expression and learning offers the potential for revelatory inclusion of that which otherwise might be excluded as taboo’. In the context of Ramesha’s case, there are strong correlations between the urges of liminality and revelatory factors in the art-making process. Boundedness and Boundary Objects There are further complex (and complicating) aspects of the visual art-making process which reveal themselves in Ramesha’s work which merit further explanation, and which also attest to the strong epistemic potential of the role of the visual art-making process. The issues of boundedness and the discursive element of threshold concepts are implicit to Ramesha’s liminal journey. Meyer and Land (2003) suggest that an identifying characteristic of threshold concepts may be the issue of their being bounded. Academic disciplines are distinguished from each other by their conceptual frontiers. The issue of boundedness was implied in the opening premise of our research when discussing the overly generous assumptions accredited to the impact of visual art upon other established conceptual areas. We argue that Ramesha is an example where the art-making process does transcend conceptual boundaries and navigate the liminal space. Akkerman and Bakker (2011, p. 136) state that boundary objects serve a ‘bridging function’ and that they ‘refer to ongoing, two-sided actions and interactions between contexts. These actions and interactions across sites are argued to affect not only the individual but also the different social practices at large. Akkerman and Bakker (2011) distinguish boundary crossing from Säljö (2003) argument that transfer refers to something learned in one context and applied in another context. The issue of boundedness is highly relevant in the consideration of visual art as a means of navigating liminality, which is addressed to some degree in the previous sections. Therefore, the argument can be made for the ability of visual art to cross conceptual boundaries and facilitate relevant knowledge construction. Wenger (1998) argues that boundary objects are based upon ‘reification’, which is ‘the process of giving form to our experience by producing objects that congeal this experience into ‘thingness’ (p. 58). Wenger’s statement is indicative of the artmaking process as understood in the case study under discussion. The transformative boundary objects in the literature (Akkerman & Bakker, 2011) are experienced as 139

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interpretive engagement with an external existing object. In the case of visual art, we are considering an object that is born into existence from the internal cognitive and affective dimensions, which provides a form of representation of Ramesha’s experiences. For example, Ramesha’s interpretation of the baby crib or the photo album does not contain Ramesha’s image. It would be obtuse to ignore the obvious and distinct differences of interpreting an object versus the complex processing of creating the object that makes tacit and ontological knowledge explicit and concrete. Upon further consideration, it can be argued that the art-making process acts as a form of ‘reification’. Discursive Element Meyer and Land (2005, pp. 20–21) identify the discursive nature, of threshold concepts, which ‘entails a reconstitution of the learner’s subjectivity’ and results in ‘new and empowering forms of expression’ which may provide clarity or forms of troublesome knowledge. However, Meyer and Land are referencing the acquisition of new thresholds and the understanding that discourse is integral to this new space. In the context of this study, visual language, or discourse, arguably acts as a vehicle for the ‘‘reconstitution of subjectivity’. In other words, visual art functions as a semiotic navigation toward a new understanding. In literature that addresses issues of third space and even in the thresholds literature, there are many claims to alternative or non-discursive forms of dialogue. Obviously, within this context, the art installation acts as a form of ‘cultural practice’ (Bhabha, 1994) that engages and expresses experiences to others. However, in this installation the issue of dialogue is not as relevant to the medium in which it operates. What appears to be the most salient aspect is that it is a dialogue with the self, or as Markova (2006) suggests, with the ego. The work of Chi et al. (1989) states that self-explaining is a means of knowledge construction that has had an impact in academic classrooms. Land and Meyer (2010) clarify that self-explanation theory requires an individual to be aware of changing understandings and when considered in conjunction with different forms of representation, highlights the potential for research into how understanding evolves. It can be argued that Ramesha employs the visual art process as a means of self-dialogue or self-explanation. Further consideration into the generation of the installation and the surrounding identity changes that accompanied it, highlight the relevance of the discursive element, especially when the evidence of a transformed worldview is taken into account. CONCLUSION

It is clear the art-making process played a role in Ramesha’s affective and cognitive changes in regard to her identity and esteem as a woman. However, as previously stated there are many experiences that stimulated the troublesome knowledge and 140

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potential liminality, that in turn may have assisted in her growth process. Therefore, it suggests the relevance of claims towards the epistemic role of the visual artmaking process in regards to this transformation. NOTES 1 2

3

The student’s actual identity has been anonymised. Found: Typically in art the term found or found object refers to an artist using a material for expressive purposes that already has an existing use or function in everyday life but the artist expands upon or recontextualises this original context. In the case of Ramesha she uses typical household furniture or building materials and claims them into her own experience through their manipulation or alteration. ‘To be engaged in the practice of a/r/tography means to inquire in the world through an ongoing process of art making in any artform and writing not separate or illustrative of each other but interconnected and woven through each other to create additional and/or enhanced meanings’ (Irwin, n.d.).

REFERENCES Akkerman, S. F., & Bakker, A. (2011). Boundary crossing and boundary objects. Review of Educational Research, 81(2), 132–169. doi:10.3102/0034654311404435 Bhabha, H. K. (1994). The location of culture. New York, NY: Routledge. Chi, M. T., Bassok, M., Lewis, M. W., Reimann, P., & Glaser, R. (1989). Self-explanations: How students study and use examples in learning to solve problems. Cognitive Science, 13(2), 145–182. doi:10.1207/s15516709cog1302_1 Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2005). Handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York, NY: Macmillan. Eisner, E. W. (1981). On the differences between scientific and artistic approaches to qualitative research. Review of Research in Visual Arts Education, 13, 1–9. doi:10.3102/0013189X010004005 Ellsworth, E. (1989). Why doesn’t this feel empowering? Working through the repressive myths of critical pedagogy. Harvard Educational Review, 59(3), 297–325. doi:10.17763/haer.59.3.058342114k266250 Ellsworth, E. (1997). Teaching positions Difference, pedagogy, and the power of address. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Felten, P. (2016). Introduction: Crossing thresholds together. Teaching and Learning Together in Higher Education, 1(9), 1. Retrieved from https://repository.brynmawr.edu/tlthe/vol1/iss9/1 Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Seabury. Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Glassman, M. (2001). Dewey and Vygotsky: Society, experience, and inquiry in educational practice. Educational Researcher, 30(4), 3–14. doi:10.3102/0013189X030004003 Illeris, K. (2007). How we learn Learning and non-learning in school and beyond. Abingdon: Routledge. International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO). (2009). Principles to practice. In Diploma programme assessment Principles and practice. Geneva: Peterson House. Irwin, R. L. (n.d.). A/r/tography. Retrieved from http://artography.edcp.educ.ubc.ca/?page_id=69 Jaspers, K. (1948). Philosophie (1st ed., 1932). Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Kalantzis, M., & Cope, W. (2008). New learning Elements of a science of education. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Kegan, R. (2000). What form transforms? A constructive-developmental approach to transformative learning. In J. Mezirow & Associates (Eds.), Learning as transformation Critical perspectives on a theory in progress (pp. 35–69). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Lampert, N. (2006). Critical thinking dispositions as an outcome of art education. Studies in Art Education, 47(3), 215–228. doi:10.1080/00393541.2006.11650083

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M. J. RAVENSTAHL & J. RATTRAY Land, R., & Meyer, J. H. F. (2010). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (5): Dynamics of assessment. In J. H. F. Meyer, R. Land, & C. Baillie (Eds.), Threshold concepts and transformational learning (pp. 61–79). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Leavy, P. (2009). Methods meets art. New York, NY: Guilford Press. May, W. T. (1993). Teaching as a work of art in the medium of curriculum. Theory into Practice, 32(4), 210–218. doi:10.1080/00405849309543600 Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (2003). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: Linkages to ways of thinking and practising within the disciplines. In C. Rust (Ed.), Improving student learning Improving student learning theory and practice—Ten years on (pp. 412–424). Oxford: Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development. Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (2005). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (2): Epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning. Higher Education, 49(3), 373–388. doi:10.1007/s10734-004-6779-5 Mezirow, J. (2000). Learning to think like an adult. In J. Mezirow & Associates (Eds.), Learning as transformation Critical perspectives on a theory in progress (pp. 3–33). San Francisco, CA: JosseyBass. Mezirow, J., & Associates. (1990). Fostering critical reflection in adulthood. San Francisco, CA: JosseyBass. Mezirow, J., Taylor, E. W., & Associates. (2009). Transformative learning in practice Insights from community, workplace, and higher education. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Nadaner, D. (1984). Critique and intervention: Implications of social theory for art education. Studies in Art Education, 26(1), 22–26. doi:10.1080/00393541.1984.11650393 Perkins, D. (1999). The many faces of constructivism. Educational Leadership, 57(3), 6–11. Polanyi, M. (1958). The study of man. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Rattray, J. (2016). Affective dimensions of liminality. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & M. T. Flanagan (Eds.), Threshold concepts in practice (pp. 67–76). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Säljö, R. (2003). Epilogue: From transfer to boundary-crossing. In T. Tuomi-Gröhn & Y. Engeström (Eds.), Between school and work New perspectives on transfer and boundary-crossing (pp. 311–321). Amsterdam: Pergamon. Sibbett, C., & Thompson, W. (2008). Nettlesome knowledge, liminality and the taboo in cancer and art therapy experiences: Implications for learning and teaching. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & J. Smith (Eds.), Threshold concepts within the disciplines (pp. 227–242). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Springgay, S., Irwin, R. L., & Kind, S. W. (2005). A/r/tography as living inquiry through art and text. Qualitative Inquiry, 11(6), 897–912. doi:10.1177/1077800405280696 Turner, V. (1995). The ritual process Structure and anti-structure. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction. Wadsworth, B. J. (1996). Piaget’s theory of cognitive and affective development Foundations of constructivism (5th ed.). White Plains, NY: Longman. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. White, J. H. (1998). Pragmatism and art: Tools for change. Studies in Art Education, 35(3), 215–229. doi:10.1080/00393541.1998.11650025

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10. THE STUDENT SCHOLAR IDENTITY Using Students’ Reflective Work to Develop Student-Scholars, Address Liminality, and Design Curriculum

ABSTRACT

This chapter argues that the ‘student-scholar identity’ (SSI) is a threshold concept for all undergraduates. Written metacognitive reflection holds promise as a means to provide further evidence of SSI and details about students’ liminal state as they develop SSI. The students’ written metacognitive reflection can also inform curriculum changes. It will be of interest to those involved in undergraduate education and especially to those working with students from groups historically underserved in higher education. EDUCATIONAL SETTING

California State University at San Marcos (CSUSM) is a regional, comprehensive/ Master’s level university with roughly 12,000 students and slated to grow to 25,000 by 2025. Fifty-seven percent of graduates are first-generation college students and forty-four percent are students from historically underrepresented groups. CSUSM is a designated Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI), Asian American, Native American, Pacific Islander-Serving (AANAPISI), and Veteran-Serving Institution. This designation requires that universities have a particular number of students who identify as members of these groups. For example, HSI designation requires that at least 25% of full-time equivalent students identify as Hispanic. Such designation, in the United States, then allows the institution to apply for grants targeted to these populations. Over 90% of CSUSM first-year students take the first-year seminar course ‘General Education Lifelong Learning 101’ (GEL 101), with most of them completing the course in the fall semester. This course, coupled with two additional general education courses (speech and writing) aim to, among other learning outcomes, provide a foundation for college-level research skills. The concept of the studentscholar identity is introduced and/or reinforced in each of these courses, but is emphasised within the first-year seminar course. GEL 101 takes a hybrid approach:

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004419971_010

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it is both an extended orientation course and focused on developing academic skills and habits of mind. THE STUDENT SCHOLAR IDENTITY AS THRESHOLD CONCEPT

Within the course, there is a two-week module focused on developing students’ college-level research skills. While certainly students learn about and practise conducting research, the librarians that teach this portion of the course centre it on the development of the disposition and habits of mind of a student-scholar, called the ‘student-scholar identity’ (SSI). This aims to move students from centring their agency on a more passive role where the student is ‘taking classes for a degree’ and towards valuing their abilities as a knowledge creator and contributor to the scholarly conversation of the academy. As a student-scholar, students are active participants within a scholarly discourse community, albeit at a novice level. The authors theorise that the development and adoption of SSI is necessary for students to learn college-level research skills and provides an essential foundation for the in-depth study, information acquisition, and pursuit of inquiry in any field of study. The SSI has a number of characteristics that make it a threshold concept for college students. It is transformative in that students recognise that research is not a process of gathering, or even establishing, facts. It is the creative act of entering a conversation in progress and contributing new knowledge to the dialogue. It is troublesome since students must confront that expertise and authority is not solely the territory of recognised experts but instead includes them, even as novices within the scholarly community. Students must reconsider their understanding of authority and divergent knowledge. The SSI is irreversible: information and knowledge is recognised as no longer value neutral. All information/research can now be seen as value-laden and created by people with biases (that are neither good nor bad). The student scholar identity is integrative; it weaves its way throughout the skills and habits of mind that novice researchers struggle to adopt. For example, it makes transparent that the rhetoric of academic integrity and practice of citation is for reasons greater than simply preventing plagiarism; that academic disciplines and discourse communities are not arbitrary, but that their logic is based in disciplinary values and practice. Lastly, the student scholar identity is liminal. Its embodiment is a process that spans the college career, often even past undergraduate and into graduate studies and life beyond the academy. As students become more deeply invested in the conversations and problems faced by their specific disciplines, their identities as scholars interact with their identities as members of families, cultures, and communities. As students progress towards adoption of this identity, they would find they can better recognise the overarching purpose of the scholarly community, or any discourse community: to be an engaged member of local and global communities by helping to solve problems and create new knowledge. The SSI furthers the scholarly conversation on threshold concepts in two ways. First, the authors argue that SSI could be a threshold concept necessary for all 144

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undergraduates, no matter the particular field of study. A significant investigative focus has been, and continues to be, on articulating field-specific threshold concepts. This is clearly demonstrated in the ‘Subject Index’ of the web page maintained by Flanagan (2018). White, Olsen, and Schuman (2016) seek to move this focus away from specific disciplines and describe a methodology to learn about instructor and student experiences with threshold concepts applicable to any discipline. The SSI appears to hold promise as a threshold concept that can be applicable across disciplines and particularly to undergraduates. Undergraduates may not only cross thresholds towards expertise, but also develop identities as community members within particular fields, their university, and once they are no longer undergraduates, the other communities of which they may be members. Secondly, the SSI centres not on student learning, but on identity development. Identity changes and development appear throughout the threshold concept literature. There are numerous places in which it is noted that students experience an ontological shift as they move through thresholds: ‘Threshold concepts lead not only to transformed thought but to a transfiguration of identity and adoption of an extended discourse’ (Meyer & Land, 2005, p. 375). If extended discourse is the manifestation of the transfiguration of identity, SSI may provide a means to gain insight on how instructors may facilitate this process. Research on college student identity development clearly illustrates that it is a substantial aspect of student learning and their overall experience as an undergraduate, as summarised by Jones and Abes (2013). Of particular note is the role that identity transfiguration can play for students from historically underserved groups; these students may be more likely to experience obstacles in this transfiguration into experts in a field, but even simply into identifying as successful college students, and, ultimately, student-scholars. As a threshold concept, the SSI spans both academic and information literacies. It prepares students to engage in inquiry, both mechanistic and conceptual. While it is possible to become information literate without this identity, it makes it harder because the skills are then divorced from the disciplines, and the transfer of knowledge from the academic domain to the workplace is inhibited. Academic literacy includes skills that encourage learning across all subjects along with a framework to transfer this learning between subjects and beyond the university. Young and Potter (2013, para. 73) argue that an academic literacies model engages the student not only in the practice of reading and comprehending academic texts; it also enables the student to connect such texts to his or her own experience, as well as recognize the material and cultural forces that shape both texts and the student’s own experience of them. The SSI takes this implicit and makes it explicit by giving students the language, skills, and values that their discipline requires.

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Academic librarians have embraced threshold concepts as a means to engage students more successfully with information literacy instruction. This is most clearly illustrated by the Association of College and Research Libraries’ (ACRL) 2015 ‘Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education’ which provides librarians, professors, and others involved in instruction detailed descriptions of what are generally recognised as threshold concepts of information literacy within the context of higher education. These descriptions (aka frames) can then be used as a basis through which educational experiences centred on information literacy can be created, taught, and assessed. Since the adoption of this framework by the ACRL there is a growing body of research on how to teach and engage students with this framework. Significant examples can be already be found in the literature (Bravender, McClure, & Schaub, 2015; Godbey, Wainscott, & Goodman, 2017; Hofner, Hanick, & Townsend, 2018). The authors’ work here on SSI does bear some relationship to information literacy in that students’ work is centred on information seeking, evaluation, and use in a college setting. SSI and information literacy are close parallels, yet different. The SSI, by definition, is focused on the perception of one’s self and one’s interaction with the scholarly community as an undergraduate. Information seeking, evaluation, and use are an essential aspect and a means towards locating the self. SSI ‘concludes’ with a recognition and willingness to assert oneself as a knowledge creator; information literacy is the primary area of ‘content knowledge’. METACOGNITIVE REFLECTION TO CULTIVATE AND ASSESS SSI

Cultivating an identity shift in students is clearly a teaching challenge. What can instructors do to facilitate this shift and what can students do to demonstrate this shift, particularly students’ navigation through the challenge we assume they will experience? The authors identified written metacognitive reflection as having the potential to achieve both aims. Metacognitive reflection requires students to recognise their own learning. Students must acknowledge their prior knowledge, which includes their understanding about their own learning styles and strengths, and take steps to address any limits of their understanding (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000). Bresciani-Ludvik’s (2016) edited book The Neuroscience of Learning and Development provided an invaluable research foundation for the value and suitability of written metacognitive reflection to cultivate and assess the admittedly complex process of students’ identity shifts towards being a student-scholar. Marx and Gates’ (2016) chapter within this book provides ample research on how self-authorship (the ability to internally define one’s own beliefs, identities, and relationships) appears to be central to traditionally-aged college students’ ability to progress towards the complex reasoning skills at the centre of many learning outcomes within higher education. Marx and Gates (2016) cite Baxter Magolda (2001), a major researcher on self-authorship in order to define this concept further:

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[self-authorship is] a developmental process in which young adults in their 20s and 30s move from reliance on others for decision-making and knowledge generation into a period in which they integrate their own knowledge and judgement with that acquired from others … [this research] focuses on how people know rather than what they know. (p. 104) Here, we see many parallels between self-authorship and the SSI that first-year students in this course are introduced to and reflect upon. Indeed, we argue that the SSI is not only a concept to be taught, but also a developmental period to support students through. Marx and Gates continue this chapter detailing strategies that can support self-authorship development. Specifically, writing assignments that ‘ask reflective questions’ and ‘ask students to distinguish and weigh internal versus external factors for decision making’. It is here the authors find a body of research that indicates using metacognitive reflection, manifested within writing assignments, can support identity shift and development. The SSI relies on students identifying themselves as full members and participants of the scholarly community, even as first-year undergraduates. Using writing as the methodology for students’ metacognitive reflection shows particular promise in being useful to help students progress towards this conclusion. Roozen’s chapter from Writing What We Know (2015), articulates how the act of writing is not only a method of learning, but a means of engaging with the possibilities for selfhood available in a given community. It also means recognizing that the difficulties people have with writing are not necessarily due to a lack of intelligence or a diminished level of literacy but rather to whether they can see themselves as participants in a particular community. (p. 51) Writing is identity work, Roozen elaborates, and through writing, students’ identities can be shifted, constructed, and reconstructed. In the same book, Estrem (2015) furthers this concept by encouraging instructors to acknowledge that ‘approaching disciplinary writing as an act of identity and affiliation illuminates how writing in new contexts is not only about learning abstract conventions but also about learning how to be within a group with social conventions, norms, and expectations’ (p. 36). Estrem also touches on the difficulty students face with this: discipline specific writing threatens their sense of self because these ways of thinking and writing are so distinct from other more familiar reading and writing practices, such as those valued at home or in other communities in which the students are members. (p. 56) Taken together, Roozen and Estrem provide evidence that that the act of writing can provide rich opportunities for students to consider their identities and possible roles within communities. These opportunities also allow students to negotiate and

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navigate the liminal space they inevitably encounter with an experience as significant and individual as identity shifts. At CSUSM, these opportunities are especially potent. For first-generation and underrepresented students, writing has the potential to assist with identity shift and identity construction, as well as metacognition. Penrose (2002) offers examples of first-generation student narratives that describe their ‘outsider’ experience in an academic community, and suggests that writing can be used to bring students into their new community, while honouring their past experiences. By using their own reflective powers to make their first foray into this particular form of liminality and find a place for themselves in the academy, however tentative, students are equipped to apply information literacy and a more critical identity to their lives as engaged citizens, no matter what they pursue after graduation. Helping students birth their SSI responds to a question of equity, in that it can contribute to a level starting point by equipping first generation college students with the same skills, knowledges and habits of mind as their better-prepared classmates. Particularly in the context of constructing identities related to one’s role within the academy and specific disciplines, metacognitive reflection that makes use of writing in particular, appears to offer a means to help students progress towards seeing themselves as student-scholars. It is noteworthy that, generally speaking, writing is already a foundational and fundamental part of first-year curriculum. Integrating these activities into existing curriculum can be relatively straightforward to do. Of particular import is that students’ writing provides immensely valuable insight and evidence for instructors about students’ experiences in understanding and movement towards a SSI. It is through these students’ written work, that the authors have been able to ‘see’ students’ movement through the liminal spaces of identity shifting and constructing. Through this insight, the authors not only are better able to respond to students, but also craft curriculum that better supports students as they navigate from seeing themselves as students towards fully engaged and essential participants of the scholarly community. STUDENT SCHOLARS IN THEIR OWN WORDS

In attempt to capture students’ nascent understanding of and development towards the SSI, the authors asked students to write a minute-paper that answered the prompt ‘What does it mean to be a student-scholar?’ After an in-class discussion of the concept, students were given just a few minutes to respond to the anonymous assessment. The work was collected by the instructor at the conclusion of the class sessions. The extant student work was filed away until the authors sought student work that may demonstrate SSI development. This student work ultimately served as a foundation for lesson plan revisions. Since this student work was a regular part of the course work, was already in existence, and students cannot be identified, the excerpts provided below are exempt from requiring ethical clearance as per

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the United States’ Office of Human Research Protections (2016) and the CSUSM Institutional Review Board (2018). The brief observations that follow each excerpt were used to guide lesson plan revisions. Student A Being a student scholar to me is primarily about contributing and receiving valuable information. In a community of scholars, only valuable and accurate information will be provided. Being a student scholar provokes feelings of solidarity in knowing that an entire scholarly community is at the ready to provide extensive information to help with my research. In addition, being a student scholar is about having the perks of gaining access to only credible sources and information. This response evidences an absence of criticism of the very things we’re teaching students to value as scholars: an ability to judge for oneself the quality of a researcher’s work and the contribution it makes or does not make to the scholarly conversation. We must trouble the assumption that publication in a scholarly journal necessarily makes information credible. Student B By reading a scholarly article, I find that all the information that I am looking for is either in only one article or possibly two. I do not have to read multiple articles just to find a single quote that will allow me to justify whether or not the source is credible. All scholarly articles are credible and are valuable to use. Absent here is the notion of scholarship as discourse/conversation, and critical use of sources (as above). There appears no understanding of the process of analysis, where the student seems to be confusing credibility with suitability. Students must see their own process of research embedded in an existing discourse. Student C To me, being a student scholar is being an active participant in the quest for understanding alongside all the other scholars in the world. It is working together with like-minded individuals to further our knowledge of the world around us with each of us contributing in our own personal ways. In this excerpt, there is a start towards developing understanding about the purpose of research and the scholarly conversation. Yet this student still lacks a more sophisticated understanding of the purpose of inquiry, and their part in it.

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Student D All fields of studies offer different viewpoints and I feel as a scholar in the making that I can use my different viewpoints to achieve what many do in their area of expertise. I still have a lot to learn and my views are constantly changing for the better. This student is beginning to understand that research changes you as perspectives evolve. They are not working to ‘prove’ what they already think they know. Student E As a student-scholar I know am able to recognize the power and knowledge that comes with the title. Having the opportunity to challenge ideas and to create knew [sic] ones and to have the opportunity for publication is something that comes with having the power to effect change. I think being a student scholar is mostly over looked [sic] given that most students don’t recognize that they have a voice and have the option of letting others hear it. Scholars coincide with being credible sources and having that advantage is noteworthy and should be used for the better. Information has value – it can create change! A next step for this student would be to connect this with why research is done and what motivates inquiry. Student F Now that we looked at scholars more closely, I have learned that it’s all about perspective. Every scholar in a different field sees a topic in a different way using different tools. To be a student-scholar, you have to be able to know well about how you see the topics of your field. After you know what to use, you’ll be able to do the research and able to specify in a specific subject in your field. It is here that the student demonstrates an emerging recognition of disciplinary knowledge, language, and values. The authors see this as an excellent example of how first-year students can indeed create a framework for understanding the academy and their role within it. A second reflection prompt asks students to consider the difference between a student-scholar and a student: ‘How is being a student scholar different from a student?’ As students transition from high school to college (or from a 2-year to a 4-year college), much of the transition is understanding their role within the academy. This question attempts to help students surface the difference between their role in high school, and their new role in college. ‡ ‘They have the opportunity to show their knowledge, analysis and their experience throughout their research’. 150

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‡ ‘They want to know more about how to do well, how they can gain more knowledge, and how they truly focus on learning’. ‡ ‘A student-scholar will take the time to deeply analyse the material put in front of them and compare this to other similar topics’. ‡ ‘A student-scholar wants to learn, and a student might not feel the same’. ‡ ‘Student scholars are students that go above and beyond to achieve. They turn homework in on time, read all materials, and go to help centres to improve on their skills. Students just do homework and thats [sic] that’. REVEALING LIMINALITY IN DEVELOPING STUDENT-SCHOLARS: A TAXONOMY

Using the examples above, we have built a taxonomy for the cultivation of the SSI. The numbered items below describe the stages students move through as they build this identity. 1. Students discuss the differences in accountability and responsibility of high school and college students. Depending on where students are in their transition to college, they may still focus on how to be a good student. These students reflect more on their study skills and time management, rather than how and what they are learning, and how their identity may be shifting. Additionally, they see the student scholar as something you ‘do’ above and beyond your regular coursework; an optional aspect of being a college student. 2. Students mention the discrete, mechanistic skills required in finding, reading and using scholarly journal articles. Many students are discovering the skills they have versus what they are missing, with regards to doing college-level research. Students describe finding, identifying, reading and using peer-reviewed journal articles along with the act of writing, and public speaking. Often, this is what students learn in high school: discrete skills that are disconnected from a larger research process, or inquiry at large (e.g. quote bombing, when students insert a quote that seems to be disconnected from their larger argument). 3. Students understand the higher-level skills required of them, but do not make the connection that they result in the creation of knowledge. Students use words like ‘analysis’, and ‘critical thinking’ that indicate their understanding that a studentscholar takes more than a reporting of information, as they did in high school. 4. Students understand the various ways in which they create knowledge. While students’ manifestation of this understanding may be nascent, they do have a general understanding that knowledge is created, does not exist independently on its own, and that they are able engage in this activity as student-scholars. These stages mirror Perry’s (1999) Chart of Development: students move from simple dualism, where their views are very absolutist and black/white; through the stages until their reach a commitment to relativism, where students feel confident 151

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in addressing ambiguity, nuance and context. Reflections communicate students’ discomfort with shifting concepts of authority and the idea that there is often no one ‘right answer’, which the authors feel the SSI attempts to address. USING OBSERVED TRENDS TO CRAFT CURRICULUM

Based on student reflections, we saw a need to address some of this ambiguity, not only in first-year seminar course, but in the writing and speech courses. First, at a programmatic level, the SSI needs to be reinforced in all of the first-year courses. While it is introduced at length in the first-year seminar, librarians also use it as the foundation of instruction in the writing and speech courses. Another change made at the programmatic level is how we scaffold the concepts related to SSI across the three courses. For example, we spend time discussing and reflecting on large concepts about inquiry, information and authority, and the transition to college. But students also need the basics of some of the systems. Rather than add this to the first-year seminar course, we focus on the mechanics of searching within the writing courses, where searching in precise fashion is more relevant than in the first-year seminar or speech course. We have started to make changes that allow for more scaffolding, but there is still more to do. In addition to connecting each course to the student-scholar model and the research process, librarians needs to integrate common language about information sources in each course. At the course level, we made changes to the first-year seminar course module dedicated to college-level research. The intention is to provide a foundation for college-level research within the 300 minutes that are allocated to the module. The assignments were built to walk students through the entire research process, but the results were mediocre. We scaled back on the assignments and ask students to do less work, but of much higher quality. This revised curriculum has been used for two semesters and the authors have have already observed students demonstrate a higher degree of understanding of the research process. Lastly, we have started to rethink how we talk to students about the nature of information. In order for students to create knowledge, they need to understand how information is created. For many years, we artificially created two categories of information that many students saw as ‘good’ and ‘bad’: scholarly articles, and everything else. Students didn’t see the connection of peer-reviewed journal articles to the larger information landscape, and the interconnectedness of all information. We have started helping students understand this landscape using a visual map which has helped students to understand the larger world of information, how scholarly articles fit in that world, both in terms of how we access them (where they ‘live’), and also how that information is created. With all of the work we have done to strengthen the transition to a SSI, we have much more work to do in addressing the troublesome nature of this threshold concept. Students still struggle with the idea that research is created by what we call ‘experts’, but those experts are in a continuous process of asking questions, 152

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of coming from a place of ambiguity and curiosity, and the work they do is a stepping stone to shifting constructions of knowledge. Including a discussion about ‘scholarship as a conversation’ has helped librarians reshape our discussions about authority. However, this is still a tenuous discussion as we have concerns about how first-year students have a binary view of authority and may not fully understand the authority of different sources until they have a larger understanding of the world, at large. IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING

SSI holds promise in being a fundamental threshold concept for undergraduates. The SSI can provide a foundation, within and apart from a student’s own identity(ies), for the core learning endeavour of a university: pursuing inquiry in a particular field of study. With the SSI framework, students recognise themselves as active knowledge creators, just as their instructors are, while also being novices within the university and within their chosen field of study. SSI can provide a basis for students to move away from (and hopefully, discard) the assumption that they are passive recipients of information in order to pass a course of study in order to acquire a degree in order to get a job. Now situated as knowledge creators and information users early on in their academic careers, students are prepared to journey through other threshold concepts in their chosen field of study while developing their knowledge base and expertise. They enter this aspect of their education with the assumptions often developed by others far later; assumptions that centre around expertise as not only a body of knowledge but an entire approach to pursuing inquiry and ultimately addressing complex problems as a member of local and global communities. SSI can initially appear to be challenging to actually teach and/or support students in their identity shifting and crafting. A growing body of research indicates that an individual’s metacognition is necessary for this ‘identity work’. Particularly exciting is the evidence that written metacognitive reflection holds promise in providing a venue for this mechanism to manifest in ways that provide insight to instructors on students’ development as well as, even more importantly, actually support students’ identity work. In the context of the first-year seminar course we describe, integrating substantive written metacognitive reflection has been shown to be relatively straightforward to do. The writing that students produce sheds light on the liminality inherent in identity work, as shown by the excerpts provided. We, as instructors, can get more access to students’ progress towards such an abstract, complex, yet foundational piece of the educational experience for undergraduates as SSI. The characteristics of liminality on display serve a dual purpose. Student writing on SSI provides specific locations in the curriculum to change instructional methods and/or actual course content. As we describe, what students showed us in their writing provided substantive feedback on many aspects of not only class sessions, but entire modules of a course, and even possible changes to the learning outcomes of the entire course. Clear areas of struggle quickly emerged and forced us to consider not 153

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only our approach to the content, but whether we need to change the actual content in order for students to actually make progress. Furthermore, we believe that written metacognitive reflection on SSI shifting/ crafting is especially noteworthy for first-generation college students and/or students from underserved groups. SSI and the use of written metacognitive reflection can provide a venue for students to interrogate assumptions surrounding their concerns about having the required skills and/or capacity for the higher education environment. While all students may struggle with such assumptions, for students who have not been historically welcomed into higher education, the surfacing of these fears and providing dedicated class time to articulate them within, around, and as part of crafting of the SSI may provide that additional framework of support needed for these students to persist in their studies. REFERENCES Association of College and Research Libraries. (2015). Framework for information literacy for higher education. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework Baxter Magolda, M. B. (2001). Making their own way Narratives for transforming higher education to promote self-authorship. Sterling, VA: Stylus. Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (2000). How people learn Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Bravender, P., McClure, H., & Schaub, G. (2015). Teaching information literacy threshold concepts. Chicago, IL: American Library Association. Bresciani-Ludvik, M. J. (Ed.). (2016). The neuroscience of learning and development Enhancing creativity, compassion, critical thinking, and peace in higher education. Sterling, VA: Stylus. Estrem, H. (2015). Disciplinary and professional identities are constructed through writing. In L. Adler-Kassner & W. Wardle (Eds.), Naming what we know Threshold concepts of writing studies (pp. 55–56). Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado. Flanagan, M. (2018). Threshold concepts Undergraduate teaching, postgraduate training, professional development and school education. Retrieved from https://www.ee.ucl.ac.uk/~mflanaga/thresholds.html Godbey, S., Wainscott, S. B., & Goodman, X. (2017). Disciplinary applications of information literacy threshold concepts. Chicago, IL: American Library Association. Hofner, A. R., Hanick, S. L., & Townsend, L. (2018). Transforming information literacy instruction Threshold concepts in theory and practice. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited. Institutional Review Board, California State University at San Marcos. (2018). Institutional review board. Retrieved from https://www.csusm.edu/gsr/irb/index.html Jones, S. R., & Abes, E. S. (2013). Identity development of college students Advancing frameworks for multiple dimensions of identity. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Marx, E., & Gates, L. (2016). [Re]conceptualizing meaning making in higher education: A case for integrative educational encounters that prepare students for self-authorship. In M. J. Bresciani-Ludvik (Ed.), The neuroscience of learning and development Enhancing creativity, compassion, critical thinking, and peace in higher education (pp. 98–120). Sterling, VA: Stylus. Meyer, J. H. F , & Land, R. (2005). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (2): Epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning. Higher Education, 49, 373–388. doi:10.1007/sl0734-004-6779-5 Penrose, A. M. (2002). Academic literacy perceptions and performance: Comparing first-generation and continuing-generation college students. Research in the Teaching of English, 36(4), 437–461. Perry, W. G. (1999). Forms of ethical and intellectual development in the college years A scheme. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

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THE STUDENT SCHOLAR IDENTITY Roozen, K. (2015). Writing is linked to identity. In L. Adler-Kassner & W. Wardle (Eds.), Naming what we know Threshold concepts of writing studies (pp. 50–52). Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado. United States Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Human Research Protections. (2016). Human subject regulations decision charts. Retrieved from https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulationsand-policy/decision-charts/index.html White, B. A., Olsen, T., & Schumann, D. (2016). A threshold concept framework for use across disciplines. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & M. T. Flanagan (Eds.), Threshold concepts in practice (pp. 53–63). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Young, J. A., & Potter, C. R. (2013). The problem of academic discourse: Assessing the role of academic literacies in reading across the K-16 curriculum. Across the Disciplines, 10(4). Retrieved from http://wac.colostate.edu/atd/reading/young_potter.cfm

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PART 3 ONTOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATIONS

LEIF MARTIN HOKSTAD AND STINE GUNDROSEN

11. ‘… ’CAUSE SOON NOW, IT WILL BE REAL …’ Medical Simulation as Change Space in Interprofessional Training

… talk to me, so I can see, what’s going on … – Marvin Gaye (1983) ABSTRACT

This chapter investigates medical simulation as a change space for interprofessional training. The learning trajectories of the students are studied and described through the threshold concepts of liminality, confidence to challenge, and tolerance of uncertainty, that together constitute the complex and compound threshold of situation awareness. How learners come to terms with the episteme, or the underlying game, and develop a professional identity, should be a topic of interest to most disciplines. INTRODUCTION

In this chapter, we examine the use of medical simulation in interprofessional training that was applied in the TverrSim project, and we use the Threshold Concepts Framework as a main lens for observation and reflection. Interprofessional training is increasingly becoming an important element in health education programmes, and the project aims to explore, challenge, and develop simulation as a teaching and learning practice in this extended teaching and learning context. For many students, the medical simulation scenarios are their first encounter with patients and participation in a team on a ward, albeit a virtual one. More importantly, they work with professionals from disciplines different from their own. The simulation situation may thus represent an awakening from the ‘hibernation’ of regular studies that the lecture halls may be seen to represent.1 Hence, the simulation environment affords the students a potential change space, where previous assumptions, knowledge, and skills may be challenged and developed towards an emerging professional identity. The purpose of this chapter is to identify and critically reflect upon the transitions or transformations that the students undergo.

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004419971_011

L. M. HOKSTAD & S. GUNDROSEN

BACKGROUND AND EMPIRICAL MATERIAL

Background The TverrSim project was initiated by the Medical Simulation Centre (Medisinsk SimulatorSenter) at St. Olav’s Hospital in Trondheim, Norway, and launched as a collaboration between St. Olav’s Hospital, the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), and the Central Norway Regional Health Authorities. The aim of the project was to develop a model for providing interprofessional learning across different disciplines in realistic settings, since this type of learning is becoming obligatory in health education in Norway. The project’s objectives were to explore, challenge, and develop medical simulation as a teaching and learning practice. The participants were medical students (5th and 6th year), nursing students (3rd year), and radiographers (3rd year). A pilot study was conducted in February 2015 to test scenarios and staff arrangements and to prepare for the full-scale project. An overview of the collected material is presented in Table 11.1. The project details are as follows: ‡ First, the project aims to develop realistic scenarios for medical simulations. Typically, in such scenarios, students are given just a few pieces of information when the ‘patient’ arrives, or when students are called to the ward. An overall aim in such an approach is to develop situation awareness (Schulz, Endsley, Kochs, Gelb, & Klaus, 2013). To increase the realism in the simulations, little or no scaffolding is added, since excessive scaffolding may inhibit the learning process considerably (Savin-Baden, 2016). In addition, non-scaffolded scenario experiences extend the learning process to reflection and dialogue in the debriefing process. ‡ Second, the project aims to develop the contexts and infrastructure at NTNU and St. Olav’s Hospital for the benefit of interprofessional teams, and in terms of teaching and learning methodology. ‡ Third, the project aims to develop debriefing as a distinct teaching and learning approach and strategy. Whereas debriefing is considered an important part of simulation, it still seems to be underdeveloped and in need of research and development (Fanning & Gaba, 2007). The Threshold Concepts Framework has been chosen as a lens through which to observe and critically discuss the learners’ trajectories and the affordances of medical simulation as a pedagogical approach. CHARACTERISTICS OF MEDICAL SIMULATIONS AS A TEACHING AND LEARNING APPROACH

As a teaching and learning approach, medical simulation is designed to recreate a realistic scenario for the participants, and it is becoming an increasingly widespread 160

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Table 11.1. TverrSim – Students’ evaluations* What was your learning outcome in relation to:

N

Average

Median (range)

Debriefings**

97

5.4

6 (3–6)

Situation awareness in a challenging patient situation

93

5.2

5 (3–6)

Communication and teamwork

96

5.6

6 (4–6)

Your own professional role

97

5.1

5 (3–6)

Your team role

97

5.4

5 (3-6)

Your fellow students’ professional roles

97

4.9

5 (3–6)

Your fellow students’ team roles

97

5.4

5 (3–6)

Time invested

97

5.4

6 (3–6)

Expectations

95

5.3

6 (3–6)

In general

97

5.7

6 (4–6)

* N = 97 students (nursing 48, medicine 26, radiography 18, not specified 5), 0 = Very poor, 6 = Very good ** Discussion between students and faculty members following the simulation exercises

method (Weller, 2005). The reality of the clinical environment is reproduced with the aid of advanced, computerised mannequins. To increase the impact and value of the learning experience, the debriefing sessions include re-runs of video recordings of the scenarios (Fanning & Gaba, 2007; Gaba, Howard, Fish, Smith, & Sowb, 2001). In the literature on medical simulation, there is emphasis on breaking away from the theory-practice dichotomy. The use of simulations and debriefing methodologies may increase learners’ understanding that these are not binaries, but rather allow for seamless transitions such that theory and practice emerge as ‘simultaneities’ (Davies, 2008; Kneebone et al., 2005). The methodology allows for mastery of skills, as well as for deeper ways of thinking and practising in the discipline (Entwistle, 2005). The realism and authenticity of the scenario will determine how the learning process is experienced. Orasanu and Connolly (1993) use the term ‘complex dynamic world’ to describe such learning environments, which are characterised as follows: ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

Problems are ill-structured The environment is dynamic The environment is full of uncertainty There is intense time pressure Goals are ill-defined, and shift and compete with each other Action/feedback loops are tightly coupled The stakes are high There are multiple ‘players’ Personnel operate under strong organisational and cultural norms. 161

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The following scenario description is representative of the types of situations to which students are exposed in the scenarios: 1. ‘John Jensen’ is aged 76 years. In 2000, he had a cardiac infarction and subsequently he suffered from angina. In 2008, he had a stomach ulcer, but following medical treatment, he has since been free of symptoms. Two months ago, he broke his hip on a journey to Africa and underwent surgery. Due to constant pain in his hip after the surgery, he has had a high consumption of painkillers (paracetamol and acetyl salicylic acid). In recent weeks, he has also experienced increasing pain in his diaphragm area. 2. Current status: The patient has arrived at the CT2 lab for an abdominal contrast examination. He is bedridden and accompanied by a nurse. Two radiographers are welcoming them to the CT lab. 3. Development: The patient is complaining of severe pain in his hip and in stomach. The radiographers and the nurse therefore have to help the patient move to the CT table. Immediately after insertion of the contrast agent,3 the patient begins to feel uncomfortable and complains about dizziness, a feeling of tightness in his chest, and breathing difficulties. Students are given parts of the initial information and have to acquire the remaining information by talking to the patient. Typically, a patient will first talk about their pain or other ailments, frequently in an incoherent manner, such that establishing the current situation quite often poses a challenge in itself, before the relevant medical decisions may be taken. The further development of the scenario is not revealed to the students, but it evolves and escalates with increasing demands upon the students to respond adequately. At this stage, the students need to establish two sets of dialogues: one internally with the other members of the medical team and one with the patient. It should be mentioned that the scenarios are not ‘set in stone’. Depending on the composition of the student group in terms of their professional background, either minor or significant changes may be made in order to accommodate the reality of the student group. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

The above-described complexity of such an educational aim necessitates a reorientation and expansion of the theoretical foundation of this endeavour. As a starting point, the project drew upon the work of Bleakley (2014), who states that a future-oriented medical education should accommodate a high-impact pedagogy that is patient-centred, designed to foster communication in teams, and designed for interprofessional teams. In his perspective, medical education has had too little emphasis on the dialogic aspects of education, which, in the context of the project, means communication within and between the professions, as well as communication with the patient. According to Bleakley (2010, 2014), such a 162

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renewed and multifaceted pedagogy may only be made possible with an overarching perspective on complexity. The purpose is to facilitate the transition ‘from simple, authoritarian, dyadic relationships between doctors and other people to complex, emergent ones between all parties involved in joint enterprises’ (Bleakley, 2014, p. vi). In this respect, studies of interdisciplinarity and interprofessionality need to be included in the overall perspective. We therefore draw upon a body of literature that shares the common idea that knowledge development in the professions is increasingly conducted in mixed contexts and in fluid spaces, and extends the individual professions into adjacent professions, thereby facilitating the exchange and development of knowledge, skills, and attitudes. The ability to move between different points of view and to cross disciplinary boundaries – which might be termed bridging skills – requires disciplinary confidence, as well as a willingness to extend and challenge oneself. The ontological perspective of developing a professional identity becomes particularly important within this paradigm. The consulted body of work relates to various research fields, ranging from post-colonial studies to studies of interdisciplinarity. These studies describe such spaces as borderlands (Reif Hulser, 1999), third spaces (Bhabha, 1994; Whitechurch, 2008), and trading zones (Klein, 2005). The notion of hybridity is central – a space where several, possibly conflicting influences interact with individuals as well as with communities. From a broader perspective, works by Beck (1992) and Stehr (2000) point to inherent risk and fragility as characteristics of modern society. With special relevance to higher education, Barnett advocates that education should prepare for supercomplexity – the idea that the educational system needs to prepare learners for the certainty of an unknown future (Barnett, 2000; Barnett 2004). The Threshold Concepts Framework aligns with these perspectives in that it focuses upon how learners and teachers deal with the perils and affordances of uncertainty when moving in a liminal zone (Land, Vivian, & Rattray, 2014). In Bakhtinian terms, the learner in such learning spaces is exposed to both centripetal and centrifugal forces in their learning trajectory. The former draws their attention to discipline-specific knowledge, skills, and values, whereas the latter draws their attention to the knowledge, skills, and values of the professions and disciplines represented by those in the same context. The learning space thus becomes fluid, dynamic, and seemingly contradictory, exposing the learner to a variety of voices, discourses, and vernaculars – to ‘heteroglossia’ (Bakhtin, 1981). The TverrSim project also draws upon insights from Engeström’s work on expanding the notion of communities of practice, in which he suggests ‘knotworking’ as a metaphor for new types of communities that have amorphous qualities (with regards to actual participants), yet stability (with regards to tasks, roles, and functions) (Engeström, 2005, 2007). Such communities, which Engeström tentatively terms ‘collaborative communities’ and which are characterised by ‘collaborative interdependence’, will need to have flexible borders, high quality and diversity in skills, allow for authority based on knowledge and skills independent of status or 163

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hierarchy, and provide meaning and clear value to the community (Engeström, as cited in Adler & Heckscher, 2006). The medical simulation learning space also allows for the characteristics of transformative learning, which involves approaches that invite individual experience, critical reflection, and dialogue, and all conducted with an awareness of context and including authentic practice (Mezirow, Taylor, & Associates, 2009). The learning spaces described in this chapter open up perspectives on learning and teaching that emphasise unpredictability, uncertainty, and coincidences as part of the teaching and learning environment (Land, 2016; Shulman, 2005; Torgersen, 2015). Bateson (1989) terms such learning processes ‘stochastic’, where learning is seen as non-linear and evolutionary in nature, combining random and nonrandom selection. Within this perspective, coincidence and uncertainty are seen as necessary for something new to emerge and for learning to take place. Two aspects of learning are emphasised in this perspective: the importance of context, stating that learning is situated; and the importance of process, stating that learning is dynamic. This implies that the notion of a fixed and predefined outcome is problematic, yet certain substantive outcomes are possible, and meaning is ‘an emerging experience which is always situated in unique moments and interactions’ (Hopmann, 2007, p. 117). METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH AND RESEARCH DESIGN

Data were collected from February 2015 to February 2016. The study was registered and approved by the data protection officer for research at St. Olav’s Hospital, Trondheim University Hospital.4 A total of 122 students participated voluntarily (Nursing 64, Medical 37, Radiography 21). The course was conducted by doctors, nurses, and radiographers who had been trained as simulation facilitators. The students were divided into 15 interprofessional groups. Each group participated in a one-day course consisting of a short theoretical introduction and four simulation scenarios. The four scenarios reflected real-life clinical hospital situations in which the three professions naturally had to work together (i.e., admitting patients to the emergency department, and during CT scanning). All scenarios were followed by debriefing sessions. The students were asked to complete a questionnaire at the end of the day to evaluate their learning outcomes. In addition, 40 scenarios and 40 debriefing sessions were video-recorded, and the recordings were analysed. Drawing upon techniques from grounded theory, the data were coded into categories that established the potential threshold concepts in the material (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1998). DEBRIEFING AND STUDENTS’ RESPONSES

The initial experiences of the medical simulation scenarios are dramatic, and many of the students find them quite disturbing. The debriefing sessions are therefore 164

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highly important in the learning process. In these sessions, the facilitators make certain that all perspectives are welcome and regarded as equally important. The debriefing sessions take place immediately after completion of the simulation exercises, and conversation tends to flow easily and freely because the scenarios are fresh in the participants’ minds. The debriefing is divided into two parts: the first part is a relatively short run-through of the medical aspects of the scenario; the second part focuses exclusively on the aspects of teamwork, communication, and situation awareness (SA). An interesting aspect of the study material was that, although the learners were quite articulate in expressing frustration about their own shortcomings, their overall evaluation with regards to their own learning outcomes was unconditionally positive (see Table 11.1 for an overview). On an evaluation form on which students were free to write whatever they wished, the following were emphasised as the most positive aspects of the simulation: ‡ Debriefing under supervision ‡ The debriefers’ abilities to give encouragement, give us self-esteem and selfconfidence ‡ To get to know other professions ‡ Learnt how one reacts in stressed situations ‡ Very good scenarios ‡ That you were on your own, with a lot of responsibility and little support ‡ Had to find mastery jointly in the team ‡ For the first time during my studies, I could train to be a doctor (nurse, etc.) and train to be a leader and in charge. As for improvements, the students suggested the following: ‡ More time to review the videos of ourselves, to give us a way to see how things could be done differently ‡ More time in the training area, and less time on the introductions ‡ Could have spent more days here. The results imply that, despite the seeming lack of achievements, the acknowledgement of the importance of the process and the complexity of the situation were the learning outcomes in the learning environment. The nature of this kind of awakening is akin to Hegel’s and Gadamer’s notion of Sich-Einhausen (making oneself at home in the world) (Gadamer, 1996; Gadamer, 2001) and to developing ability, which in Freire and Macedo’s (1987) terms means to read the world. Consequently, with the use of simulations, it is easier for learners, teachers, and debriefers to arrive at an epistemological perspective with regards to what actually are knowledge, skills, and values, and what learning in this particular field implies. Here, we see that learning and developing a professional identity may be perceived as an iterative praxis in a community.

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THRESHOLD CONCEPTS IN THE EMPIRICAL MATERIAL

The analytical lens of threshold concepts is not yet widely employed in medical education, but is increasingly seen to offer new perspectives (Neve, Wearn, & Collett, 2016). When analysing our empirical material, we organised our interpretation around four possible dynamics or transitions that the learner may go through with regards to skills, attitudes, and values, and the threshold concepts involved in these learning trajectories (Endsley, 1988): ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

Novice –> expert Individual –> collective/team behaviour Uncertainty –> self-confidence Monodisciplinary –> interdisciplinary.

Obviously, these dynamics require long-term observation, yet, at the same time, the dynamics seem well suited to organisation of the findings from the empirical material in order to catch the evolution of students when they start in these learning spaces. With the exception of the novice–expert dynamic, which is an overarching dynamic, the suggested dynamics are observable in the snapshots that this material represents. From our material, it may be possible to determine how the learners who were being observed engaged and interacted with the thresholds between the stages and embarked on journeys towards a professional and personal identity – ‘messy journeys, back, forth and across conceptual terrain’ (Cousin, 2006, p. 5). In the following section, we present and discuss the learners’ experiences as they were captured at a midpoint along their learning trajectory. MAIN THRESHOLD CONCEPTS

Three major threshold concepts emerged in our material and were evident in a number of observed contexts, as well as in the students’ statements: liminality, confidence to challenge, and situation awareness. These threshold concepts are interconnected in various ways. … ’cause soon now, it will be real … The students repeatedly gave examples of when they had disclosed their uncertainty about their future position. The above quote exemplifies and identifies one student’s understanding of the transitional nature of his/her learning experience. It was overheard in a room adjacent to the simulation ward, prior to the simulation exercise, and was one of many similar expressions voiced when the students were commenting on the scenario that they would face next. These utterances clearly signalled that they sensed something was about to be left behind, yet at the same time, the next point of arrival was somewhat unclear. There is a duality in the above quotation, in the sense that it may well refer to the imminent situation, as well as to the fact that the simulation had introduced the students to the realities of the 166

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medical ward. The atmosphere in the adjacent room before the scenario starts for the students is usually tense and emotional, full of giggling, but also full of energy and a sense of urgency. It signals the beginning of the awakening process in which purely academic and individual performances are about to be augmented with practical skills, as well as with interprofessional collaboration, and all within a framework of high uncertainty. This may be seen as the pre-liminal stage, when the students are on the brink of leaving the established state behind and are on their way to new and uncharted landscapes. … it was the first time someone called me a doctor … This quotation refers to a series of expressions that were heard when students in the ongoing interactions were being called by their future professional titles (e.g., doctor or nurse) because they did not know each other well enough to know or remember all names. Most students initially responded by stating: ‘I didn’t know that it was me who was being addressed’ or a similar phrase, thereby revealing that their professional identity had not yet developed. Consequently, they failed to respond, or their response was delayed when they were repeatedly addressed. Their identity was not yet aligned with their future profession. Clearly, the students were ‘betwixt and between’ (Turner, 1969). … but I’ve read all the books! The above quotation is an example of a series of strong expressions made by the students when emphasising that their scholarly efforts and abilities at that time in their learning trajectory had seemingly not prepared them for the reality of the situation, not to mention a real-life situation. Their frustration stemmed from the fact that they expected that bookish learning would be sufficient, and the experience of not quite succeeding was new and alien to them, and definitely embarrassing. Academic performance is usually high in these student groups, and the students expect to have successful learning trajectories. Failures in academic performance are rarely part of their educational experience, and many of the students become highly stressed when their approach to their studies does not work according to their expectations. Expressions such as the one above also point to the challenges of the theory–practice dichotomy in higher education, which many students find it hard to adjust to when moving into practical situations. The quotation above and similar expressions also relate to an ‘Einstellung effect’5 in how many students understand the nature of their educational trajectory, one that requires an ontological shift when launching an unlearning process (Bilalic, McLeod, & Gobet, 2008). When ‘things started to heat up’ (as some students expressed it), many of the students responded by demonstrating a narrowing of their repertoire, thereby seemingly demonstrating a loss of competence. This occurred in stages of the scenarios when the patient’s condition changed significantly and quickly, and either worsened or became more complex. The students responded to the increased stress in various ways and even became paralysed when unexpected events occurred. As 167

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one of the students stated, while under considerable stress, ‘we had, I think, tunnel vision when it started to heat up’ and concluded that ‘nothing happened then’. The above examples all relate to how liminality is experienced and expressed and show how the students’ tolerance of uncertainty was not yet integrated as a way of thinking and practising in their respective disciplines. For the same reason, they had not developed sufficient confidence to challenge in a way that would enable them to act adequately. Their hitherto scholarly and bookish approach was challenged but had not yet been augmented with practical experience. It was clear to the students that their confidence to challenge had not yet developed, but it emerged in the debriefing conversations as something that needed to be developed. In applying the metaphor of crystallisation, it may be said that the phenomenon – the students’ learning trajectories, seen through the lenses of liminality, confidence to challenge, and tolerance of uncertainty – allows for thick description (Geertz, 1973; Richardson, 1994). In this regard, we may observe various and connected expressions of the same phenomenon: the emergence of a professional identity. Situation Awareness The threshold concepts of ‘confidence to challenge’, ‘tolerance of uncertainty’, and experiences of ‘being in the liminal space’, which are manifested in the descriptions above, all contribute to an overarching threshold concept. We suggest that the overarching threshold concept in this material is the notion of ‘situation awareness’ (SA), which may be seen as integral to optimal performance regarding patient care and treatment, and hence to patient safety. Historically, SA has its origin in military and aviation training, as well as in naval and aviation catastrophe management (Bradley, 2006). A common definition of SA is ‘the perception of elements of the environment within a volume of time and space, the comprehension of their meaning and the projection of their status in the near future’ (Endsley, 1988, p. 97). SA refers to ‘a shared mental model’ (Ruffell Smith, 1979) that is distributed between members of a crew or a team as a situation evolves, ‘a cognitive glue for shared understanding of work unfolding in time and space’ (Bleakley, Allard, & Hobbs, 2013). Although communication and activity are linked in knowledge, skills, and values in establishing SA, they are more about establishing a mindset, or a way of thinking within the discipline or profession. In this respect, SA is more ontological than epistemological in nature, and the ontological shift precedes the epistemological one. SA may be seen as the emergent properties of a professional team in a ‘complex dynamic world’, as their work develops, and it emerges in the interface between rigid procedures and improvisations, in individuals, among team members, and the ways in which these are distributed (Orasanu & Connolly, 1993). SA concerns the ability to understand and to act as individuals and as a team, ‘in tune, on time’, and to develop a sense for improvisation (Albert & Bell, 2002; Oddane, 2015). 168

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For this reason, some critics have commented on the parallels between establishing SA and jazz orchestras and improvisation (Barrett, 1998; Haidet, 2007; Weick, 1998). The parallel relates to how communication is established and nurtured, challenged, and explored, and how to create a communicative space that allows for and encourages departures from established patterns of inquiry. In interprofessional medical teams, a shared mental model may be hindered by the strong cultural characteristics of the medical professions, which traditionally have been monodisciplinary and more authoritarian than democratic and egalitarian (Bleakley, 2014). In the case of the students observed in this study, establishing SA clearly turned out to be difficult. The amount and pressure of all new information and the speed and urgency with which the events unfolded place a heavy strain on the students. Establishing SA requires a clear understanding of history (‘Where are we coming from?’), the present (‘Where are we now?’), and the future (‘Where are we going?’). Many students were overwhelmed by the experience of liminality and developed alternative strategies as a way of coping. In various scenarios, we observed the lack of relevant responses being replaced with less important or even irrelevant tasks. One of the students described the process as ‘de-masking’: the substitute tasks were a way of trying to avoid being caught red-handed, while realising that the strategy was not successful. Among the strategies and substitute activities that we observed was engaging in what appeared to be practical work that was not related to the situation at hand, or waiting for instructions from a leader, which frequently were not forthcoming. The comment ‘I chose to focus on the report’ was typical of the students´ efforts to cover-up their inexperience through a substitute activity. One of the students simply froze in her activities related to the patient, exclaiming: ‘I don’t know what to do!’. This particular way of becoming stuck is the lack of ability to move beyond ‘the now’. The crisis and the urgency of ‘the now’ prevented the student from going beyond ‘the now’, and from connecting the now to the possibilities in the history of the situation and to the potential of the future. All in all, the liminal experience described above was undoubtedly an experience that was quite unnerving for the students, and the changes they went through were likely to have been experienced as profound. We also saw the students undergo an ontological shift when they were introduced to a new and uncharted epistemological terrain: the realities of the profession of which they were slowly becoming a part. A considerable part of their transformation was related to unlearning and the realisation of their own inadequacy. The knowledge and skills they had acquired thus far, despite being necessary, emerged as insufficient. Since communication is considered to be one of the most important aspects of health education, and the lack of communication is the major cause of accidents and mistakes in hospitals, the study and development of communication and communicative patterns are particularly important (Bleakley, 2014; Kohn, Corrigan, & Donaldson, 2000). Traditionally, communication in health education is understood as the doctor–patient relationship (Bleakley, 2014). Since the emphasis here is interdisciplinary understanding, it is necessary to augment the communicative 169

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patterns by including what is communicated among the students. To describe and analyse this critically, we draw upon the seminal work of Goffman, and Ellingson’s application of Goffman’s theory (Ellingson, 2005; Goffman, 1959). Ellingson applies Goffman’s notion of ‘front stage’ and ‘back stage’ communication to a clinical setting. Front stage communication refers to the medical personnel-patient communication, whereas back stage refers to communication among the team members. Our study material indicates that this aspect of the students’ education has not been addressed adequately. Again, we see that the urgency of ‘the now’ is stressful for the students in many ways, including their communicative repertoire. CONCLUDING COMMENTS AND FUTURE WORK

In this chapter, we have focused on medical simulation as a change space, and we used the lens of threshold concepts to explore the awakening process and learning trajectory, from book-based learning towards a professional identity. As stated in the Introduction, one of the main aims of the project has been to investigate whether an interdisciplinary approach to training could be achieved from an organisational point of view. The experience has shown that this is feasible, with relatively few extra measures needing to be taken, but great care needs to be taken in the preparation. We also find that applying the lens represented by the Threshold Concepts Framework gives valuable insights into the teaching and learning environments that medical simulation represents. An important part of the project has been for students to experience the counterintuitive learning potential in ‘productive failures’ that is inherent in medical simulation (Kapur, 2008). Through the affordances of scenario participation and debriefing, the students are given the opportunity to let ‘getting it right’ be understood as less important in their learning experience than accepting the complexity of the learning and teaching environment. Equally important from a design perspective is the letting go of intrusive scaffolding mechanisms and allowing for what Hopmann terms necessary ´restrained teaching´ in order to create the necessary openness and ambiguity in the learning trajectory (2007, p. 109). We have also been reminded of the close interdependence between communication and SA. Future work will include studying communicative practices in medical simulation, such as the backstagefrontstage interplay. A second part of the project was run in February and March 2017. NOTES 1

2

Our colleague, Bodil Remmen, is thanked for suggesting the metaphor of hibernation and awakening in describing the difference between regular studies and simulation. Computed tomography (CT), or computerised axial tomography (CAT). This is a radiologic imaging modality employing computer processing to generate an image (CAT scan) of tissue density in the patient’s body.

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4

5

A barium or iodine dye injected into an area under medical investigation to render interior body parts more visible on x-ray film. All research involving the collection of data on patients and students are subject to strict regulations regulated under Norwegian law. For NTNU guidelines see: https://www.ntnu.no/ documents/10443/21398688/Research+and+Privacy+PDF.pdf/33e1fb46-4eb3-403c-9c34ed05fbb1b4cf ‘The German term […] in its psychological use […] means being caught within a particular way of seeing a problem, or design or solution. The effect tends to occur as a result of a previously successful resolution of an issue or coming to a clear understanding of something that had proved difficult. The problem arises when there is a need to resolve a subsequent issue of further complexity or of a different nature. What happens is that the previously successful approach, taken under one set of conditions, tends to be adopted again under different circumstances, as it has become a powerful and ingrained way of seeing and thinking. It becomes a case of “thinking inside the box’” (Land, 2016, p. 20).

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JACKIE STOKES, VICKI BRUCE AND TANYA PAWLIUK

12. THRESHOLD CONCEPTS AND THE ONTOLOGY OF PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY IN HUMAN SERVICES CURRICULUM DESIGN A Case Example

ABSTRACT

In this chapter, an educational process that supports the ontological transformation associated with professional identity in human service workers is described. Professional identity is understood as Integrated Threshold Concept Knowledge (ITCK), which fuses cognitive, affective, and ontological knowledge. By identifying core threshold concepts, curriculum was purposefully scaffolded to assist students with integrating the meta-competencies. Students, in their own voices, describe their journeys through the liminal space as they developed their unique professional identity required for practice. INTRODUCTION

The Thompson Rivers University (TRU) Human Service (HUMS) diploma prepares students to practise entry-level human service work or to continue university studies at a Baccalaureate level in social work or child and youth care. Numerous cognitive and emotional bottlenecks are encountered as students progress through the two-year programme (Middendorf & Pace, 2004). As students struggle to grasp crucial ways of knowing in the field, and faculty members are challenged to decode (identify and make transparent the implicit practices of) the discipline, both students and faculty members experience ontological states of fragility, uncertainty and instability (Land, 2016; MacPherson, 2015; Middendorf & Pace, 2004). Meyer and Land’s (2003) threshold concept theory suggests students experience an epistemological reformulation and a consequent ontological or subjective shift by entering and traversing this troublesome liminal space (Rutherford & Pickup, 2015). This chapter argues that this transformation is absorbed into the notion of professional identity and becomes integrated into the practitioners’ habitual, everyday practice. The chapter concludes that the ontological shifts that predicate professional identity are more likely to occur within a rational curriculum design, a context that allows students to travel safely through the emotional liminal space, and with reflexive

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004419971_012

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instructors focused on student learning. The literature on professional identity, adult learning theory and threshold concepts is reviewed as a foundation for describing the curriculum redesign of the HUMS programme. Students’ voices will express their ontological transformational experiences while faculty members reflect on their own pedagogical learnings. Professional Identity Using Parton & O’Byrne’s concepts of ontology as meaning ways of being or worldview and epistemology as meaning ways of knowing (cited in Bell, 2012, p. 410), then understanding the ontology of professional identity is important in ensuring that the epistemological theories, values and skills are used appropriately and critically in practice. While the socialisation process that leads to professional identity formation in disciplines such as medicine and law, is described in the literature (Cruess & Cruess, 2017), little is understood about identity development associated with paraprofessional practitioners, defined here as those having non-degree, non-regulated credentials. Professional identity or professional self-concept ‘provides a framework of meaning specific to the profession’ (Geoffrion, Morselli, & Guay, 2016, p. 271), develops over time as practice insight is gained, and comprises the attitudes, values, knowledge, beliefs and skills that differentiate one professional group from another (Adams, Hean, Sturgis, & Macleod Clark, 2006; Webb, 2015). Having cumulatively taught in diploma programmes for 40 plus years, the authors believe the development of a professional identity is necessary to practise effectively in complex situations. Students within the programme must have more than simply the knowledge and skills of human service work but must be able to apply their knowledge and skills to the messy uncertainty of practice. It is impossible to teach or perform human service work in a mechanistic, techno-rational way. It is a profession in which the use of self and the practitioner’s worldview, or way of being, is the primary tool for engaging with marginalised and disempowered individuals, families and communities. Post-Secondary Education Context Post-secondary education is valued in a knowledge society. Globally, universities are pressured to develop practice-based pedagogical curricula, including commencing the professional socialisation process, the development of professional identities and educating towards citizenship (Trede, Macklin, & Bridges, 2012). As the structure, function, and financing of universities have changed, so too has the student. The number of high school early-leavers entering first year university; the diversity of the student population in terms of age, experience, socio-economic status and cultural backgrounds; and the increasing sense of entitlement based on a consumer logic of value for money are elements of the modern university student (Biggs, 2003; Land, 2016). The status-quo traditional pedagogy of high content transmitted through a 176

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didactic lecture style does not transform students into active learners and engaged critical thinkers prepared for the contemporary post-modern work environment (Biggs, 2003). Adult Learning Theory Learning in the adult environment of university must be meaningful and relevant. Adult learners are, in general, self-directed individuals who have internalised their desire to learn and want learning to have real-life applications (Knowles, 1980). Adults filter their learning through a wealth of life experiences, some of which facilitate learning whereas others may present challenges and barriers. For many non-traditional students, the first, and often most difficult, threshold concept is the perception of self as a successful learner. Bloom, Englehart, Furst, Hill, and Krathwohl (1956) developed a paradigm of learning theory which is familiarly known as Bloom’s Taxonomy, and will be referred to that way throughout this chapter. In this model learning occurs along a continuum in three domains: cognitive, affective and psychomotor. At the less complex ends of the continuums, student learning is focused on the development of basic knowledge, attitudes and skill sets, whereas synthesising acquired knowledge and the development of the ability to transfer knowledge to new circumstances signifies deeper learning (Bloom et al., 1956). Biggs (2003) first described the Structure of the Observed Learning Outcome taxonomy (SOLO) in 1982. In this framework, learning moves from an initial prestructural phase in which students know very little about the subject area to a place where they can understand one or two aspects of the task (unistructural) followed by understanding several aspects that are unrelated (multistructural). Higher-level learning occurs when students learn to integrate multiple aspects into a whole (relational) and, finally, are able to generalise that whole to as yet untaught applications (extended abstract) (Biggs, 2003). Since the work of Knowles (1980), Bloom et al. (1956) and Biggs (2003), neuroscience has shed further light on how to create the optimum conditions for learning. Learning occurs as an interaction of the classroom, the wider family, school and community context and the individual brain (Fisher & Immordino-Yang, 2008). Learning is maximised during moderate levels of arousal triggers – with too little arousal, students are unable to sit still and attend and become unmotivated but too much stress and arousal stimulates a conditioned fear response which also truncates learning (Cozolino & Sprokay, 2006). The complex webs of neural connections in the brain constantly either reinforce ways of thinking and doing or due to neural plasticity can rewire ways of thinking and doing (Ludvik, 2016). As adult learners navigate new pathways of thinking, prior life and learning experiences affect their openness to entering the discomfort of liminal space. It is now well understood that childhood trauma and deprivation affects early school success and leaves a legacy of betrayal, hurt and negative self-attributions 177

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(Haskell, 2012; Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative, n.d.). In adults, this trauma contributes to a weak internal sense of self, an implicit schema that people are not to be trusted and an inability to develop affect regulation skills (Haskell, 2012). As adult learners experience fear or stress, the connections with the frontal cortex become impaired and learning is negatively impacted (Fischer & Immordino-Yang, 2008). Fortunately, ‘there are almost no cognitive capacities that can be ‘lost’ at an early age’ (Fischer & Immordino-Yang, 2008, p. 45) and neuroplasticity knowledge indicates that certain portions of the structure and function of the brain can heighten desired learning outcomes (Ludvik, 2016). Furthermore, neuroscience illustrates that supporting students in developing self-regulation skills reduces their stress and anxiety, increases their attention and focus and supports their movement through the ambiguous meandering journey of learning. Threshold Concepts The ambiguous crossroads of neuroplasticity and ITCK (Meyer & Timmermans, 2016) have parallels. Meyer and Land (2003, 2005) describe ‘threshold concepts as discipline-specific concepts that meet particular conceptual and epistemological characteristics, and require complex understanding by students’ (Rodger, Turpin, & O’Brien, 2015, p. 546). Threshold concepts are described as having five characteristics: they are transformative, irreversible, integrative, bounded and forms of troublesome knowledge. As Human Service students integrate multiple episteme and reflect on their pre-existing personal identities in order to develop their practice worldview, the ontological threshold transformation into professional identity is, as Rattray (2016) indicates, ‘associated with both cognitive and affective changes in the individual’ (p. 67). CASE EXAMPLE

Human Services (HUMS) Programme The HUMS programme has its roots in the 1970s when several community colleges across British Columbia developed certificate and diploma Human Service or Social Service para-professional qualifications. The HUMS diploma is a 60 credit, two-year (four-semester) programme. Although designed as a cohort model, some students complete the programme on a part-time basis and some students enter in semester 3 (year 2). The student population is diverse in terms of age, experience with post-secondary education, life experience, gender, race and ethnicity. Students may receive the diploma as an exit credential or as a stepping credential to a variety of degree programmes. The curriculum design has to be sufficiently flexible to meet multiple learning histories and pathways. By the 2010s, reorganisations and faculty member turnover had left little corporate memory, resulting in a programme consisting of a series of à la carte courses with 178

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no cohesive philosophy. Individual courses (defined here as a specific module or the programme lasting 13 weeks) had been designed with faculty member interests in mind, rather than student learning, and there was little evidence that course development incorporated adult learning theories, scaffolded learning principles or neuroscience knowledge. Discussions held in 2013 quickly concluded that students had too many assignments that were too similar and focused on repetitive surface learning. Out of these discussions grew a commitment to be more deliberate in the curriculum design and to articulate surface to deep learning through opportunities for recursive learning. Faculty members recognised that the programme as a whole, not individual courses, promoted and empowered students in their epistemological and ontological transformations that led to professional identity. At the same time, they also committed to wrestle with the relationship between curricular congruence and pedagogical freedom. Programme Re-Design The initial curriculum mapping exercise rationalised the course delivery using Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy of learning and Biggs’s (2003) SOLO model as depicted in Table 12.1. Courses were placed in a particular order and curriculum, learning outcomes and assessments were modified to ensure consistency with the learning theory. This process provided opportunities for books to be used across multiple courses, for the identification of recursive concepts and for a conscious link and integration of learning across courses. Identification of Threshold Concepts Threshold concepts have been described as ‘jewels in the curriculum’ in which crucial points in the curriculum lead to powerful transformative points (Land, Cousin, Meyer, & Davies, 2006). Following an analysis of the scopes of practice associated with human service and social work regulation across the country, Table 12.1. Programme design and taxonomy of learning Semester 1

Semester 2

Semester 3

Semester 4

Biggs

Pre-Structural

Uni-Structural

Multi-structural

Relational

Bloom’s: Cognitive

Knowledge

Knowledge/ Comprehension

Comprehension/ Application

Application/ Analysis

Bloom’s: Psycho-motor

Perception

Perception/Set

Set/Guided Response

Guided/ Mechanism

Bloom’s: Affective

Receiving

Receiving/ Responding

Responding/Valuing

Valuing/ Organising

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associated literature, existing course curricula, and the TRU institutional learning outcomes, a series of team meetings identified the following six metacompetencies for the programme: Self Knowledge (understanding of one’s own worldview, biases and values); Respect for Diversity (includes honouring non-Western knowledge and perspectives); Ethical Client-Centredness (includes values and skills associated with interpersonal collaborative and empowering helping relationships, including respect for individual uniqueness and self-determination); Professional Judgement/ Decision-Making (which includes depth and breadth of knowledge of multiple theories and the integration of theory and practice); Reflexive Practice (practice in which theory informs practice and practice informs theory as an ongoing process); and Global Social Justice (concepts of human rights and equality in a global context). While these threshold concepts may not individually be strictly bounded to Human Services, their integration promotes human service professional identity. Students will continue to gain deeper layering and understanding of these concepts in their continuing studies and in practice, allowing for multiple threshold crossings and deeper engagement with the concepts over time (Rodger et al., 2015). Since the identification of these threshold concepts, a process to modify all course outlines occurred which resulted in a learning matrix that situates each course curriculum and associated assessments within the broader framework of adult learning and metacompetencies. The evaluation process focused on how the curriculum redesign was experienced by students. Evaluation of the Programme Ontology Over the three years of the curriculum redesign, students frequently shared their experiences of deeper learning and ontological change. A decision was made to ask students more explicitly about those changes. As part of an informal and exploratory evaluation and in an existing assignment, students were simply asked if, and how, the programme had changed them from when they entered the programme. Students provided written informed consent for the purposes of presenting results at conferences and in publications and were assured anonymity. Although not designed to meet the rigour of a strong qualitative research method, the results provide insights into the student process and their experience with threshold concepts. Integrative Threshold Concept Knowledge Threshold concepts are expected to be transformative for the student learner. These two responses represent typical statements that reflected an ontological shift: The professional knowledge I have gained in the Human Service programme has led to personal transformation in so many ways … ultimately affecting the way in which I view the world, as well as how I approach individuals and their circumstances. (S.U.) 180

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It is difficult for me to fully express how much this programme has helped me change the way I see the world and how I fit within it. The way I perceive people and their situations is no longer influenced by judgment and prejudice. (C.G.) The following response from a young student who, based on observable criteria and academic success, rarely seemed engaged in the programme or the learning, was particularly compelling. We would have intuitively assessed that they had gained very little from the two years. Clearly, we were wrong. Since coming right to university out of high school, I feel my decision making was forced to change quite quickly. I am the youngest one in the … programme …. Coming into the programme my decision-making process was based on what would benefit me, it was selfish because I never really had to think from another person’s point of view …. My decision making evolved because I used to act before I thought and would just deal with whatever consequences that came with that. However, now I’ve learned that your decisions affect people around you, you have to take into considerations cultural sensitivity, social location and world view. (T.T.) In the assignment, there was no attempt to make transparent to the students the threshold concepts faculty members had identified as the integrated threshold concept knowledge associated with human service professional identity. However, the themes came through in their writing. Self-knowledge, the first of the six identified threshold concepts was articulated strongly in the transformational statements. The important role of self, self-reflection, agency and personal epistemology is understood as a necessary component of professional identity development (Trede et al., 2012). One student described how this process began for them in the first semester: First year involved a great deal of reflecting upon ourselves. This process involved challenging our own perceptions, biases and beliefs. I began to understand myself in a manner that I hadn’t before; I began challenging myself …. First year required students to put a metaphoric magnifying glass on ourselves and deconstruct values. (I.X.) The focus on self-knowledge also requires the unpacking of what Cousin (2006) refers to as the threshold concept of othering and we refer to as respect for diversity. This student raises their transformation in terms of Indigenous peoples: Learning about the colonisation of Aboriginal people has had significant impacts on my life, exposing, challenging and now re-forming previous biases. (S.U.) In the HUMS programme, respecting diversity requires a cultural framework but also an understanding of the political and structural nature of social problems, such as homelessness and poverty. I.X. describes their transformation this way: 181

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In Canadian culture we are brought up to believe we are ‘equal’. On the contrary, certain individuals experience a harder time on a micro, mezzo, and macro level because of their social location …. Previously I hadn’t considered the idea that structures in society can be discriminative. This completely changed how I view people who are homeless, struggle with addictions or are in poverty …. My view on marginalised individuals has definitely transformed since first year … and I believe I cannot go back from this ideology. (I.X.) The threshold concept of ethical client-centredness is multifactorial and is understood as an interaction between empirical knowledge, the experiential knowledge of the service user and the practitioner’s expertise. This student articulates their legacy and the need for self-examination and a rewiring prior to being able to help others: I had a lot of issues in my past that this programme has helped me make meaning of and reframe them in a way that empowers me. This programme really makes you turn inward to focus on yourself before you are able to competently help others. (C.N.) Another student succinctly moves beyond the interaction of self and other to show relational thinking which incorporates empirical principles entrenched in the Canadian Association of Social Workers (2005) Code of Ethics and the integration of theory: Reflecting on the true nature of strengths-based and person-centred approaches, I have realized that success is as unique and dynamic as the people pursuing it, and that working with, and advocating for people requires a collaborative approach that ignores societal expectations and promotes self-determination. (S.N.) Many students struggle with how to navigate the abstract nature of professional judgment and decision-making in complex situations. Moving from the absolute perspective into the ambiguous area of uncertainty, often referred to as the ‘grey’ area, requires moving through the uncomfortable and troublesome liminal space. At the end of the programme, this student illustrated how this occurred in the field practice setting: One piece of learning I struggled with continuously was understanding ‘the grey area’, meaning I struggled with decision making in times where circumstances weren’t straightforward. […] Throughout my practicum I was lucky enough to constantly observe difficult and uncomfortable situations. Every time a scenario ended my practicum supervisor would ask me questions about how she interacted with the client. This allowed me to understand the integration of theory into practice at an entirely new level. This helped me gain an understanding of the ‘grey area’. (N.T.)

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Reflexivity, the fifth strand of human service professional identity, is a process used in lifelong learning. Foote (2013) summarises reflexivity as a threshold concept in social work, as it is a challenge to a positivist epistemology in which students are ‘challenged to generate knowledge from analysis of their interaction of their own experience in context, followed by reflection and reformulation of practice’ (p. 431). Hibbert & Cunliffe (2015), in their work on reflexive practice and threshold concepts, describe reflexivity as ‘a means of interrogating our taken-for-granted experience by questioning our relationship with our social world and the ways in which we account for our experience’ (p. 180). A self-reflexive individual is someone who is capable of relating to others, someone who is able to see what is wrong with their actions for self or others, and someone who desires to change her practice (Hibbert & Cunliffe, 2015). One student recollected and described their transformative moment this way: I realised I had a personal bias around pregnant women using substances. I suppose this bias came from having my own son, I could not imagine using drugs or putting my baby at any sort of risk …. [My instructor] helped me see that the majority of women who have used drugs during pregnancy do not want to harm their baby, they are stuck in a lifestyle where they have few resources and limited agency as they take steps in helping themselves and their baby …. What I did during my pregnancy does not mean that is what will work for the next pregnant woman, everyone is different, and it is important not to pass my own bias onto others because it may cause me to make an unfair judgment, which could be harmful to treating someone. (C.T.) The final component of HUMS professional identity is the threshold concept of global social justice, which is introduced in the fourth semester. This student identifies their growing understanding of social justice in the following way: For myself, having a better understanding of a social inclusion lens, the policies currently in place and/or need to be in place, and changes within the micro, mezzo, and macro levels have ultimately had the greatest effect on my decision-making process. I no longer am quick to judge a person’s situation without first wanting to know where they come from, what is their economic status, mental health status, poverty or well-being and other factors that could have an effect on their current situation. (C.E.) DISCUSSION

The aim of the curriculum design undertaken by the HUMS programme was to interweave the rationality of modern, linear curriculum design and learning outcomes with the conceptual necessity of deep learning that prepares students to develop a professional identity consistent with a post-modern world of increasing complexity. As students enter post-secondary institutions, they struggle to find the right or best way to practise. But practice is not made up of absolutes and cannot be taught as a 183

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technical skill. For students to develop a sense of professional identity and confidence as a human service worker, they need to travel through the troublesome space of liminality. The question in this curriculum review was could the design enhance that process? And, further, did the troublesome concepts truly become the ‘jewels’ in the design? The students’ transformational statements indicate that both epistemological and ontological shifts are occurring. We believe that these occurred in part because of three primary factors: 1) a cohesive, clear and articulated curriculum plan founded on adult learning principles; 2) time, space and opportunities for working through the liminal space; and 3) faculty members’ ontological reflexivity Cohesive Curriculum Plan A clearly articulated developmental curriculum plan based on learning theory assisted teaching and learning in many ways. Initially, it helped instructors develop curriculum and assessments consistent with the students’ stage of readiness (recognising that there are individual variations across any group of students). Secondly, it provided a mechanism to be transparent to students about the deeper learning goals of each semester and the recursive nature of teaching similar concepts across courses. This included discussions about how a grade of ‘A’ in a previous semester may translate into a ‘B’ in a subsequent semester as the learning expectation deepened. The outcome of the clearly articulated curriculum was that instructors, seasoned and emerging, relaxed about, and consequently enjoyed more, the challenge of teaching at the students’ level. Further it was much easier to recognise the progression of a student’s depth of understanding over multiple semesters. As the instructors gained familiarity with the model, it became easier to identify students who were struggling with traversing the liminal spaces. As a result, instructors were able to support the students more effectively as they overcame the barriers and challenges of transformation. This structural change was administratively reasonably easy to implement. However, like Rodger et al.’s (2015) work in occupational therapy, it involved ‘staff developing a “shared language” and collective understanding’ (p. 557). The Socio-Emotional Environment of Liminal Space The process of deep learning cannot be reduced to a series of mechanical or deterministic curriculum steps (Middendorf & Pace, 2004). A psychological climate in which adult learners are joint inquirers with their instructors, have freedom of expression, feel accepted, respected and supported, and are valued for their unique individuality, is necessary (Knowles, 1980). Rutherford & Pickup (2015) refer to this as creating safe places that host ambiguity and where tension is flagged and ameliorated. The transformative process is disorienting and disconcerting and requires instructors to both intentionally construct the disruptive encounter and support the process of entering the liminal space (Johannson & Felten, 2014). The HUMS 184

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curriculum design purposefully begins by requiring a process of private self-reflection. As classrooms begin to become places of safety and trust (between students and between students and instructors), more public sharing of ideas and identity occurs. It is this initial development of learning and collaborative engagement that provides the foothold to support students as they traverse the liminal space and are prepared for the more challenging threshold concepts in Semester 2 and Semester 3 (where the majority of the transformation occurs). At this stage classroom discussions, clear feedback, role modelling and validation are all strategies used to support the journey into the liminal discomfort. Students who have affective assets such as self-efficacy, optimism, hope and resilience (Rattray, 2016) may be able to enter and traverse liminal space relatively easily; whereas students shaped by previous negative learning experiences or trauma are likely to resist the discomfort associated with liminality due to lack of safety, trust and fear. From a neurobiological perspective, an instructor’s supportive encouragement properly balanced with an appropriate level of challenge can enhance the learner’s emotional regulation (Cozolini, 2014). Research into Integrated Threshold Concept Knowledge (Meyer & Timmermans, 2016) recognises that students may be reluctant, or too fearful, to enter liminal space along any one of the ITCK thresholds. Meyer and Land (2005) describe this as a fluid or liquid state of understanding or being, in which learners move backward and forward as they grapple with the threshold they are attempting to cross (as cited in Rattray, 2016). By having multiple instructors working in cooperation, it is much more likely that a student will trust one of these instructors sufficiently to enter the liminal space. The Human Service programme has some advantages in this model, as the instructors are all practitioners; however, having said that, our different personalities and approaches appeal to different students. Students seek out faculty members who they feel attuned with and faculty members respect the student’s capacity to identify the mentors who are helpful for them at a particular stage. Ultimately, the emotional student experience is as important as the intellectual student experience. As bell hooks (1994) states, ‘to teach in a manner that respects and cares for the souls of our students is essential if we are to provide the necessary conditions where learning can most deeply and intimately begin’ (p. 13). The skills for building the social and emotional safety in the classroom are essential requirements, not nice additions, required for adult deep learning. Faculty Members’ Ontological Reflexivity The faculty members’ transformation was an unintended consequence that we now understand as a necessary component to successfully implementing threshold concepts into curriculum design. Interestingly, for the most part, we did not really understand that we were passing through our own liminal space until we had been working with the curriculum for 18 months to 2 years. Once we started the evaluation and went public within the university and external communities, we recognised that 185

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the learning was truly transformative in terms of both epistemological application and ontological pedagogy. This process was transformative in our teaching and support of students, not only in terms of curriculum design, but in our response to students’ ‘stuckness’. No longer were we frustrated that students ‘didn’t get it’, but now being ‘stuck’ was expected and respected, and any notion of frustration was largely replaced by a realisation that ‘this is expected’, ‘we will support them’ and ‘it will change’. As one instructor commented: While most of the time my eyes were on the students’ experience in this learning journey, I remember the moments when I was struck by the experience I was having. As transformational moments happened for students so too did they happen for me. I remember the moment when curiosity and discovery became the norm in the classroom – discovering self, new ways of knowing, compassion for the other, and faith in one’s ability to make a difference. (W.C.) The benefits of working in a team approach cannot be understated. The safety, trust and non-competitiveness that developed among the instructors meant that the curriculum congruence aided students in recursive knowledge making. For instructors, the discourse around curriculum design and threshold concepts developed into an increasing understanding of each other’s strengths and ideas. As an interprofessional programme in which faculty members have differing practice backgrounds and research interests, it is sometimes too easy to dismiss each other’s perspectives; however, as conversations deepened, the interprofessional respect and cohesiveness of the team was also significantly enhanced. CONCLUSION

Universities have a role in global citizenship and professional identity development. Meyer and Land’s (2003) theory of threshold concepts, within an adult learning model and a clearly articulated curriculum design, can meet both the administrative requirements of accountability at a university and the professional identity requirements necessary for the world of work. This experience highlighted three key themes as supporting adult learners in their ontological process: (1) a structuredrational curriculum design with recursive opportunities to deepen learning; (2) a classroom environment which supports social and emotional trust and safety; and (3) reflexive instructors committed to threshold concepts and attachment-based teaching. Under these circumstances students appear to transform in a way that evokes professional identity and congruency with their professional colleagues. REFERENCES Adams, K., Hean, S., Sturgis, P., & Macleod Clark, J. (2006). Investigating the factors influencing professional identity of first-year health and social care students. Learning in Health and Social Care, 5(2), 55–68. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1473-6861.2006.00119.x

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THRESHOLD CONCEPTS AND THE ONTOLOGY OF PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY Bell, K. (2012). Towards a post-conventional philosophical base for social work. British Journal of Social Work, 42, 408–423. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcr073 Biggs, J. (2003). Teaching for quality learning at university (2nd ed.). Maidenhead: Open University Press, McGraw-Hill Education. Bloom, B. S., Engelhart, M. D., Furst, E. J., Hill, W. H., & Krathwohl, D. R. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives The classification of educational goals. New York, NY: David McKay Company. Canadian Association of Social Workers. (2005). Code of ethics. Ottawa: Canadian Association of Social Workers. Cousin, G. (2006). Threshold concepts, troublesome knowledge and emotional capital: An exploration into learning about others. In J. Meyer & R. Land (Eds.), Overcoming barriers to student understanding Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (pp. 134–147). New York, NY: Routledge. Cozolino, L. (2014). Optimising attachment & learning in the classroom. Teaching Tolerance, 46, 39–41. Cozolino, L., & Sprokay, S. (2006). Neuroscience and adult learning. New Directions for Adult & Continuing Education, 110, 11–19. https://doi.org/10.1002/ace.214 Cruess, S., & Cruess, R. (2017). From teaching professionalism to supporting professional identity formation: Lessons from medicine. Richard L. Mercer Law Review, 68(3), 665–685. Fischer, K., & Immordino-Yang, M. (2008). The Jossey-Bass reader on the brain and learning. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Foote, W. (2013). Threshold theory and social work education. Social Work Education, 32(4), 424–438. https://doi.org/10.1080/02615479.2012.680436 Geoffrion, S., Morselli, C., & Guay, S. (2016). Rethinking compassion fatigue through the lens of professional identity: The case of child-protection workers. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 17(3), 270–283. doi:10.1177/1524838015584362 Haskell, L. (2012). A developmental understanding of complex trauma. In N. Poole & L. Greaves (Eds.), Becoming trauma informed (pp. 9–28). Toronto: CAMH. Hibbert, P., & Cunliffe, A. (2015). Responsible management: Engaging moral reflexive practice through threshold concepts. Journal of Business Ethics, 127, 177–188. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-013-1993-7 Hooks, B. (1994). Teaching to transgress Education as the practice of freedom. New York, NY: Routledge. Johannson, C., & Felten, P. (2014). Transforming students Fulfilling the promise of higher education. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press. Knowles, M. (1980). The modern practice of adult education From pedagogy to andragogy. New York, NY: Cambridge. Land, R. (2016). Toil and trouble. In R. Land, J. Meyer, & M. Flanagan (Eds.), Threshold concepts in practice (pp. 11–24). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Land, R., Cousin, G. l., Meyer, J. H. F., & Davies, P. (2006). Conclusion: Implications of threshold concepts for course design and evaluation. In J. Meyer & R. Land (Eds.), Overcoming barriers to student understanding Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (pp. 195–206). New York, NY: Routledge. Ludvik, M. (2016). Introduction: Rethinking how we design, deliver, and evaluate higher education. In M. Ludvik (Ed.), The neuroscience of learning and development Enhancing creativity, compassion, critical thinking, and peace in higher education (pp. 1–26). Sterling, VA: Stylus. MacPherson, K. (2015). Decoding area studies and interdisciplinary majors: Building a framework for entry-level students. College Teaching, 63(2), 40–45. doi:10.1080/87567555.2014.977215 Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (2003). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: Linkages to ways of thinking and practising. In C. Rust (Ed.), Improving student learning – Theory and practice ten years on (pp. 412–424). Oxford: Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development (OCSLD). Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (2005). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: Epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning. Higher Education, 49, 373–388. https://doi.org/10.1007/sl0734-004-6779-5

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J. STOKES ET AL. Meyer, J. H. F., & Timmermans, J. A. (2016). Integrated threshold concept knowledge. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & M. Flanagan (Eds.), Threshold concepts in practice (pp. 25–38). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Middendorf, J., & Pace, D. (2004). Decoding the disciplines: A model for helping students learn disciplinary ways of thinking. New directions for teaching and learning, 98, 1–12. Rattray, J. (2016). Affective dimensions of liminality. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & M. Flanagan (Eds.), Threshold concepts in practice (pp. 67–76). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Rodger, S., Turpin, M., & O`Brien, M. (2015). Experiences of academic staff in using threshold concepts within a reformed curriculum. Studies in Higher Education, 40(4), 545–560. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 03075079.2013.830832 Rutherford, V., & Pickup, I. (2015). Negotiating liminality in higher education: Formal and informal dimensions of the student experience as facilitators of quality. In A. Curaj, L. Matei, R. Pricopie, J. Salmi, & Scott, P (Eds.), The European higher education area (pp. 703–723). doi:10.1007/978-3319-20877-0_44 Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative (TLPI). (n.d.). Traumatic experiences can impact learning, behavior and relationships at school. Retrieved from https://traumasensitiveschools.org/trauma-andlearning/the-problem-impact/ Trede, F., Macklin, R., & Bridges, D. (2012). Professional identity development: A review of the higher education literature. Studies in Higher Education, 37(3), 365–384. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 03075079.2010.521237 Webb, S. (August, 2015). Professional identity and social work. Keynote presentation at the 5th International conference on Sociology and Social Work: New Directions in Critical Sociology and Social Work: Identity, Narratives and Praxis. Retrieved from http://www.chester.ac.uk/sites/files/ chester/WEBB.pdf

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13. THRESHOLD CONCEPTS: STRATEGIES FOR ASSISTING DOCTORAL CANDIDATES TO LEARN TO BE RESEARCHERS

ABSTRACT

Research suggests that it is not uncommon for doctoral candidates to have difficulty with understanding the various concepts in learning to be a researcher (see for example, Leshem & Trafford, 2007; Meyer, Shanahan, & Laugksch, 2005; Murtonen & Lehtinen, 2005; Shaw, Holbrook, & Bourke, 2013). In light of such research, this chapter addresses various strategies that PhD supervisors might adopt to assist doctoral candidates in learning to be researchers. BACKGROUND

The chapter outlines three different approaches to assist candidates with concepts related to research. The first is the significance of engaging doctoral candidates in clarifying what they actually think research is. This approach is based on the conceptions of research work that indicates this clarification is an important first step because one’s conception of research influences one’s approach to research (Kiley & Mullins, 2005; Meyer et al., 2005; Meyer, Shanahan & Laugksch, 2007; Meyer, 2007). The second approach arises from the literature on assisting candidates with their understanding of the various threshold concepts related to being a researcher. The final approach, again based on research, addresses the work on conceptual change (Vosniadou, 1994) and conceptual threshold crossings in learning to be a researcher (Kiley & Wisker, 2006). THREE APPROACHES IN LEARNING TO BE A RESEARCHER

Conceptions of Research What do candidates think research is? Early research that attempted to address this issue aimed to identify students’ conceptions of research (Meyer, 2001, Meyer et al., 2005). Based on the results of an open-ended survey (Meyer, 2001), Meyer and colleagues (2005, 2007) developed the Students’ Conceptions of Research Inventory (SCoRI) and administered this inventory to three independent heterogeneous samples of postgraduate students (n = 154, n = 224, n = 251). The initial analysis

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004419971_013

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of the research (Meyer et al., 2005) and then further analysis (Meyer et al., 2007) identified and later confirmed six conceptions of research. The first conception relates to research as information gathering through various means. The second conception adds the idea of being ‘systematically hunting for for the truth’ (Meyer et al., 2005, p. 235). The third conception is that research is a process to ‘deeper insight and understanding’ (Meyer et al., 2005, p. 236). This is followed by the fourth conception of re-searching, where the candidate considers research as ‘finding out about something that is already there’ (p. 234), or literally re-searching. The fifth conception considers research to be about problem solving and collecting data to help solve that problem. The sixth conception is categorised by the authors as misconceptions. The misconceptions identified from the initial work (Meyer et al., 2005) included the concept that research is the collection of data to back up your argument. Another identified misconception was that research will always yield positive results if the correct processes are followed. (No doubt one can hear a number of colleagues commenting along the lines of ‘I wish’.) A third misconception suggested that qualified researchers produce unbiased results, perhaps suggesting that unqualified peers produce biased results. Fourthly, some respondents reported that ‘it is acceptable to modify research data if it does not look exactly right’ (Meyer et al., 2005, p. 236), followed by the concept that research is true after it has been published. The final two misconceptions reported were the following: ‘If research is properly conducted then contradictory findings will never occur’ and usually there is only one way to interpret data. While the conceptions of research might seem fairly obvious, often the misconceptions are likely to surprise, given that many of these responses came from enrolled candidates. If such conceptions exist, then what might be the role of the supervisor in (a) identifying these conceptions and then (b) working with the candidate to help them reconsider? Furthermore, in the same way that students’ conceptions of learning have long been understood to influence their approach to learning, work by Meyer (2007) suggests that a candidate’s conception of research will influence her/his approach to research. From a different perspective, Brew (2001) examined the conceptions of research held by academic staff. She identified four variations of research: 1. Domino: ‘research is viewed as a series (often a list) of separate tasks, events, things, activities, problems, techniques, experiments, issues, ideas or questions, each of which is presented as distinct’ (p. 276); 2. Trading: ‘the products of research’ (p. 277); 3. Layer: ‘Data, previous theories or ideas’ (p. 278) [and] ‘illuminating or uncovering the underlying layer’ (p. 278; and 4. Journey: ‘activities [that] inform the life issues which underpin the research questions’ (p. 279).

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And then, more specifically, Kiley and Mullins (2005, p. 252) addressed supervisors’ conceptions of research. The results of their survey of 53 supervisors identified the following conceptions: ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

systematic inquiry; a systematic process with a purpose; hypothesis testing; critical inquiry; discovery or production of new knowledge and understanding; contribution to the development of their discipline; [and] academic scholarship.

These various conceptions of research suggest that where candidates have different conceptions of research from their supervisors and others in the academy it is likely that there could be challenges with PhD progress, an issue now addressed. Possible Strategies to Address Learning Associated with Conceptions of Research The questions that formed the basis of the original open-ended survey developed by Meyer (2001) and colleagues have proven to be very helpful in engaging students in discussions about research and identifying the various conceptions that they hold. These questions include: 1. How would you explain to someone outside a university environment what research is? This question can be rephrased in the following way: Imagine you are at a party with people who are not involved in academia and one asks you ‘What is research?’ How would you respond? 2. What do you think research means in your disciplinary/interdisciplinary area? 3. ‘What do you think the main reasons are for doing research in your discipline or subject?’ 4. What do researchers actually do in your discipline or subject? 5. ‘What do you think constitutes good research in your area?’ (Meyer et al., 2005, p. 227). Working through these questions with students early in candidature is likely to raise a number of issues that can be addressed, and, if necessary, reconciled prior to moving onto the second approach of understanding the threshold concepts in learning to be a researcher. One additional thing that can help make this strategy successful is to include in the discussion one or two more experienced/later-stage candidates and/or academic staff as a means of challenging and enriching the discussion. A second strategy that is likely to be helpful in addressing conceptions of research is to work through with candidates the various models and frameworks designed to make explicit different levels of conceptual thinking in research. The Research Skill Development framework of Willison and O’Regan (2007) and its later iteration as RSD7 (Willison & O’Regan, 2008) is one possible model. 191

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Their model1 addresses learner autonomy on a horizontal axis with the model moving from level one where the candidate needs high levels of direction in research through to the autonomous researcher at level seven. On the vertical axis, the authors provide six facets of research: ‘Embark and clarify; Find and generate; Evaluate and reflect; Organise and manage; Analyse and synthesise; Communicate and apply’ (Willison & O’Regan, 2008). Within each cell of the model are several suggested activities and ideas that one might want to adopt with a research learner. For example, at the first level in Evaluate and reflect, the following is suggested: ‘Evaluate sources/information/data using simple prescribed criteria to specify credibility and to reflect on the research process’. However, for the same facet, but at Level 4, the suggestions include the following ‘Evaluate information/data and the inquiry process using self-determined criteria developed within structured guidelines. Refines others’ processes’ (emphasis added). Using such a model to work with candidates at different levels of conceptual understanding can greatly assist both the supervisor and the learner. Threshold Concepts in Learning to Be a Researcher Meyer and Land (2006) argued that threshold concepts are the specific, disciplinerelated concepts that are critical for learners (in their study mostly undergraduates) to fully understand in order to progress in their learning. In their early work, Meyer and Land suggested that a threshold concept had a number of specific attributes. For example, having grasped a specific concept, the learner’s understanding of the concept, and possibly of themselves, transforms. Hence, one of the attributes of a threshold concept is being transformative. In light of transformation, it is not surprising that another characteristic was irreversible, with additional characteristics being bounded, troublesome and integrative. While the early work on threshold concepts was specifically related to disciplines, later work identified the threshold concepts that were related specifically to the process of learning to be a researcher (Humphrey & Simpson, 2012; Kiley, 2009; Kiley, 2010; Kiley & Wisker, 2008; Trafford & Leshem, 2009). From interviews with research supervisors across a broad range of disciplines, Kiley (2009) identified six concepts which met the criteria for being threshold concepts: The concept of theory was reported by a number of the interviewees as posing difficulty for candidates in their understanding. As one reported: The link between what we call practice and theory and in particular the link between a project of a piece of fieldwork which generates data and being able to do something with that information in a theoretical sense and I think that’s probably the biggest potential gap. (Kiley, 2009, p. 299) Others were challenged by the different use of theory, that is a theory on which one’s research is based, or a theory that arises as an outcome of the research. Furthermore, 192

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in the more qualitative research areas, it might well be the methodological theory being adopted that challenges some learners. The difficulty candidates were reported to have experienced highlights the ‘troublesome’ nature of coming to a full understanding of the threshold concept proposed by Meyer and Land (2006). Another concept was argument or thesis. Interviewees reported that often candidates had difficulty understanding the idea of argument or ‘to have a thesis’ for their research, rather than being descriptive. Understanding the concept of analysis was another concept reported as posing difficulty for some learners (Kiley, 2009). This idea links with the conception of research mentioned above where some respondents had a focus on the data collection only, and not on the additional analysis and reporting of that data. A further concept identified in the research was that of knowledge creation, in a sense the opposite to the re-searching conception of research that is, looking at knowledge that already exists rather than creating new knowledge. Additional concepts were research paradigm/epistemology and framework, with these concepts often considered as perhaps more closely linked with the Humanities and Social Sciences rather than the Sciences. Following that early work, other concepts have been identified including creativity (Kiley, 2010), writing (Humphrey & Simpson, 2012) and ‘doctorateness’ (Trafford & Leshem, 2009). As Meyer and Land (2006) argue, without a full understanding of these relevant threshold concepts, learners are likely to experience being ‘stuck’ and in a liminal state. In this state, learners struggle to come to terms with the new concepts with which they are confronted. They are not able to go back to their previous state, but also not able to go forward and cross the conceptual threshold that they know is before them, thus experiencing a sense of oscillation, ‘going round in circles’, or being stuck. During this stage of learning, students are likely to mimic language and behaviour that they believe to be appropriate to suggest that they know what they are talking about. Many a current supervisor can confess to mimicry during some stage of their own candidature. Possible Strategies to Address the Threshold Concepts in Learning Issue Two different approaches, based on the research and, to some extent, the experiences of others, include (1) identifying the concepts and the idea of threshold concepts; and (2) identifying the idea of being ‘stuck’, ‘mimicry’ and ‘oscillation’. As Kiley (2014) suggested in ‘Now I know why I have been knocking my head against a brick wall: Doctoral candidates and stuck places’, understanding threshold concepts in learning to be a researcher, along with the experiences of being stuck and mimicry, can be very helpful, not only for candidates, but also their supervisors/advisers. For some learners and their teachers (supervisors), being able to identify specific areas of learning that are often considered troublesome can be very helpful. This ‘it’s not just me’ effect is where learners come to realise that there are specific things that many students, not only they, find difficult. And this allows some supervisors 193

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to appreciate that they are not necessarily poor supervisors/teachers, but that some issues and concepts are challenging for many candidates to learn and many supervisors to teach. As an illustration, Kiley (2014) reported these insights from an interviewee [03]: ‘The examples of threshold concepts at the doctoral level resonate with me … Also, the idea of oscillation—of movement around concepts, thinking away from a position then back to that (or a similar) position is credible’ (p. 75). In other words, articulating with candidates that some particular concepts are likely to be challenging can assist them in their learning. As a first example, discussing in depth the concept of theory and how it is used in a specific discipline could lead to a candidate appreciating the particular significance of theory as a concept, not just as a word found in publications. Secondly, discussions can lead to a realisation that there are a number of ways of thinking of theory in research. Examples might be the theory of Cognitive Apprenticeship used as the basis for a study (Austin, 2009). Alternatively, theory might be applied to the type of methodology being adopted, as with Grounded Theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). A third way in which candidates might be able to appreciate the concept of theory is where the supervisor is asking them to theorise from their own research for example by explaining the theoretical position put forward by Boud and Lee (2005) regarding peer learning. And, from there, identifying the critical role of theory in learning to be a researcher, and that the concept has been defined as a threshold concept, with all the qualities of such a concept. As Kiley (2014, p. 75) reported on a candidate [02] who: ‘learned to let go of her own ideas about theory and realize she could develop her own theoretical perspective, that is, a framework made up of several different theories’. Whereas candidate 06 commented: ‘Theory was another thing I didn’t understand, people kept asking me about my theoretical perspective but I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about’ (p. 75). Moving from this level of explanation, it can be helpful to then talk about some of the negative outcomes of not grasping a certain threshold concept, such as feeling ‘stuck’. Meyer and Land (2006) describe the liminality framework that suggests that learners in the liminal space are likely to be aware of the threshold to which they are (hopefully) progressing as a learner, but might get stuck a number of times on the way. The feeling of being stuck can lead to imposter syndrome, defined as ‘the persistent collection of thoughts, feelings and behaviours that result from the perception of having misrepresented yourself despite objective evidence to the contrary’ (Kearns, 2015, p. 25; emphasis in original). As participant 03 commented: ‘It is very visceral trying to cross the threshold. It is probably when you really think about opting out’ (Kiley, 2014, p. 75). Adding to this feeling, participant 06 reported: This [being in a liminal space] really resonated, especially mimicry. I had no idea what they meant but I used the terms anyway. At the beginning, I thought of myself as a researcher but I soon realized the difference between being a

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researcher in Social Science compared with Science. I can see now that my understanding of Social Science research was very limited. (Kiley, 2014, p. 75) Talking with candidates about being stuck and reassuring them that many others experience ‘stuckness’ can help them through this difficult stage of candidature. Conceptual Change and Conceptual Threshold Crossings The third area that might assist supervisors to help candidates in learning to be a researcher relates to the research on conceptual change (Chi, Slotta, & de Leeuw, 1994) and on conceptual threshold crossings (Kiley & Wisker, 2006). Assisting candidates in developing and even changing their conceptual understanding can be challenging. As Vosniadou (1994) suggests, ‘It is assumed that conceptual change proceeds through the gradual modification of one’s mental models of the physical world, achieved either through enrichment or through revision’ (p. 46). She continues to suggest that the simplest form is ‘enrichment of an existing conceptual structure’ (p. 48), whereas ‘revision is required when the information to be acquired is inconsistent with existing beliefs or presuppositions, or the relational structure of the theory’ (p. 49). In other words, if a candidate has a basic or simple, although accurate, idea of a concept, then it is possible to build upon that; however, there are additional learning difficulties when the original conception or belief needs to be changed. As Vosniadou et al. (2008) suggest, ‘the learning of many scientific concepts requires the more radical kind of concept changes that involve ontological category changes’ (p. 4). Linked with conceptual change in this section is the idea of crossing conceptual thresholds (Kiley & Wisker, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010). The ‘crossing’ is the moment when the supervisor is alert to the indications that a candidate has ‘got it’, ‘it’ being the concept with which they have been struggling. Returning to the idea of mimicry, a threshold crossing is evident, for example, when the candidate suddenly talks about her ‘theoretical perspective’ and clearly knows what she is talking about, rather than mimicking the language. Linked with the earlier research on threshold concepts, this threshold crossing research has a more specific focus on the process and the epistemological change that is likely to occur when the learner crosses the threshold through understanding the concept. Possible Strategies to Address Conceptual Change Vosniadou (1994) suggests that different kinds of questions can help learning be generative, rather than factual: ‘because generative questions cannot be answered through the simple repetition of unassimilated information, they have a greater potential for unravelling underlying conceptual structures’ (p. 50). The idea of a learner simply repeating a definition without understanding the meaning is akin to some of the early work in threshold concepts where Shanahan and Meyer (2006) 195

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discuss the concept of opportunity cost in Economics. While many undergraduate students studying Economics might well be able to provide the definition of opportunity cost, the authors argue that this does not necessarily mean that they actually understand the concept. In some cases, understanding whether a candidate requires enrichment or revision is a critical first step in helping with conceptual understanding. For example, does the research candidate have a simplistic understanding of the concept of research, but one that can be developed and enriched, or is their understanding such that they need to be helped to completely revise their initial understanding? The second step here, that is, getting to the stage of helping the candidate cross various conceptual thresholds, can benefit from what Wisker describes as nudging that is: ‘the ways in which we [supervisors] can enable, empower or ‘nudge’ students to work at a critical, conceptual and creative level’ (Wisker, 2012, p. 105). Seeking evidence and supporting activities that encourage candidates to ‘think like’ and ‘act like’ the researchers they will become when they have crossed the conceptual threshold is a third strategy that can assist in this learning. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

The three approaches outlined above to assist a candidate with learning to become a researcher have arisen from the research related to conceptions of research, threshold concepts on learning to be a researcher, and conceptual change and threshold crossings. A common outcome of the research findings outlined in the three types of approaches to learning is the notions of transformation and epistemological change. For example, the research candidate who has fully understood the concept of theory is likely to approach her/his research from a different epistemological perspective. In other words, it is probable that they have made a threshold crossing which they are likely to demonstrate in their writing, presentation and argument. As a result, effective ways of assisting candidates in their research learning could include identifying initial conceptions of research as outlined in the Conceptions of Research literature, and either building on limited conceptions, or recognising misconceptions through a series a questions and activities. Furthermore, clarifying with candidates the various threshold concepts related to learning to be a researcher and the role of liminality in that transformative learning can assist candidates in coping with some of the more negative aspects of their learning, particularly being stuck. From the growing research on the benfit of working with peers (see for example Aitchison, 2009; Kemp et al., 2013; Nodentoft, Thomsen, & Wichmann-Hansen, 2013), it might be possible to identify some specific peer activities that can assist in conceptual understanding. For example, one respondent in Kiley’s (2014) study, reported that,

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I know this is another thing that you [the supervisor] had talked about a lot, but it wasn’t until that moment [when another candidate challenged me] that is actually clicked. (p. 75) Developing a suite of strategies, including those that involve peers, and taking into account the various approaches outlined above that arise from the research might assist supervisors to effectively work with their candidates and develop them as researchers. NOTE 1

The model is presented as an A3 poster in table format and available for downloading from https://www.adelaide.edu.au/rsd/framework/rsd7/

REFERENCES Aitchison, C. (2009). Writing groups for doctoral education. Studies in Higher Education, 34(8), 905–916. doi:10.1080/03075070902785580 Austin, A. (2009). Cognitive apprenticeship theory and its implications for doctoral education: A case example from a doctoral program in higher and adult education. International Journal for Academic Development, 14(3), 173–183. doi:10.1080/13601440903106494 Boud, D., & Lee, A. (2005). Peer learning’ as pedagogic discourse for research education. Studies in Higher Education, 30(5), 501–516. doi:10.1080/03075070500249138 Brew, A. (2001). Conceptions of research: A phenomenographic study. Studies in Higher Education, 26(3), 271–285. doi:10.1080/03075070120076255 Chi, M., Slotta, J., & de Leeuw, N. (1994). From things to processes: A theory of conceptual change for learning science concepts. Learning and Instruction, 4, 27–43. Glaser, B., & Strauss, A. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory. Chicago, IL: Aldine Publishing. Humphrey, R., & Simpson, B. (2012). Writes of passage: Writing up qualitative data as a threshold concept in doctoral research. Teaching in Higher Education, 17(6), 735–746. doi:10.1080/ 13562517.2012.678328 Kearns, H. (2015). The imposter syndrome Why successful people often feel like frauds. Adelaide: Flinders University Press. Kemp, M., Molloy, T., Pajic, M., & Chapman, E. (2013). Peer relationships and the biomedical doctorate: A key component of the contemporary learning environment. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 35(4), 370–385. doi:10.1080/1360080x.2013.812055 Kiley, M. (2009). Identifying threshold concepts and proposing strategies to support doctoral candidates. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 46(3), 293–304. doi:10.1080/ 147032900903069001 Kiley, M. (2010). Creativity in research education Is it a threshold concept or just a good thing? Paper presented at the 3rd Biennial Threshold Concepts Symposium, Sydney, Australia. Kiley, M. (2014). Now I know why I have been knocking my head against a brick wall: Doctoral candidates and stuck places. In C. O’Mahony, A. Buchanan, M. O’Rourke, & B. Higgs (Eds.), Threshold concepts From personal practice to communities of practice (pp. 73–77). Dublin: NAIRTL. Kiley, M., & Mullins, G. (2005). Supervisors’ conceptions of research: What are they? Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 49(3), 245–262. doi:10.1080/003113830500109550 Kiley, M., & Wisker, G. (2006, December 12–14). Learning leaps and strides When and in what ways do doctoral research students cross conceptual thresholds and achieve threshold concepts? Paper presented at the Beyond boundaries: New Horizons for Research into Higher Education, Brighton, England.

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M. KILEY Kiley, M., & Wisker, G. (2008, June 18–20). “Now you see it, now you don’t” Identifying and supporting the achievement of doctoral work which embraces threshold concepts and crossing conceptual thresholds. Paper presented at “Threshold concepts: From theory to practice”, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Kiley, M., & Wisker, G. (2009). Threshold concepts in research education and evidence of threshold crossing. Higher Education Research and Development, 28(4), 431–441. doi:10.1080/ 07294360903067930 Kiley, M., & Wisker, G. (2010). Learning to be a researcher: The concepts and crossings. In J. H. F. Meyer, R. Land, & C. Baillie (Eds.), Threshold concepts and transformational learning (pp. 399–414). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Leshem, S., & Trafford, V. (2007). Overlooking the conceptual framework. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 44(1), 93–106. doi:10.1080/14703290601081407 Meyer, J. H. F. (2001). Variation in students’ conceptions of research’ A qualitative analysis. Paper presented at the Paper ‘Bridging instruction to learning’ 9th conference of the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction, Fribourg, Switzerland. Meyer, J. H. F. (2007). On the modelling of postgraduate students’ conceptions of research. South African Journal of Higher Education, 21(8), 1003–1115. Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (Eds.). (2006). Overcoming barriers to student understanding Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge. Abingdon: Routledge. Meyer, J. H. F., Shanahan, M., & Laugksch, R. (2005). Students’ conceptions of research: I: A qualitative and quantitative analysis. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 49(3), 225–244. doi:10.1080/00313830500109535 Meyer, J. H. F., Shanahan, M., & Laugksch, R. (2007). Students’ conceptions of research 2: An exploration of contrasting patterns of variation. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 51(4), 415–433. doi:10.1080/00313830701485627 Murtonen, M., & Lehtinen, E. (2005). Conceptions of research and methodology learning. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 49(3), 217–224. doi:10.1080/00313830500109519 Nodentoft, H., Thomsen, R., & Wichmann-Hansen, G. (2013). Collective academic supervision: A model for participation and learning in higher education. Higher Education, 65, 581–593. doi:10.1007/ s10734-012-9564-x Shanahan, M., & Meyer, J. H. F. (2006). Threshold concepts in economics: A case study. In J. H. F. Meyer & R. Land (Eds.), Overcoming barriers to student understanding Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (pp. 100–114). Abingdon: Routledge. Shaw, K., Holbrook, A., & Bourke, S. (2013). Student experience of final-year undergraduate research projects: An exploration of ‘research preparedness’. Studies in Higher Education, 38(5), 711–727. doi:10.1080/03075079.2011.592937 Trafford, V., & Leshem, S. (2009). Doctorateness as a threshold concept. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 46(3), 305–316. doi:10.1080/14703290903069027 Vosniadou, S. (1994). Capturing and modelling the process of conceptual change. Learning and Instruction, 4, 45–69. Vosniadou, S., Vamvakoussi, X., & Skipeliti, I. (2008). The framework theory approach to the problems of conceptual change. In S. Vosniadou (Ed.), International handbook of research on conceptual change. New York, NY: Routledge. Willison, J., & O’Regan, K. (2007). Commonly known, commonly not known, totally unknown: A framework for students becoming researchers. Higher Education Research and Development, 26(4), 393–409. doi:10.1080/07294360701658609 Willison, J., & O’Regan, K. (2008). The researcher skill development framework. Retrieved from https://www.adelaide.edu.au/rsd/framework/rsd7/ Wisker, G. (2012). The good supervisor Supervising postgraduate and undergraduate research for doctoral theses and dissertations (2nd ed.). London: Palgrave Macmillan.

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14. THRESHOLD CONCEPTS AS PATHWAYS THROUGH ANCIENT RELIGION Curriculum as Initiation

ABSTRACT

This chapter introduces the gnarly topic of non-Western ‘religions’ and outlines some of the particular affective challenges involved in learning about them. ‘Religion’, when studied critically, is a topic that can profoundly implicate and challenge students’ identities. Drawing on van Gennep’s model of initiation and liminality, this chapter suggests ways students can engage with relevant threshold concepts, initially indirectly, through ‘making’ (physically or virtually) before bringing this understanding back to the relevant subject matter. It is intended to offer a model that can be adapted to any discipline by a subject expert. SOME TROUBLE WITH ‘RELIGION’

Ancient Graeco-Roman religion and threshold concepts have not been formally introduced; one of my aims here is to think through how they might usefully get on. There are a number of specific reasons why bringing this pedagogical framework to ancient religion would bring particular benefits and, given the almost complete absence of publications about teaching and learning in this thriving disciplinary area, it is a conversation that should begin sooner rather than later. I begin with a glimpse of trouble. ‘Religion’ then was emphatically not like the modern phenomena described by the same word – I say ‘phenomena’ because even ‘counterpart’ is a misleading term. Though modern scholars do not agree exactly on what it was, there is a good consensus about what it wasn’t, and it wasn’t most of the things people assume are reliable aspects of what they also assume is a universal category, ‘religion’. Some dismantling is helpful at the outset to prevent ‘self-evident’ assumptions from imposing themselves.1 What do Western secular people understand by ‘religion’? A serendipitous judgement (December 2016) by the Charity Commission for England and Wales declining to acknowledge Jediism as a religion, seems a reasonable place to start. In brief, a religion should have (i) ‘[b]elief in one or more gods or spiritual or non-secular principles or things’ (points 15–17). It should also have a ‘[r]elationship with the gods, principles or things […] expressed by worship

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004419971_014

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[…] or by some other religious rite or service’ (points 18–20), ‘[c]ogency, cohesion, seriousness and importance in the form of the belief system’ (points 21–30), as well as having ‘doctrines and practice of benefit […] capable of providing moral and ethical value or edification to the public’ (points 31–60 – half of the ruling). The idea that religion required a ‘coherent and serious’ set of beliefs, distinct from mainstream thought (which is a key aspect of ‘non-secular’ according to Schepelern Johansen, 2011) would have simply puzzled most ancient people. This issue should not be evaded; there are extraordinary layers of paradox enshrined in the word ‘belief’, which Needham (1972) painstakingly worked through in a comparative study from across anthropology, concluding that the word should be avoided altogether when talking about non-Western religions of all periods, not just Graeco-Roman ones. However, whether or not to use ‘belief’ as a term continues to be discussed by Graeco-Roman scholars with a fervour that borders on the sarcastic (e.g., Versnel, 2011, appendix IV). This one is troublesome for the academics, never mind the students. Ancient religions would have failed on all of these criteria except ‘regular rites’, but they would probably not have satisfied the commission either, as these consisted largely of public ritual animal slaughter by state officials (if it was a state cult). ‘Meat’ in Graeco-Roman antiquity was sacrificial meat, and sacrifice was undertaken regularly to earn the approval and support of the gods for all major (and many minor) undertakings. ‘Worship’ centred on dining with the gods (who usually got the fat and bones).2 Getting the ritual right to gain the gods’ favour was the important bit.3 To be sure, one could speculate about what rituals ‘meant’ (not that many people cared that much), and there were stories about gods; however, I suspect that the myths of rape by deities would not have enchanted the Charity Commission. This does not especially provide ‘moral guidance and practical good to the community as a whole’. Nor were those ideas one could find necessarily ‘serious’ – gods were regularly mocked in comedy, such as the plays of Aristophanes. Ideas of ‘spiritual improvement’ or ‘purity’ were also almost entirely absent. In short, modern expectations simply do not map onto what we refer to as ‘ancient religion’. The ancient gods were essentially held to be overweeningly powerful members of particular communities, more reminiscent of a Mafia than having Christ or Buddhalike status (e.g., Stowers, 2011). They were, as they say in the films, ‘reasonable men’ (and women) with whom one communicated through prayer/vows, or divination. Firstly, prayer or, better still, ‘vows’: these were offers of gift exchange rather than pleas for unilateral action from an almighty, all-powerful watchful deity. One would offer a sacrifice or other gift in return for the granting of the wish. If it did not transpire, one was not required to fulfil the vow. Secondly there was divination, where questions were asked of a god and answered through various signs, such as the appearance of the liver of a sacrificed animal (there were very many variants, all centring on an assumption that the gods could and did communicate symbolically through the material world and the behaviour of animals). 202

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Central to the practices of religion, though, were sacrifices to please the gods. This was not just a private affair; it applied to all affairs of state as well (where ‘state’ effectively meant ‘city-state’ rather than ‘nations’). A few oddballs (selfstyled ‘philosophers’) worried about what it was really all about, but the likes of Plato were arguably more interested in political reform than ‘theology’. Plato wanted gods appropriate for his Republic and, in later life, his more disenchanted and severe Laws. Since gods were the most powerful citizens of a particular state, securing and retaining their support in civic affairs was essential. Though one could develop a strong affinity with a particular cult, there was no expectation of the kind of ‘exclusive membership’ that Jediism also supposedly fails to provide. One could attend as many or as few public ceremonies as one liked and, though particular groups (e.g., slaves) formed loosely bound groups with patron deities, there was nothing exclusive about participation and no interest in serving the wider community – rather the opposite for these groups, whose chief focus was to look after their own membership, like small co-ops.4 Thus, students of ancient religion have always been confronted with the full suite of threshold concept features: they cannot engage without rapidly encountering trouble with this knowledge – it is not uncommon for them to become exasperated as the ‘negative canon’ of what it was not steadily erodes the intellectual and social ground on which they thought they could reliably stand. This is also a common problem in anthropology; Saler (2000) recommends a steady and almost remorseless dismantling of modern assumptions. Even a short teaching course must aspire to begin an irreversible process of dismantling the supposedly ‘natural’ and ‘universal’ category of ‘religion’.5 Students will integrate material they have already encountered in other modules or courses about ancient literature and myth, politics, social history, philosophy and so on. They must keep it bounded in the sense that the ‘religious’ perspective may enhance – but emphatically should not displace – understandings of literature as literature, politics as politics and so on. The embeddedness and difficulties of these areas are evoked efficiently by one of the most important commentators of recent times: I thought that the main challenge would be to argue persuasively for taking the religious aspects of [Roman] culture seriously. The process of writing it has made me realise the main challenge is actually…taking the literary aspects of the culture seriously. (Feeney, 1998, p. 2) To say that studying this area leads to a greater awareness of discursiveness is an understatement; almost every familiar word requires scare quotes to emphasise its deeply imperfect mapping onto ancient categories. Jonathan Z. Smith, a giant in this field, insists at every opportunity that the subject is interpretation ‘all the way down’ (e.g., Smith, 2004, 2013). This demands not merely an extension and broadening of the use of language, but a profound recalibration of what language is, in the very constitution of understanding per se (or perhaps that should be ‘a recalibration of what understanding is, as the constitution of language’). Such intellectual work 203

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leads to unceasing messy journeys back and forth across the threshold, not just to reexamine already problematised themes but also as new ones emerge: what is ‘luck’ or ‘chance’ in a world populated by jealous gods (Eidinow, 2011)? What role does a ‘priest’ have? How is it that the gods, so jealous of being slighted or ignored, can be lampooned in comedy? Do gods read? One of our key issues is one that arrives as a sort of cousin of ‘troublesome’, namely the affective. Ancient religion was traditionally taught with a smirk and a sneering at the ‘Other’, a superstitious calumny of credibility and political manipulation. Students either had private convictions that remained private or were disinterested in religion as a topic. In recent years, this truce appears to have been severely undermined, at least if a growing number of anecdotes from colleagues is anything to go by. ‘New atheists’ can sometimes be distractingly keen to ‘call bullshit’ on religion as ‘simply irrational’, which is unfortunate when we wish to ‘shape the concept [of rationality] into a form that enables analysis rather than obfuscating it’ and try to shift it to a basis of internal consistency (D’Avray 2010, p. 14). It is not historically useful to conclude that ‘we’ – uniquely of all civilisations – have finally worked out how things really are and can therefore indulge not only in a great deal of self-satisfaction, but also in a large dose of smugness for dessert. This enactment of a renewed public confidence in critiquing religion coincides with a similar confidence in others in asserting their religious views, not least as a defensive reaction. This dynamic can also be distracting and difficult for all concerned. When a student asserts that his/her religion is a protected characteristic and then that homosexuality is a sin and should be illegal, prompting one male student to shift very suddenly in his seat (a scenario that a colleague recently related to me), the topography of ancient Roman shrines becomes difficult to concentrate on. Similarly, the disciplinary custom of routinely and neutrally referring to ancient religious organisations as ‘cults’ (to highlight the difficulty of naming it ‘a religion’) can sit awkwardly when it is early Christianity being discussed. I was asked for advice recently about a situation where a student abruptly walked out of the room in protest, thinking Christianity was being lumped in with the likes of the Moonies or Scientology. Such flashpoints frequently occur with little visible warning and cause substantial disruption: another colleague told me her students (half-?)joked that it was only in her course that they hoped to get a boring lecture. These tensions are not new, but were previously submerged and have reached the point where teachers need to find ways not just to avoid this lightning-rod effect, but also, potentially, to offer ways of taking a more academic approach to them. Middendorf et al. (2015) offer comparable scenarios in history classes, and then use of the ‘Decoding the Disciplines’ framework (Middendorf & Pace, 2004) to begin addressing them. In considering the affective aspects of transformation and threshold concepts, Timmermans (2010) elucidates, that students (like everyone) seek to retain their epistemological balance. In particular, she notes the role of background assumptions in defining the amount of cognitive space, and emphasises the need to grieve for 204

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what is given up (also a key part of the editors’ preface). As I shall attempt to explain, this pinpoints a key reason why teaching ancient religion is a special case, not least because students rarely expect deeply-held ideas about religion to be challenged when they sign up for ancient history or classics. I am not implying that cognitive difficulty is absent across the humanities wherein teaching something acknowledged as a general historical threshold concept such as ‘making the argument’ is commonplace (e.g., Adler-Kassner et al., 2012; Pace, 2012; Thomas, 2014). I would expect students to struggle, to miss the simpler days of merely asserting their opinions, or choosing which pre-existing side to join, indulging in decrying and dismissing a position as ‘biased’ and so on. I would also expect to be able to create a fairly coherent curriculum and environment where they would all be able to undertake a journey of discarding nearly all of their existing rhetorical and cognitive techniques to emerge as historical thinkers. Each student’s journey would be idiosyncratic, largely because of their starting points and the unique flavour they bring to the art of making an argument; however, these journeys would be similar enough to be part of one (admittedly somewhat sprawling) story. In learning about (ancient) religion, however, a student might well not just be challenging their own deeply embedded ideas, but having to work out how to challenge them in the first place, and with what. We may be dismantling their shared understandings with their family, their culture, or other fundamental aspects of their identity. There is a profound question here worth dwelling on a little: where does one stand cognitively while transforming one’s own understanding, and what does one think with to undertake that transformation? Who is being liminal, exactly? Who grieves the loss when it is (your idea of) yourself that has been lost? It is hard to see this in the same way as learning ‘argument-making’, ‘gravity’ or ‘opportunity cost’, where the prospect of a greater understanding is guaranteed implicitly by the teacher’s conduct and we can think usefully about student’s psychological capital (hope, optimism and resilience, as Rattray, 2016 explains). In some cases, we threaten to unravel rather than transform students’ identities. Crossing a threshold should not be a matter of affectively and/or cognitively becoming a refugee. We cannot be careless about this if we care about our students. Perhaps their sense of what religion is can be expanded, and perhaps they will move around in that space as and when they are ready and able. However (remembering the ‘protected’ homophobic comment mentioned above), it cannot always be done communally or confrontationally. If it is done at all, I suggest it should be incidental, in a way they can integrate on their own terms and at a distance they can define for themselves. I shall have more to say about this ‘evasiveness’ below. A useful approach is in Timmermans’s (2010) allusion to various scholars distinguishing ‘subject’ from ‘object’; ‘subject’ is something we identify with, ‘object’ something we can see as distinct from ourselves. The first step is therefore to create cognitive space by positioning ancient religion clearly as an ‘object’ of study. However, to do this is to walk a very fine line, as ‘Othering’ (Cousins, 2006) the ancient world is also unhelpful. 205

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This forces us back to two meanings of the question, ‘What are we teaching them?’: (1) ‘What do we intend and hope that they learn?’, and (2) ‘What is it that they usually do learn?’. The answer lies somewhere in the domain of understanding how socio-political forces shape what is possible and authoritative and how specific forms of something we can reasonably call ‘religion’ arose in particular times and places (Asad, 1993, p. 54; also explored by Schepelern Johansen, 2011). We want students to see the ancient practices as distinctive but not ‘Other’. Further, it is clear that we cannot teach them everything. ‘Each course is required to be incomplete, to be self-consciously and articulately selective […] [a] curriculum […] becomes an occasion for deliberate, collegial, institutionalised choice’ (Smith, 2013, p. 13). A key part of the curriculum must not just be looking but considering how to look. The same material will be relevant to other modules, but not in the same way. Put differently, how can we get them ‘inside’ ancient religion, to get a sense of how a world underwritten by moody, rather than serene gods might look? And how can we position it sufficiently ‘objectively’ to evade fundamental aspects of students’ identities, creating enough space to see, but not so much as to push the ancient world beyond the horizon of visibility? Since we are dealing with transformation and dabbling in anthropology, we could do worse than learn from our (academic) ancestors. Curriculum as Initiation Van Gennep’s (1909) classic formulation of initiation posits three stages: separation from normal social structures, liminality, and reintegration. We should note that initiation is, in this context, not just a useful metaphor or process, but an authentic object of study, since it is found in the ‘mystery religions’ of antiquity (Bowden 2010). It is probably the source of stories like that of a liminal Hercules dressing as a woman, which then became a literary (political and social) motif (Lindhelm, 1998). Using these stages of initiation to work with threshold concepts creates the possibility of a curriculum that is less of a ‘shopping list of skills to be mastered in a journey mapped out in advance’, and more of an environment for genuinely openended exploration and enquiry.6 Stage 1: Separation and Trouble-Making Liminality can only be experienced in contrast with structure; it is therefore important to be clear from the outset about what is structured and what is open. Since the separation from the familiar is cognitive here, rather than social or physical, some careful structuring is needed. It is often tempting to problematise religion directly as a starting point in conversation and elicit engagement from students, but that can easily give rise to the kinds of awkward situations described earlier. In other words, it can be too ‘subjective’. In line with Smith’s (2013) repeated insistence that what is being learned is interpretation, and that all activities and materials should be 206

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comparative (‘nothing must stand alone’ (p. 17), work on eliciting specific agents’ expectations and understandings of religion is a more useful and less incendiary starting point. We could do worse than ask them to summarise the ruling on Jediism: “What are the key expectations and what authorises them? What is missing?”. Threshold concepts as a general framework should be explained at, or by, this point. Students should be primed to be suspicious of easy answers in the material. Given that they will already be familiar with the ancient world in certain respects, their findings about the Charity Commission and Jediism could then be contrasted with that material, with a view to identifying differences in expectations. Any appeals to what ‘religion really is’ can be (swiftly) redirected to ‘But what does Ovid (for example) say?’ and ‘What authorises those statements?’. Discussion that veers close to ‘But there’s no evidence for God’ can be refocussed on having evidence for what we are calling religion (or – the nuclear option – arguing that there is no empirical evidence for numbers either, so why is there no campaign against numerals?). Ideally, we want students to be puzzled and intrigued, rather than baffled and bemused at this stage. There is no doubt in my mind that this part of the process is the trickiest to manage (but this is already true – we have lost nothing so far). A teacher can either ineluctably lead the class to noting repeating and/or problematic themes, or, the braver option, commit to working with those that emerge; the aim is to end up with themes that could reasonably be designated threshold concepts. That should not be difficult; my own reaction to this task is to wonder how to choose, not to hunt high and low. Importantly, it should not be something exclusive to ancient religion. When I gave a talk on this to ancient religionists in September 2015 for the Teaching and Learning Ancient Religion Network,7 we arrived at transcendence so I shall run with that as an example. Stage 2: Struggle – Getting One’s Head Inside the Abstract Threshold Concept The next step is for students to make something exploring this concept, and this also needs some background. Before we send the students through the doorway into the open wilderness, I would like to introduce another anthropologist to the mix: what follows is a paraphrase of Ingold’s ideas about lived experience.8 Firstly, lines: consider a tree and how we might represent and understand it. We could draw lines ‘outside’ the tree and get an ‘out-line’. It is thereby enclosed and de-fined (limits are put down). However, this is not how trees grow: they grow up by reaching towards sunlight (and downwards, seeking other resources). They often fork, and discard less fruitful avenues, but are always ‘feeling their way’ onwards. It is possible to ‘draw a tree’ in a few seconds, by making a few strokes of the ‘inner lines’: trunk; fork off to branches; fork them; repeat once or twice down to the level of twigs and you will have a remarkably tree-like ideogram. Each of these lines is permanently incomplete: notwithstanding a pause in winter, they are forever extending or, once the tree dies, on a return journey as they break off, perpetually (to 207

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paraphrase Lyotard, 1984, p. 81) working along lines and through form to discover what will have been created. Ingold also argues that ‘making’ (or ‘writing a chapter’) is not the imposition of a pre-designed blueprint onto passive materials but rather of finding one’s way (along a ‘line’) in a dynamic relationship with the more-or-less tractable material. I would extend his argument and compare the bifurcating growth of a tree to making and writing: we feel our way down avenues of thought, sometimes discarding a line of thought by retreating, then proceeding in a slightly different direction.9 Artefacts, as every writer/maker knows, are never ‘finished’ but can be completed, and what gives rise to a sense of completion is not so much the perfect match of the original conception with the artefact but the autonomy and self-evident completion of the artefact in its own right. In a sense, at this point it is no longer ‘ours’. ‘Making’, for my purposes, is about following a line (of enquiry or possibility) through form (including the virtual) to a destination perhaps only partially glimpsed at the outset. It is more like weaving (Ingold, 2011) than 3D printing. What this hypothetical curriculum asks students to do next is to explore the ‘lines’ of the threshold concept by going out into the liminal wilderness on a quest to make something. Make Like a Tree Ancient gods were transcendent, in that one could pray anywhere, set up a shrine anywhere, find a god anywhere. But that is not the end of the story. Gods were also located; their statues were treated as them and so on. Transcendence is going to be an interesting topic in thinking about ancient deities. How might one explore the notion of transcendence by creating an artefact? The form it takes could be any one of a papier maché shape, a poem, a gallery of photos, a small world (for instance in Minecraft or Lego), a video and so on: students should be encouraged to play to their existing strengths in this, though learning new skills might be an interesting part of the challenge. As for the lines to follow into an uncertain future, a deliberate provocation of imagination should yield some options. Where do we encounter transcendence in our daily lives? Is electricity transcendent? Is gravity? What does it transcend? What does transcendence look like? Am I transcendent? Could I be? Do I want to be? How did Escher achieve that effect with those staircases? What would happen if I tried to make one out of matchsticks? I predict two distinct kinds of trouble: getting started, and getting finished. The latter is less of a concern as even an incomplete artefact is likely to have brought insights, and they could be told this in advance. Starting is harder – some students might see it as pointless (perhaps recoiling from the openness like Cousin’s ‘defended learner’ (2006, pp. 141–142), and struggle to begin any exploration, especially if they feel exposed or vulnerable about creating something meaningful to them. For this, and many other reasons, it seems appropriate to have no summative assessment 208

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for the project but perhaps require that something (anything) is presented to the group, as described below, perhaps an ipsative assessment of their learning journey or reflection on the learning process. Secondly, one of the beauties of Ingold’s insights into the role of materials in making is that ‘copying’ also counts as making. This would not simply be ‘imitation’ such as the typing out of a poem or the reprinting of a picture, but a transposition into a different form – physically drawing an Escher painting (or at least trying); translating a poem into another language; building a scaled replica of a genuine historical temple (again, virtually or physically). It is during the puzzling out of the form in a relationship with the materials that the insights come, just as it is the actual writing that makes us articulate our ideas. Students who found it too much of a challenge might be offered this option to begin with, with clear permission to introduce variations as their imagination (or struggle) took hold of their making. Students, in accordance with the third and final of van Gennep’s stages, would then ‘rejoin normal society’, where the price of re-admission would be an artefact of some (any) kind, and a brief commentary to the group on what they struggled with and where following those lines took them. Authentic failures would be as interesting as success stories; indeed, ‘what went wrong’ would probably be more insightful as long as the struggle, paradoxes and inconsistencies were honoured as genuinely problematic, instead of ‘solved’. It is getting inside the trouble that is the prize. Stage 3: Reintegration Insights and struggles alike can now be brought to bear on the ancient material: how does this shrine handle (or evade) the issue of transcendence? Is this why anthropomorphised statues are generally larger than human? How does this poet struggle with representing the deity’s transcendence in a sequential narrative involving movement? What about that one? It might appear as if we might disappear down a rabbit hole of focussing on only one relevant topic, but in practice, one cannot think very far without encountering others. Though deities might be conceived of as potentially being available anywhere, they nonetheless usually have rituals at fixed points – voilà, here is an opportunity to look more at the (ritual) calendar. Even this process of following the lines, (or ‘wayfaring’ as Ingold calls it) can itself be an object of study: let’s think about divination and how people decided to consult an oracle or the healing god Asclepius, as they found their way through life. Presumably many of them dreamed. How did they decide that a particular dream was sufficiently significant that they would act on the orders of a god (or not)? We have hundreds of inscriptions recording responses to a dream-command (Renberg, 2010); how did they decide it was genuine? What if they didn’t fully ‘believe’ it, but acted anyway, just in case? Having the option to refer to the struggle to make sense of apparently familiar things and the pragmatism it required is a useful reference point to honour ancient distinctiveness without losing all empathy. 209

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And so on with the Module… This ‘initiation’ would, in this suggested model, give way to a more traditional presentation of material, with the usual kinds of discussion to build up interpretative skills. However, emphatically, this would not take the form of a piling-up of material, but would be an iterative process, highlighting now-familiar threshold concept(s), as well as drawing attention to others as they arise. Flagging a new area as a threshold concept would be a very useful option, alerting students to be suspicious of assuming they understand something translated by an apparently familiar term (e.g., pilgrimage). It will signal that there is new, if potentially difficult, insight to be gained from further exploration. The journey through the module would be characterised by explicitly labelled uncertainty, but students could still be asked to write assessments in fairly conventional forms (essays). This seems appropriate for several reasons. Firstly, given the extent of unfamiliarity and possible learning of new skills in producing an artefact, we should be realistic about expecting an unfamiliar form of assessment as well. Secondly, given how difficult it is to be sure we are being rigorous about assessment in history in general in the absence of agreed formulae (Pace, 2012), a familiar assessment form is prudent. Thirdly, since they would be asked to ‘weave’ an argument that grounds the understanding of the threshold concepts encountered in particular contexts and to address authentic historical and religious issues, it would contribute to their overall learning on a history degree, rather than being a rather odd one-off. Most of all, it is hard to imagine reliably and validly assessing an exercise intended to encourage open-ended creativity and reflection without stifling it. Many humanities subjects already explicitly address ‘core concepts’ head-on: Decoding the Disciplines (Middendorf & Pace, 2004) drew attention to many of the same issues as the idea of threshold concepts, and at around the same time. What does seem to be less common is moving away, albeit temporarily, from the ‘relevant material’. I stress this is not a wholesale recommendation for the humanities, but rather a set of ideas that grew out of considering issues that reach a critical point in studying ancient religion in particular. One of the intellectual giants of this field urges that ‘we [teachers] have as solemn an obligation to “keep up” with the literature and research in education and learning as we do in our particular fields of research’ (Smith, 2013, p. 16) but also to abide by ‘Smith’s Iron Law’, that ‘a student may not be asked to integrate what the faculty will not’ (p. 94). ‘Integrating’ the study of ancient religion, given the profound epistemological issues and vast amount of material, cannot take the form of an ‘outline’, tracing the perimeter and defining the subject area. It must take an Ingoldian ‘inner line’ approach, finding paths along which to travel while glancing around on the journey, sometimes overshooting and turning back, sometimes following a line further than was ever expected and finding out what shape the subject is from within. The framework of threshold concepts creates a suitable environment for students to struggle in a delimited space and also gives us permission to mull over troublesome 210

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and transformative topics without directly triggering affective issues that we cannot manage; rather, it might forge a space in which those issues can be given more room to breathe and be less prone to flashpoints and overcrowding. I like to think that Smith would approve. NOTES 1

2

3

4

5 6

7 8 9

It is far from obvious how we should refer to them collectively; see e.g. Mitchell and Nuffelen (2010) on whether monotheism and polytheism should be used of religion in the Roman empire. To be more nuanced, the act of professing belief (credo) did increasingly feature as we approach the 4th century CE, but was a break with the past, and essentially part of the practice of the Christian empire: see North (2010). On ritual and religion more generally in anthropology, see Bell (1997) and Rappaport (1999). Bibliography mentioned throughout this chapter is selected as a good place to start in an enormous range of publications across many decades. The latest angle of how individuals navigated religion is the metaphor of lived religion; see Rupke (2016). Efficiently demolished by Smith (2004) amongst many, many others. At the time of writing, my institution UCL is ambitiously looking to base all teaching on the Connected Curriculum which stresses research-based education: engaging with that has certainly influenced my thinking here. For more information, see Fung (2017). See https://tlarblog.wordpress.com Ingold (2013) is a good place to start. Ancient historians cannot bear to prune, which is why they use so many lengthy footnotes.

REFERENCES Adler-Kassner, L. J. D. (2012). The value of troublesome knowledge: Transfer and threshold concepts in writing and history. Composition Forum, 26. Asad, T. (1993). Genealogies of religion Discipline and reasons of power in Christianity and Islam. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Asad, T. (2003). Formations of the secular Christianity, Islam, modernity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Bell, C. M. (1992). Ritual theory, ritual practice. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Bell, C. M. (1997). Ritual Perspectives and dimensions. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Bowden, H. (2010). Mystery cults in the ancient world. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Charity Commission for England and Wales. (2016). The temple of the Jedi order – Application for registration Decision of the commission. Cousin, G. (2006). Threshold concepts, troublesome knowledge and emotional capital. In J. H. F. Meyer & R. Land (Eds.), Overcoming barriers to student understanding Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (pp. 134–147). Abingdon: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203966273 Davies, J. P. (2011a). Believing the evidence. In D. Vasilaki, W. Twining, & P. Dawid (Eds.), Evidence, inference and enquiry (pp. 395–494). Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.5871/ bacad/9780197264843.003.0015 Davies, J. P. (2011b). Disciplining the disciplines. In D. Vasilaki, W. Twining, & P. Dawid (Eds.), Evidence, inference and enquiry (pp. 37–72). https://doi.org/10.5871/bacad/9780197264843.003.0003 Díaz, A., Middendorf, J., Pace, D., & Shopkow, L. (2007). Making thinking explicit: A History department decodes its discipline. National Teaching and Learning Forum, 16(2), 1–5. Eidinow, E. (2011). Ancients and moderns series Luck, fate and fortune Antiquity and its legacy. London: I.B. Tauris.

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J. P. DAVIES Feeney, D. C. (1998). Literature and religion at Rome Cultures, contexts, and beliefs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fung, D. (2017). A connected curriculum for higher education. London: UCL Press. https://doi.org/ 10.14324/111.9781911576358 Ingold, T. (2013). Making Anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture: London & New York, NY: Routledge. Lindheim, S. H. (1998). Hercules cross-dressed, Hercules undressed: Unmasking the construction of the Propertian amator in Elegy 4.9. American Journal of Philology, 119(1), 43–66. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1562066 Ludvigsson, D., & Booth, A. (2015). Enriching history teaching and learning: Challenges, possibilities, practice: Proceedings of the Linköping conference on history teaching and learning in higher education. In The Linköping conference on history teaching and learning in higher education, May 2014. Meyer, J. H. F., Land, R., & Baillie, C. (Eds.). (2010). Threshold concepts and transformational learning. Rotterdam/Boston/Taipei: Sense. Middendorf, J., Jolanta, J., Saunders, T., Najar, J., Clark-Huckstep, A. E., & Pace, D. (2015). What’s feeling got to do with it? Decoding emotional bottlenecks in the history classroom. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 14(2), 166–180. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474022214552655 Middendorf, J., & Pace, D. (2004). Decoding the disciplines: A model for helping students learn disciplinary ways of thinking. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 98, 1–12. https://doi.org/ 10.1002/tl.142 Mitchell, S., & Nuffelen, P. V. (Eds.). (2010). One god Pagan monotheism in the Roman empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511730115 Needham, N. (1972). Belief, language and experience. Oxford: Oxford University Press. North, J. A. (2010). Pagan ritual and monotheism. In S. Mitchell & P. V. Nuffelen (Eds.), One God Pagan monotheism in the Roman Empire (pp. 34–52). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/ 10.1017/cbo9780511730115.004 Rattray, J. (2016). Affective dimensions of liminality. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & M. T. Flanagan (Eds.), Threshold concepts in practice (pp. 67–76). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Renberg, G. (2010). Dream-narratives and unnarrated dreams in Greek and Latin dedicatory inscriptions. In E. Scioli & C. Walde (Eds.), Sub imagine somni Nighttime phenomena in Greco-Roman culture (pp. 33–61). Pisa: ETS. Rupke, J. (2016). On Roman religion Lived religion and the individual in ancient Rome. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501706264 Saler, B. (2000). Conceptualizing religion Immanent anthropologists, transcendent natives, and unbounded categories (Berghahn series). Leiden: Brill. Schepelern Johansen, B. (2011). Doing the secular: Academic practices in the study of religion at two Danish universities. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 10(3), 279–293. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/1474022211408040 Smith, J. Z. (2004). Relating religion Essays in the study of religion. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Smith, J. Z. (2013). On teaching religion Essays by Jonathan Z. Smith. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Stowers. (2011). The religion of plant and animal offerings versus the religion of meanings, essences, and textual mysteries. In J. W. Knust & Z. Várhelyi (Eds.), Ancient Mediterranean sacrifice (pp. 35–56). https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199738960.003.0001 Timmermans, J. A. (2010). Changing our minds: The developmental potential of threshold concepts. In J. H. F Meyer, R. Land, & C. Baillie (Eds.), Threshold concepts and transformational learning (pp. 3–19). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. van Gennep, A. (1909). Les rites de passage. Paris: Émile Nourry.

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15. THRESHOLD CONCEPTS AT THE SHARP EDGE Entrepreneurship Curriculum Redesign

ABSTRACT

This chapter sets out the design of a proposed study to identify entrepreneurship threshold concepts using a novel combination of Transactional Curriculum Inquiry and a Delphi-style approach to engage key stakeholders. The planned study responds to calls for more research into the role of universities in developing entrepreneurial mindsets in graduates, and acknowledges the context of entrepreneurship as an academic discipline of disputed legitimacy. The innovative methods proposed are potentially transferable to other academic disciplines. INTRODUCTION

This chapter outlines a proposed approach to identify and use the ‘sharp edge’ of threshold concepts in entrepreneurship to cut to the essential elements of curricula and pedagogy in effective entrepreneurship programmes in Higher Education. Transactional Curriculum Inquiry combined with a Delphi style technique to engage key stakeholders are among the methods proposed. This chapter presents an innovative approach to the identification of threshold concepts in entrepreneurship which is potentially transferable to other learning environments. Although enterprise and entrepreneurship education have been identified as enablers of positive social, economic and political change (Matlay & Carey, 2007), there is much debate around the distinctive nature of entrepreneurship, and indeed whether it can be taught or not. Enterprise education aims to develop in students the mindset and skills to come up with original ideas and the ability to act on them. It can be argued as relevant in all subject areas. Entrepreneurship is defined here as the application of enterprise skills specifically to create and grow organisations (QAA, 2012). This has led to a proliferation of approaches to enterprise and entrepreneurship in the Higher Educational setting, ranging from centralised specialised units, the expansion of existing careers services, integration into the curriculum, stand-alone programmes and optional modules, as well as extracurricular activities, such as incubators, boot camps, hackathons,1 clubs and societies. Although there is widespread consensus that entrepreneurship education is a ‘good thing’ and the many and various approaches to it have largely claimed

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004419971_015

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success (Wilson, 2012), the specific knowledge content of programmes and modules specialising in the development and understanding of entrepreneurship are less clear (European Commission, 2006). There is broad agreement on why entrepreneurship education is beneficial, but not exactly what it is, what the knowledge base is, or what the learning outcomes might be. There have been calls for more studies exploring the role of universities in entrepreneurship, particularly in relation to fostering an entrepreneurial mindset (Davey, Hannon, & Penaluna, 2016). Defining the threshold concepts in any subject discipline is likely to inform the development of the curriculum in order that it might be optimised. In attempting to define the threshold concepts, educators are making use of an analytical framework that helps them better understand how students learn, what might cause students to become stuck and consequently what pedagogical modifications might be needed to facilitate their learning journeys. Using the Threshold Concepts Framework (Meyer & Land, 2003, 2005) to define academic territories, therefore, presents an important opportunity both in terms of the credibility of the field of entrepreneurship, and to the design and delivery of enterprise and entrepreneurship offerings in Higher Education. A proposed approach to these challenges is presented in this chapter which is drawn from a doctoral thesis in progress. It will be of interest to those using the Threshold Concepts Framework to develop educational programmes in similarly recent, complex and contested fields, and to entrepreneurship scholars unfamiliar with the Threshold Concepts Framework and its potential for the study of entrepreneurship. A staged study design is outlined which uses Transactional Curriculum Inquiry (Cousin, 2009) to identify ways to potentially redesign a curriculum, and different models and perspectives including a modified Delphi technique (Rescher, 1998) to identify threshold concepts. The participant samples at the various stages of the study include entrepreneurs and their advisors, entrepreneurship educators, entrepreneurship students and educational developers. Initial findings suggest this approach could offer a potentially interesting, distinctive and portable way of opening up an emerging cross-disciplinary field and address previous criticisms directed at Transactional Curriculum Inquiry around the lack of involvement of external stakeholders and insufficient efforts to achieve consensus (Barradell, 2013). CONCEPTUALISING ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Theories of entrepreneurship are full of paradox and uncertainty and necessitate improvisation (Schumpeter, 1934). The world of the entrepreneur is ‘messy and paradoxical’ (Schumpeter, 1934, p. xii), and it is important to be prepared for ‘complexity and uncertainty’ (Schumpeter, 1934, p. xii), and ‘a continuous bombardment of new challenges and opportunities’ (Schumpeter, 1934, p. xii). To add to the complexity, ‘There are many entrepreneurships in terms of focus, definitions, scopes and paradigms’ (Murphy, Liao, & Welsch, 2006, p. 5). However, if entrepreneurship is to be taught and curricula are to be developed that enable students to understand what it means to think like an entrepreneur, then it would be 214

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useful, to say the least, to identify a knowledge base for entrepreneurship, if indeed there is one. From an economic perspective, entrepreneurship has been conceptualised in terms of financial risk, serving to compensate for discrepancies between supply and demand by buying something cheaply and selling it again at as high a price as possible (Schumpeter, 1934). The entrepreneur obtains and distributes resources at his or her own risk, thereby bringing the economy into equilibrium (McClelland, 1967); a type of ‘Del Boy’2 (BBC, 2014). Knight, as referenced by Gartner (1988), stated that the function of the entrepreneur is to carry the inherent uncertainty within the economy on his shoulders. Where different outcomes in the future exist and are known, the entrepreneur’s role is to calculate probabilities and make decisions based on them. Where different outcomes in the future exist and are not known, the entrepreneur’s role is to guess outcomes (based on a defined range of possible outcomes) with incremental certainty based on the accuracy of previous guesses, gradually building a picture of a likely future outcome. Where different outcomes in the future cannot be known, entrepreneurs receive profits as compensation or reward for taking risks. Entrepreneurship can also be regarded purely as an investment alternative and a mechanism for growing capital. A distinction can be made between people who supply funds and people who create profit (Carland, Carland, Hoy, & Boulton, 1988). Pittaway (2005) argued that the entrepreneur bears no risk; instead, it is the venture capitalist who allocates funds to the entrepreneur who then bears the uncertainty and risk in the economy. Entrepreneurship is therefore about the maximisation of return on investment. The creation of profit in entrepreneurial businesses may be distinguished from that of businesses in general because it is seen to result from a strategy of aggressive expansion and a dissatisfaction with the status quo (Enterprising Oxford, n.d.). Schumpeter (1934) also argued that entrepreneurship is a proactive and creative activity, generating new opportunities and organisations in the economy by combining existing things and arguably acting as the main source of development in the economy. Increasingly, concepts of entrepreneurship have become centred on innovation and the creation of something new – where new venture creation is only one of many possible outputs. Many of the current paradigms of entrepreneurship were anticipated even before the Second World War in the work of Schumpeter (1934), who observed that entrepreneurship can be regarded as innovation. A more holistic conceptualisation of entrepreneurship has also been extended to the human condition: ‘We are entrepreneurs of the self’ (Lazzarato, 2012, pp. 106–107). Entrepreneurship has thus been used to describe behaviours within corporate contexts (Nielsen, Klyver, Evald, & Bager, 2012) and therefore may not exclusively be about the creation of new and independent organisations. Entrepreneurship can be regarded as being about more than just starting an independent organisation, but a complex phenomenon that occurs in many different contexts, varying in terms of scope, process and output (Nielsen et al., 2012). Entrepreneurship is therefore 215

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possible for all employees, and transformed into the concept of ‘intrapreneurship’ (Pinchot, 1987). However, others would argue against this conceptualisation as it neglects the extent of personal financial risk normally involved in new venture creation. Risk is frequently associated with courage, masculinity and lone, heroic acts. Entrepreneurship has often been conceptualised as a form of heroism, and entrepreneurs are frequently portrayed in the media as ‘today’s heroes’ (Nielsen et al., 2012, p. 3). Rags-to-riches stories in which our resourceful hero starts his own organisation and becomes rich and famous are common and widespread. Entrepreneurship has also been conceptualised as a type of calling, similar to that of an artist, musician or explorer. Entrepreneurship, particularly if you’re a founder, is a calling, not a job. That’s biggest piece of advice I could give any entrepreneur. The problem today is that it’s cool and trendy, so you think you should do it. Entrepreneurship is for crazy people, much like an artist. You don’t get assigned to be a sculptor, a painter or a writer. It’s something that you can’t get rid of. It’s inside of you, dying to get out. (Blank, 2014, para. 9) Entrepreneurship has also been conceptualised in terms of specific personality traits such as creativity, opportunism and persuasiveness combined with an unusually low level of aversion to uncertainty. These traits may be inherent, developed, or a combination of the two. Repeated research studies have attempted to distinguish those who engage in entrepreneurship through having a particular psychological mentality (Autio, 2007). The ‘need to achieve’ (Atkinson, 1957) among the actors in a given society could explain why some people concentrate on economic activity and are successful and others are not, and also why societies starting from similar points achieve different economic outcomes. A high level of self-efficacy is also frequently cited as a defining characteristic of entrepreneurs (Hechevarria, Ingram, Justo, & Terjesen, 2012). However, the literature exploring the personality traits of successful entrepreneurs has been challenged on three main fronts: 1. the interdependency of traits and the influence of environmental factors has been largely ignored; 2. such a wide range of traits has been generated as to render the concept of the characterisation of ‘a successful entrepreneur’ meaningless; and 3. the identification of ‘the entrepreneurial personality’ has not yet been empirically possible (Kolb, 1984). Whichever conceptualisation or combination of conceptualisations one chooses for entrepreneurship, the fact remains that none of them so far tells the whole story. None of these concepts is sufficient independently; many people with supposedly entrepreneurial traits have not set up new ventures, and many self-employed people or small business owners do not display an entrepreneurial approach. It is 216

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currently argued that the missing dimension might be the entrepreneurial context, the environmental factors or eco-system within which the person embodying an entrepreneurial pre-disposition finds him or herself. The interplay between the processes of new venture creation, the individual and the context of external factors, such as financial support (Prahalad, 2005) might enable the prediction of entrepreneurial activity and hence offer the key to economic development and success. From an educator’s perspective, however, there is only so much influence that can be exerted, and widening the scope of entrepreneurship education to include the business context may well be a step too far. As it is conceptually diverse, narrowing the concept of entrepreneurship to the ways in which entrepreneurs think and practise presents the educator with many challenges. Not least of these challenges are the tasks of distinguishing the threshold concepts of entrepreneurship; developing students as entrepreneurs; attempting to establish a knowledge base in the field; and determining what is taught and how to teach it. THE CONTEXT OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION

The case for enterprise and entrepreneurial education is powerful (QAA, 2012) and there is global growth in entrepreneurial education programmes (Benyon, Jones, Packham, & Pickernell, 2014). This is apparent in the UK, where entrepreneurship is identified as an enabler of positive social, economic and political change (Matlay & Carey, 2007). Entrepreneurship has been presented as a means to generate jobs, economic growth and prosperity, especially when it has been argued that small businesses are more important to the economy than large businesses when it comes to generating economic growth (Kelley, Bosma, & Amorós, 2011). Consequently, most Higher Education institutions cite entrepreneurship and enterprise as priorities in their organisational strategy. Enterprise and entrepreneurship may be evident in many different guises in Higher Education. In some organisations responsibility is held by a central unit or delivered through the existing careers service. In some organisations, enterprise and entrepreneurship are embedded in the curriculum by subject specialist educators, or they are embedded in the curriculum under another name, such as ‘professional studies’ or ‘personal marketing skills’. Other organisations separate them out in extra-curricular activities, and yet others offer stand-alone programmes involving actual business start-up or venture creation as an integral requirement (QAA, 2012). A typical syllabus for a business programme in Higher Education would be likely to include elements of finance, marketing, human resource management, operations and strategy. Specialised entrepreneurship modules and programmes do not appear to be much different in terms of content. They do claim to be different in terms of modes of delivery, however, with an emphasis on learning by doing, and the practical application of knowledge. Entrepreneurship, therefore, would appear to be

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a distinctive way of doing business, so that it does not differ significantly in content (from general business programmes) but in mode of delivery. ‘Team Academy’ is a version of a venture creation programme which was developed at Finland’s Jyväskylä University of Applied Science. Established in 1993, Team Academy was conceived by Johannes Partanen (‘Tiimiakatemia’, 2013). In this programme, student teams set up and manage real businesses, supported by coaches, and learn together through identifying commercial opportunities, developing plans to exploit these, and managing the resulting activities. Elements of the curriculum design were originally developed in response to the very limited availability of graduate employment opportunities at the time, and it encourages students to ‘make a job’ rather than to ‘get a job’. Students of business and entrepreneurship, arguably more than most, are learning for an unknown future, even in times of high employment and a healthy global economic outlook. STUDY CONTEXT: BA(HONS) ENTREPRENEURIAL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT – NORTHUMBRIA UNIVERSITY

The BA (Hons) Entrepreneurial Business Management Programme at Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne (UK) serves as the context for this study. Established in September 2013 and drawing on the Team Academy philosophy, it is a stand-alone programme involving actual business start-up as an integral requirement. Students of the programme are referred to as ‘teampreneurs’ to highlight both the emphasis on team-based entrepreneurial activities and the anticipated transformation in self-identity from ‘student’ to ‘nascent team entrepreneur’. Team coaching largely replaces traditional lectures and classroom teaching to support a flexible learning approach. Students work together to generate and tackle practical challenges, such as raising finance. They take responsibility for identifying and prioritising their own learning and development needs, as these arise from the conception, growth and day-to-day management of their business projects. The curriculum is largely content free and the knowledge base is unclear; consequently, the credibility of the programme is vulnerable. The stated programme aims are to: ‡ Adopt a radically innovative approach to delivery and offer a unique student learning experience ‡ Develop very effective team working skills ‡ Develop individuals who thrive on ambiguity and change ‡ Develop individuals who ultimately believe in themselves and have a ‘can-do’ approach to life The programme takes a work-based approach in which you will develop your personal capability and apply the business, leadership and management knowledge you develop by establishing and managing your own business. To enable this you will be actively engaged throughout the programme in your 218

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own business projects in roles with real personal and commercial responsibility. This will support your professional and personal development. This will enable you to embark on an accelerated learning programme designed to enhance your confidence and abilities as an entrepreneur or increase your employability and equip you to take responsibility, and work constructively, imaginatively and positively in teams. Conducting business responsibly, ethically and sustainably are integral principles of this programme, and you will be working with external contacts, many of whom are alumni, from a wide range of organisations including the not-for-profit and social enterprise sectors in the UK as well as in other countries. (Northumbria University, 2016) Following a recent re-validation exercise, all business programmes at Northumbria University now share the same standardised learning outcomes. Given the overlap of content knowledge with a standard business course, the temptation is to measure the success of this programme by the number of resulting business start-ups. This is problematic, however, as a valid outcome for a student might be the realisation that they would rather go and work for someone else than set up a new venture, and the economic climate might have a disproportionate impact on the start-up success rate, independent of the quality of the educational provision. There is a need to develop a framework and knowledge base for the entrepreneurship curriculum that addresses these concerns. PEDAGOGY OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP

‘There is a strong contention that entrepreneurship education should be different from normal teaching because it’s about teaching you to create something that does not exist’ (Nielsen et al., 2012, p. xvii). Theories of entrepreneurship are filled with tensions and dilemmas presenting a number of challenges to the developers of entrepreneurship education programmes. Many of the characteristics associated with successful entrepreneurship are also associated with successful learning approaches of higher education (Claxton, 2002), and are demonstrated in activities or processes. However, that clearly is not the whole story. As a reflection of the many conceptualisations of entrepreneurship, the entrepreneurship curriculum should perhaps allow room for such paradoxical questions as: ‡ Are entrepreneurs born, or made? ‡ Are opportunities discovered or created? ‡ Is entrepreneurship a product or instigator of its environment? Defining what entrepreneurship is as a subject discipline or field is challenging but important in terms of both programme credibility and curriculum design. The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA, 2016) defines enterprise and entrepreneurship as 219

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‘The study of the application of creative ideas and innovations to practical situations, including, but not exclusively, creating and growing organisations in order to identify and build on opportunities’ (HESA, 2016). This characterises entrepreneurship as an activity (creating and growing organisations) with a purpose (to identify and exploit opportunity). Clearly it is about the application of knowledge, but what knowledge? Could entrepreneurship be defined as the application of business knowledge or does it have its own unique knowledge base? The production of knowledge is commonly and historically organised in disciplines and the communication of knowledge within a discipline is normally expected to differ from the communication of knowledge within a non-discipline (Van den Besselaar & Heimeriks, 2001). Business is typical of a non-disciplinary subject, or multidisciplinary subject, and business schools and business courses have long struggled with academic legitimacy perhaps because of this. The Gordon and Howell report and funding from the Ford Foundation and the Carnegie Council (Pierson, 1959) started business schools on their continuing trajectory to achieve academic respectability and legitimacy by becoming (applied) social science departments. However, employers increasingly demand application-oriented knowledge, and the usability of knowledge generally requires the combination and integration of knowledge from various disciplines. So whilst Business Studies may continue to battle for academic legitimacy in some quarters, Business Studies’ students may have an advantage when it comes to graduate employability. It may be argued that the call for useable, application orientated knowledge from employers has encouraged business schools to privilege the development of soft skills and competencies, resulting in an erosion of the delivery of actual content knowledge on business programmes, which is even more pronounced in entrepreneurship programmes. This absence of content knowledge on entrepreneurship programmes is exacerbated by the fact that entrepreneurial characteristics are so often associated with dispositions and implied to be innate personality attributes. THRESHOLD CONCEPTS IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION

Threshold concepts can constitute a focus for evaluating teaching strategies and learning outcomes (Meyer & Land, 2003). Threshold concepts are concepts that bind a subject together, being fundamental to ways of thinking and practising in that discipline (Land, Cousin, Meyer, & Davies, 2005). Using the critical lens of threshold concepts as a tool for interpretation, the study design presented here aims to define what is distinctive about entrepreneurship and how students come to understand and learn it. Discipline knowledge is regarded as important because it offers a means to derive general principles of predictive value, characterised by Young (2007) as ‘powerful knowledge’. If action in the world is to be intelligent and not ‘stupid’, the role of subject-matter is important in education as a means of informing experience (Dewey, 1966). 220

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When knowledge structures are considered in Higher Education, at the broadest level there are ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ academic disciplines which might be ‘pure’ or ‘applied’ (Biglan, 1973a, 1973b). The social sciences are comprised of ‘soft, pure’ disciplines (Muller, 2009). As knowledge evolves, independent disciplines may converge to form a new field or ‘region’ of knowledge, often to support a domain of professional practice (Muller, 2009). Newer regions are characterised by ‘a relatively simple social base, the lack of an accepted body of professional knowledge and the lack of a foundational disciplinary core’ (Muller, 2009, p. 214). As a consequence, the professional identity is relatively weak compared to older professions and the disciplines. Business studies is typical of such a cluster and might be termed a non-disciplinary or multi-disciplinary subject, and so, one might reasonably assume, is entrepreneurship. It might be expected that the articulation of threshold concepts would differ in disciplinary, multi-disciplinary, cross-disciplinary and nondisciplinary settings. Within the fields of business and management, ‘ways of thinking and practising’ (McCune & Hounsell, 2005) may also constitute thresholds which lead to a transformed understanding. This could be summarised as a student on an entrepreneurship programme being able to ‘think like an entrepreneur’. Baillie, Bowden and Meyer (2012) see a dynamic progression from attaining an understanding of threshold concepts to developing threshold capabilities to then developing knowledge capability. They refer to the learning process as one where we learn to become professionals, where students learn to see things through the eyes of the professional, and become professionals. The theory of threshold concepts therefore could be particularly useful in both distinguishing the practice of entrepreneurship from the practice of business, and in the evaluation of teaching strategies and learning outcomes in entrepreneurship education, a recent, complex and cross-disciplinary field. TRANSACTIONAL CURRICULUM INQUIRY

In the context of curriculum development in Higher Education, the identification of threshold concepts involving dialogue amongst lecturers and/or students with the inclusion of educational developers is called Transactional Curriculum Inquiry (Cousin, 2009). These conversations in which the threshold concepts are discussed are recognised as integral to the process of their identification. Lecturers are assumed to have expertise in their field, but may not be able to recall the troublesome nature of the threshold concepts they have already acquired. Students are able to relate what their learning experience has been like, but do not know what they need to learn. Educational developers can link these two perspectives by assimilating the threshold concepts into effective curriculum design. However, Barradell (2013) highlights a general lack of research involving stakeholders external to the teaching and learning environment in the identification of threshold concepts in this context

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and a greater need for consensus. The process of involving external stakeholders has the additional benefit of forging and strengthening connections between the external stakeholders and academics through dialogue. ‘The involvement of the wider or professional community is also likely to have a place in supporting students to truly embrace disciplinary knowledge, practice and identity’ (Barradell, 2013, p. 275). Consensus methodologies, such as the Delphi technique (Rescher, 1998) have many potential advantages in the identification of threshold concepts and associated improvements to curriculum design. They enable links to professional learning outcomes and competencies, as well as being more likely to result in a list of concepts of a manageable length. As Barradell observes (2013, p. 274), ‘a level of consensus is important if the true value of threshold concepts to curriculum design and the learning experience is to be exploited’. STUDY DESIGN

As outlined above, the field of entrepreneurship in Higher Education lacks focused teaching strategies, knowledge content and a consistent set of learning outcomes. This presents a significant opportunity for curriculum development. Entrepreneurship programmes need to be clearer about the ways in which they are distinctive, about what they teach and about what will be learnt. This study has been developed in response to these perceived shortcomings. It will consist of a Transactional Curriculum Inquiry conducted in stages which incorporate a variety of research methods, and draw on a diverse sample including external stakeholders, educators, students and educational developers. It is intended to contribute to the scholarship of threshold concepts by offering a design that will be conducted in stages, each one building on the last, using a variety of research methods including a modified Delphi technique and involving a sample including external stakeholders. Four samples (stakeholder groups) will be identified to take part in the Transactional Curriculum Inquiry: ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

Entrepreneurs and their advisers Students of entrepreneurship programmes Entrepreneurship educators Educational developers

The key stages of the study are set out here. As each stage is intended to build upon the next, it is expected that methods will develop and evolve over the course of the research. The study will adopt a spiralling constructivist/interpretivist approach drawing upon a variety of research methods at different stages. Ethical approval for tasks 1 and 2 of this study has been given by Durham University School of Education (UK), and has been sought for task 3 (please see Table 15.1 for task descriptions).

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Table 15.1. Study design Tasks

Research participants

Relevant research questions

Task 1 – Entrepreneurs and their What does it mean Identification professional advisors to think as an of threshold entrepreneur? concepts

Method

Outputs

Modified Delphi technique

Dataset 1 Threshold Concepts Map of expertise

Task 2 – Curriculum design

Dataset 2 Document Providers (Team What concepts Academy UK & others) do students of analysis and interview Survey of entrepreneurship Provision programmes need to grasp? What aspects of curriculum design help and hinder students of entrepreneurship?

Task 3 – Student experience (the enacted curriculum)

Students

Task 4 – Curriculum redesign

Educational developers

What concepts are critical to learning entrepreneurship? What concepts critical to learning entrepreneurship are troublesome?

Dataset 3 Concept Map (mediating artefact) and interview

How might an Workshop HE programme in entrepreneurship be optimised as a result of this research?

Curriculum enhancement model Analysis of threshold knowledge

Stage 1 – Identification of Threshold Concepts A modified Delphi technique will be used to generate a list of threshold concepts in entrepreneurship. The Delphi technique seeks feedback from a panel of experts to multiple iterations of datasets for the purpose of refining the content and reaching consensus (Smith, Finn, Stewart, & McHanwell, 2016). The approach facilitates the

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transposition of collegial knowledge from its natural implicit state to an explicit one. Collegial knowledge is the knowledge of experts in a field or discipline which often remains tacit but is still known (Eraut, 1994). The Delphi technique allows participants to work independently without influencing each other, as well as offering a structured process and a systematic means of recording knowledge, providing a way to uncover professional expert knowledge that is often not explicit (Smith et al., 2016). The views of the providers of professional support services will be sought to overcome potential post hoc rationalisation bias3 in the entrepreneurs and to give a more rounded view of their behaviours. For the purpose of this study, a working definition of an entrepreneur has been developed as a person who has founded a business and run it for more than 10 years, employing over 20 staff with a turnover of at least £5M. Initially participants will be identified with the support of a local professional members’ forum, and subsequent participants will be secured by referral. An effort will be made to gather as heterogeneous a sample as possible within the constraints of the working definition of entrepreneur, in terms of gender, age and type of business. Stage 2 – Curriculum Design Existing entrepreneurship programme document analysis and educator interview data will be used to determine the threshold concepts that students of entrepreneurship programmes need to grasp. The aspects of current curriculum design that are perceived by the educators to help or hinder students in the study of entrepreneurship will be identified. Stage 3 – Student Experience (the Enacted Curriculum) A concept map will be developed in a series of workshops with students to accompany student interview data. Edmondson (1995) uses concept mapping to develop an interdisciplinary and multidimensional curriculum, highlighting it as a particularly useful approach to developing a curriculum that integrates content from several disciplines. Stage 4 – Curriculum Redesign The final stage of this study will determine how HE programmes in entrepreneurship might be optimised as a result of this research in workshop sessions with educational developers. A curriculum enhancement model will be developed, together with an analysis of threshold knowledge. Hattie (2008) highlights the role of subject matter and the importance of surface learning as a prerequisite for deep and constructed learning, underpinning the role of knowledge-based syllabi. It is anticipated that

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recommendations will be relevant to the knowledge base of entrepreneurship and the curriculum of entrepreneurship programmes. CONCLUSION

Entrepreneurship education is widely accepted and supported, but it is difficult to pin down exactly what it is and how it is distinctive. This chapter sets out some of the challenges faced by those responsible for entrepreneurship curricula and proposes a novel research approach using a combination of various scholarships, which aims to give some recommendations of possible ways in which these challenges might be addressed. As initial findings suggest, the work of identifying the threshold concepts in entrepreneurship is likely to be of interest to those looking to further the agenda of enterprise and entrepreneurship in higher education. The use of Transactional Curriculum Inquiry to identify threshold concepts will be relevant to those looking to strengthen the professional identity of more recent and contested knowledge regions that cross disciplines. NOTES 1

2

3

A hackathon (a combination of the words ‘hack’, meaning in this case exploratory computer programming, and ‘marathon’) is an event in which computer programmers and others involved in software development collaborate intensively on software projects. They typically last between a day and a week and some are intended simply for educational or social purposes, although in many cases the goal is to create usable software. One of the lead characters in the British television situation comedy ‘Only Fools and Horses’ originally broadcast from 1981 to 1991 was Derek ‘Del Boy’ Trotter; a fast-talking, archetypal South London ‘fly’ trader, willing to sell anything to anyone to make money. Post hoc rationalisation bias is a phenomenon where the explicit reasons or justifications offered to others or oneself to explain ones’ actions are developed and made rational after the event. Typically, actions are derived from instincts, inclinations, emotions, habits, unexamined principles, or justifications other than the ones given. Judgements are often made based on intuition, and decisions rationalised after the fact.

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16. INFORMATION LITERACY AND LIBERAL EDUCATION From Google to Scholarly Sources

ABSTRACT

Information literacy is a fundamental literacy which underlies all other disciplines and is interdisciplinary in nature – much like a liberal education itself. In this chapter, students’ struggles with certain threshold concepts in information literacy are explored, with possible solutions. In today’s age of information overload and fake news, information literacy and the critical thinking that goes along with it is more important than ever for students to acquire, not only for academics but for life. INTRODUCTION

The University of Lethbridge, located in Southern Alberta, Canada, was established in 1967 with Liberal Education as one of its founding principles. It has continued this emphasis throughout the years, and while attention to this principle waned in the early 2000s, by 2012 it was re-emphasised as a core value of the institution and has received a resurgence with the Liberal Education Revitalization project. The core team involved launched an awareness campaign to bring the fundamental values of a liberal education to the forefront of the institution, as well as revamping the class requirements within the programme and expanding those classes to include offerings from a wider variety of faculties. Part of the Liberal Education Revitalization Team’s work was to create a new definitional document outlining four pillars of Liberal Education at the University of Lethbridge: breadth across disciplines; the ability to connect and integrate knowledge; critical thinking and problem solving skills; and civic engagement. Liberal Education 1000 has been a core 13-week course in the stable of Liberal Education classes since Fall 2003, although earlier iterations of the class have been part of the curriculum since the mid-1990s. This class emphasises knowledge across disciplines, is widely taken by students from a variety of subject areas, and is a natural fit for a series of information literacy labs which have been included in the lab component of this class since Fall 2004. In Fall 2015 a dual-credit version of Liberal Education 1000 for high-school students was piloted in which students completed 4 information literacy lab sessions

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004419971_016

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dealing with the 6 Frames from the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, adopted by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) in 2016. The Frames focus on core concepts of information literacy which function as threshold concepts (as originally defined by Meyer and Land, 2003) troublesome for most students to cross. These include Authority is Constructed and Contextual; Information Creation as a Process; Information has Value; Research as Inquiry; Scholarship as Conversation; and Searching as Strategic Exploration. These six Frames form an interconnected set of skills critical for students to adopt before becoming truly information literate. At the end of the term, it was evident that the frame students struggled with the most was Searching as Strategic Exploration. In spite of specific instruction and practice in the use of academic databases and search strategies, most students reverted to familiar Google searching for their final research projects. As a result, the instructors involved wondered what the factors at play could be; whether this could be a potential threshold that students were having difficulty crossing, and what we could do to try to help them over it. LITERATURE REVIEW

Previous researchers have studied students’ preference for searching on the open web versus the library. They point to students preferring tools with which they are familiar and therefore find easier (Burgess, 2015; Purdy, 2012). They are usually satisfied with ‘convenience searching’ (Badke, 2014; Wiebe, 2015) and have anxiety and a lack of tolerance for ambiguity. Wiebe discovered students were ‘convenience searching … as opposed to really searching – digging, locating, uncovering, reading, evaluating, synthesizing, perhaps spinning off into an unexpected tangent and then recalibrating, asking for help, searching again in a different place’ (2016, para 3). Wiebe also explicitly notes the connection between information literacy, liberal education, and lifelong learning – all linked to the critical thinking skills needed to evaluate information not just for academic purposes, but for life. In today’s era of ‘fake news’, information literacy is a skill as critical to today’s citizens as reading or writing. Critical thinking skills taught in a liberal education are mirrored in the evaluation skills needed to be information literate, and to live a successfully informed life. Badke (2012) and Georgas (2015) noted that students often have format confusion – online, everything looks like a web site, even if one is a journal article and the other an encyclopedia entry. Students don’t have a mental picture of a traditional print journal, and don’t have a clear conception of volumes and issues. They also don’t understand the underlying processes that go into the various types of information outputs. Likewise, the various search tools all seem similar in an online environment so the muddied world of scholarly communication is difficult for them to get a handle on (Badke, 2012). To them, what is the difference between a scholar’s blog post versus her journal article? Between the pre-print of an article versus the ‘official’ 230

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PDF? How do we explain to them that although peer-review is held up to being a gold standard of scholarly publishing, that sometimes that too lacks credibility? Students need a mental picture of the entire scholarly communication process, and they need to have the critical thinking skills not to accept all information they find at face value. A few studies (Booker, Dentlor, & Serenko, 2012; Dempsey & Jagman, 2016) mention both the need for self-efficacy in students, and the fact that many of them have both performance and library anxiety; Hannon (2016) mentions a lack of tolerance for ambiguity among many undergraduates, and how they need to understand the value of persistence. INFORMATION LITERACY AND THRESHOLD CONCEPTS

Information literacy has become a crucial skill in the 21st century with the information explosion brought on in large part by the advent of the internet and our increasingly interconnected, technology-driven society. However, the need for increased information literacy was identified long before the advent of the internet; Paul Zurkowski is credited with coining the phrase information literacy in 1974, and even as the internet was in its infancy, Shapiro and Hughes noted its importance as a basic literacy and liberal art for functioning in our society: information literacy should in fact be conceived more broadly as a new liberal art [… ] as essential to the mental framework of the educated information-age citizen as the trivium of basic liberal arts (grammar, logic and rhetoric) was to the educated person in medieval society. (1996, para. 13) Information literacy has been defined in many ways, but most educators and librarians would agree that it is a foundational set of skills and habits of mind that enable someone to find, evaluate, and use information ethically to address particular needs and to create new knowledge. It is a broad concept enabling people to use information effectively but also to think critically about the information enterprise and our information society. And in this society, it has become a basic literacy – a foundational skill as much as reading literacy, numeracy, or other skills which underlie all disciplines and subject areas. When the ACRL adopted the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education in 2015, it replaced an earlier set of standards which had been in place since 2000. In the new Framework, information literacy instruction focuses less on skill acquisition and more on helping students develop a broader, more critical understanding of information. Each of the six frames has associated knowledge practices and dispositions which lead students to acquire information literacy abilities and thinking processes, and are all closely related and interconnected. The linking of threshold concepts with information literacy was drawn largely from the work of Townsend, Brunetti, and Hofer (2011), who identified many concepts they

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found were particularly difficult for students to grasp, on which the final six frames chosen were based. Based on this new theoretical overview of information literacy, the librarian involved in the delivery of the library lab sessions for Liberal Education 1000 revised the information literacy labs that had historically been given as a part of that class to encompass the Frames as described by the ACRL. The Framework was a natural way to connect information literacy and liberal education concepts for the students. The labs consisted of a combination of lecture and hands-on or group activities. For the ‘traditional’ library skills such as searching the library catalogue and databases for books and articles, students watched short demonstration videos on search tools and techniques prior to class so more of the in-class time could be spent doing hands-on worksheets in the computer lab, with the librarian there for help and support. The worksheets included exercises on choosing a research question, picking keywords and synonyms, using Boolean to connect search terms, and comparing results from different sources such as our library’s global search tool, Summon, the library catalogue, and a library database. The goal was to get students to understand the differences between the type of results they might get from each of these search tools, and why they might choose one over the other; they should also have understood how using these tools could make evaluation and focusing results easier than doing a general internet search. However, students’ final assignments showed that their habit to ‘just Google it’ stuck – they used resources found on the open web as opposed to the scholarly sources they would have found using the library resources. Of course, our question was, ‘Why?’. Why would students, after being shown and practising using library resources, revert to their old habits? At the same time as the Dual-Credit course, another on-campus section of Liberal Education 1000 was being held in which the students had to submit reflective journal articles weekly on their library labs. Prior to collecting these assignments, we received ethics approval from the Human Subject Research Committee at the University of Lethbridge so we had permission to retain and anonymously analyse these entries. We had a close look at the comments in these journal entries from both a high-level perspective, as well as a closer analysis to determine any patterns in the students’ own understanding. Our method was to anonymise the students’ journals and then to read them informally, looking for indications of the threshold concepts in the writers’ choices of words. Neither of us has expertise in the digital humanities or more formal text mining analytic methods and so our approach was perhaps more akin to that used by historians in examining documentary evidence with the aim of constructing explanations for past human actions and behaviour. We essentially treated the students’ journals much like diaries, as records of their library lab experiences. We did not assume students would make explicit reference to threshold concepts. Instead, we looked for passages indicating that they felt they had gained knowledge they did not possess before, a different perspective, or new ways of doing things. We

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also looked for negative passages where students reported difficulty understanding concepts or resistance to adopting new methods. After our review, we settled on three major attitudes that seemed to prevent students from crossing the threshold into using library resources: ‡ ‘I already know how to research!’ – students don’t cross the threshold because they don’t think they need to. ‡ ‘Everything is a web site’ – students don’t cross the threshold because they don’t understand the differences among information formats and search tools. ‡ ‘Google is easy; databases are more confusing’ – students don’t cross because they think it’s too hard to learn something new. On the first point, ‘I already know how to research’, students’ journals were positive overall in revealing that they had crossed some kind of threshold and gained new knowledge about research. ‘Now I know how to go deep into the university site and get different search tools I didn’t know existed’, wrote one. Another noted, I used to make mistakes of writing papers in the past, jumping into writing on a topic until I realized the topic didn’t have enough information to write about. I know now to be patient when it comes to writing research papers and to always pick a topic wisely after a lot of analysis and research. This student revealed new knowledge about searching techniques: I did not know, however, the handy tricks used in a Boolean search, and have found this to be very helpful in getting better results. This week’s lab has shown me that it is OK to re-start a search frequently, trying different keywords and databases in order to yield a greater variety of results. Likewise, a Fine Arts student commented: I did not know that truncation, phrasing, and the order of operations was so critical in narrowing down the results of your research. I feel that this will prove to be very useful in my future research. In fact, I have already used some of the tips in researching for my music history class! Another student wrote: ‘Truthfully, I used to think that I was doing a great job at utilising the library database and I didn’t think there was much need to improve, but boy was I wrong’. These examples indicate to us that, although students approached the information literacy labs confident in their research abilities, instead of holding them back from crossing a threshold many were pleased to learn new skills which they felt could help in future (or current) research projects. Although none of them described great difficulty or trouble with learning new searching skills or wrote about a dramatic ‘a-ha’ moment from crossing a threshold into new territory, the fact that many wrote positively about having learned new knowledge and skills to use in their research

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was a positive flag to us that they had crossed a threshold on their way to becoming more expert researchers. Our second observation, students’ views that ‘everything is a website’, did appear in their journals as an impediment to learning new information literacy skills. This student’s journal gave the clearest indication of difficulty: We discussed how to use the University of Lethbridge’s library website and the different components to it. These components included the Summon page, the catalogue, and the database page. […] [We selected] … key words and we put them into the university’s library website. This is a relevant skill because it can be used for finding sources for papers. However, personally I found it very difficult to use the website. There seem to be a lot of quirks to entering the keywords in to the advanced search portion of the website, and it took me a long time to figure it out. A good number of other journal entries revealed a similar confusion and lack of clarity about the differences between the library’s website, its Summon search tool, the library catalogue, and journal databases. Although students understood they were trying to learn helpful information literacy skills, many expressed frustrations. This student, for example, wrote, I find the university library database to be extremely difficult and confusing to use. Previously I had not been properly instructed on how to maneuver [sic] the site and it caused me a great deal of frustration and anxiety when trying to find sources for previous assignments and papers. The frustration seems to indicate a poor understanding of the distinctions among the search tools they were learning about and the differences between the university website and the many databases which can be reached through the website. Journal entries such as these indicated to us that students were having difficulty crossing a threshold of understanding. Their old patterns of working and treating all online materials simply as websites was preventing them from understanding or successfully using powerful online research databases. The obvious frustration they felt points to a threshold – namely Searching as Strategic Exploration – which we will need to address in future iterations of the course. The third point we noted, that familiar Google searches are easy while databases are difficult, also showed up in students’ journals. This student noted, for example: The chart given in the lab for finding research is very helpful and I will be using it for future research papers, as before I would stick to Google searching and wouldn’t always find enough information. I found this topic interesting because I have struggled in the past with research and often have found it to be the most difficult part of a paper. This student seems willing to cross a threshold into newer ways of researching and to recognise some of the limitations of Google. Another revealed a similar 234

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willingness to gain new insights: ‘This topic is interesting to me because I have wanted to improve my skills on finding information not using Google’. This student described another course where research papers were required and, ‘… in that class … I usually used Google Scholar. The Web of Science is better than Google Scholar because you can view the popularity of the articles and the references that were used in the paper’. And finally: ‘This is something that I wish I would have known last semester. I had to write a paper with not very much guidance and only knew of Google Scholar, so that is all I used’. These student comments suggest to us that one of the results of the information literacy labs was that at least some students had begun to understand the limitations of Google for academic research. It indicates that even if they had not yet attained expertise in using the research tools available through the library, they had learned that there were potentially better approaches to use than their familiar go-to tool. Looking at the ACRL Framework, the main Frame – or threshold – that seems to be at play here is Searching as Strategic Exploration, though elements of other Frames also come into play. This frame focuses on the ability to understand that different search tools have different value depending on the information need, and the ability to select appropriate search tools and exhibit flexibility and persistence when using these tools. Also at work is Authority is Constructed and Contextual – the ability to determine the authority of a source, and Information Creation as a Process – understanding the scholarly communication cycle, and the various dissemination formats. QUESTIONS AND POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS

We brought our experience – and our questions – to the 6th Biennial Threshold Concepts Conference held at Dalhousie University in June 2016. The question we asked our audience was, “what (active) instructional strategies would you use to help students cross these thresholds?” Many of the suggestions offered mirrored some of our own thinking. Having our students witness a live demonstration which shows how a library database can actually retrieve more authoritative, more pertinent resources more quickly than a Google search was one suggestion, which the librarian employed in the Fall 2016 labs. Another option would be to have students complete worksheets or quizzes on their own, immediately following their viewing of the instructional videos, so that the lessons are more immediate and concrete. Problem-based learning, where students must dive into the materials without any prior instruction and ‘muddle through’ on their own, could also be a way to force them into the learning process. And perhaps we just need to be more up front with students about the fact that they are about to encounter a threshold: “this is going to be difficult, and this isn’t going to be particularly intuitive, and you’re going to want to give up – but it’s normal to feel that way, you’ll get through it, and you will be glad you know this stuff in the end”. Helping students face the fact that they will be challenged allows them to work through the process in a less threatening way; they 235

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know they aren’t expected to breeze through it, and this allows them to take more chances without fear of failure, since we’ve told them they are unlikely to succeed on their first try. Preliminary results from reflective journal assignments gathered from students in the Fall 2016 labs would suggest that having them search simultaneously in Google Scholar, Summon, and a library database did indeed have the desired result of getting them to truly understand the different type of results available from the various search tools. They seemed to have a better understanding of why one would choose a certain tool over another, and to see that Google was perhaps not always the best choice. Time will tell if this lesson really ‘stuck’, or if students will revert to their Google habit. However, the confusion from viewing all online materials as just websites indicates we need to find better ways to facilitate the students learning to distinguish among various research tools and the different ways to use them. We intend to gather more data from future classes to see if a change in teaching methods was sufficient in getting them to cross the threshold. Bravender, McClure, and Schaub’s (2015) compilation of lesson plans geared to target the threshold concepts experienced in the ACRL Framework will also be a helpful resource, if time permits. There are concrete examples of how to demonstrate to students the difference between scholarly and non-scholarly sources, how to determine the reliability of information sources, explaining the difference between databases and search engines, etc. This has been a helpful resource for thinking through the active learning components for teaching these concepts to students. A similar resource for librarians looking for ideas is Burkhardt’s Teaching information literacy reframed: 50+ framework-based exercises for creating information-literate learners (2016). Certainly as the course evolves over the next few years, examples from each of these resources will be considered and implemented. LONG-TERM SOLUTIONS

Ultimately, however, it comes back to a matter of scaffolding. Information literacy really needs to be woven throughout the curriculum – as with other literacies, it is built upon right from early education and underlies all subjects. The structure of this particular Liberal Education class with its Lab component made it easy to incorporate four instruction sessions focused just on information literacy. By also having a research paper assignment, students then had an opportunity to put new information literacy skills to good use. The ACRL provides other suggestions for faculty members to start to think about how to incorporate the Framework into their own disciplines1; this has been further expanded upon in Godbey, Wainscott and Goodman’s (2017) book, Disciplinary Applications of Information Literacy Threshold Concepts. Thinking about the Framework from this disciplinary perspective can help faculty members start to see how they might address these thresholds in an integrative matter, rather than a disconnected add-on to their usual coursework. For example, discussions could be held with students about the most likely producers of useful information 236

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in a particular discipline (i.e. academic, government, commercial entities). Faculty members could also discuss their own process of research, the sources they use, and the iterative processes they undergo while searching for relevant information. This would allow students to relate information literacy to their own fields of study, instead of seeing it as an ‘add on’ which isn’t truly integral to their discipline. Only then will students realise the import and applicability of information literacy skills to their academic careers in addition to their lifelong learning. REFERENCES ACRL. (2016, January 11). Framework for information literacy for higher education. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework Badke, W. (2012). When everything is a website. Online, 36(4), 48–50. Badke, W. (2014). The convenience factor in information seeking. Online Searcher, 38(6), 68–70. Booker, L. D., Detlor, B., & Serenko, A. (2012). Factors affecting the adoption of online library resources by business students. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 63(12), 2503–2520. doi:10.1002/asi.22723 Bravender, P., McClure, H., & Schaub, G. (Eds.). (2015). Teaching information literacy threshold concepts Lesson plans for librarians. Chicago, IL: Association of College & Research Libraries. Burgess, C. (2015). Teaching students, not standards: The new ACRL information literacy framework and threshold crossings for instructors. Partnership The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research, 10(1), 1–6. doi:10.21083/partnership.v10i1.3440 Burkhardt, J. M. (2016). Teaching information literacy reframed 50+ framework-based exercises for creating information-literate learners. Chicago, IL: Neal-Schuman, an imprint of the American Library Association. Dempsey, P. R., & Jagman, H. (2016). ‘I felt like such a freshman’: First-year students crossing the library threshold portal. Libraries and the Academy, 16(1), 89–107. doi:10.1353/pla.2016.0011 Georgas, H. (2015). Google vs the Library (Part III): Assessing the quality of sources found by undergraduates. Portal Libraries and the Academy, 15(1), 133–161. doi:10.1353/pla.2015.0012 Godbey, S., Wainscott, S. B., & Goodman, X. (2017). Disciplinary applications of information literacy threshold concepts. Chicago, IL: Association of College & Research Libraries. Hannon, R. H. (2016, April 18). Getting at the dispositions [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://blog.informationliteracyassessment.com/?p=739#more-739 Purdy, J. P. (2012). Why first-year college students select online research resources as their favorite. First Monday, 17(9). doi:10.5210/fm.v0i0.4088 Shapiro, J., & Hughes, S. (1996). Information literacy as a liberal art: Enlightenment proposals for a new curriculum. Educom Review, 31(2). Retrieved from https://www.educause.edu/ir/library/html/ erm/31231.html Townsend, L., Brunetti, K., & Hofer, A. (2011). Threshold concepts and information literacy. Portal Libraries and the Academy, 11(3), 853–869. doi:10.1353/pla.2011.0030 Wiebe, T. J. (2015). The information literacy imperative in higher education. Liberal Education, 101/102(4/1). Retrieved from https://www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/2015-2016/fall-winter/wiebe Zurkowski, P. G. (1974, November). The information service environment Relationships and priorities (Related Paper No.5). National Commission on Libraries and Information Science. Retrieved from http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED100391

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17. CURRICULUM DESIGN ON THE EDGE A Case Illustration of Liminal Learning Activities for Search Expertise

ABSTRACT

A primary purpose for threshold concept research is to support curriculum design. This chapter reports on the redesign of an advanced search methods course based on research into threshold concepts for search expertise. Three types of learning activities – problem solving exercises, student presentations, and online discussions – are described and then analysed for attributes of threshold learning experiences. Because search methods and the novice-expert learning space are relevant across academic disciplines, the learning activities and theoretical perspectives presented may be adapted for other fields of study. INTRODUCTION

This chapter reports on the redesign of a 16-week graduate course in advanced search methods, based on an earlier study of threshold concepts for search expertise (Tucker, 2016; Tucker, Weedman, Bruce, & Edwards, 2014). The course focus on advanced methods for search is of significant interest in higher education as this domain has cross-disciplinary consequence: critical concepts connected to expertlike search behaviours are relevant to any academic field or subject. For the purposes of the previous study and the course redesign reported here, search expertise was defined by traits of the searchers in the study who demonstrated expert practices in how they solved problems, structured knowledge, and processed ambiguous information encountered (Berliner, 1994; Bransford, 1999; Dreyfus, 1980; Ericsson, 1993, 2016; Kinchin & Cabot, 2010). Professional searchers are information science practitioners or researchers, such as reference librarians, search engine interface developers, database content designers, and higher education faculty members who teach advanced search methods. A primary purpose for threshold concept research is to support curriculum design (Cousin, 2009; Meyer & Land, 2005) and, in redesigning this course, there were two guiding objectives. The first objective was to be deliberate in creating opportunities for students to wrestle with concepts being learned, to support experiencing both the troublesome and transformative nature of threshold learning (Meyer & Land,

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004419971_017

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2006). The assignments and activities were designed for ‘more making of space for discovery moments and for students to experience – and get to know – unknowing and uncertainty’ (Tucker, 2016, p. 13). The threshold concepts that had emerged from the previous study were used to guide course redesign, including assignments, sequencing, and content. My role, as educator-researcher, was to shepherd students in moving toward and through the learning of threshold knowledge, serving as their ‘temporary guide’ (Higgs & Cronin, 2013, p. 163). Indeed, this role was the basis of the second primary objective: to ensure my own transience as educator-guide, as this is a key ‘measure of the integrative nature of a threshold experience for the student’ (Tucker, 2016, p. 12). Further support for these guiding objectives, implementation of the course redesign with examples of learning activities, and preliminary outcomes are described in more depth in the sections that follow. LEARNING ENVIRONMENT AND CONTEXT

The learning environment for this study is the online classroom of a Master in Library and Information Science (MLIS) degree programme. The 16-week course covers advanced search methods, and the students have already taken a pre-requisite course on information retrieval system design. I have taught an advanced search course for over ten years and the remaking of this course was a direct follow-on to research I did into threshold concepts for search expertise (Tucker et al., 2014). The experience of redesigning this course is already having impact on other courses I teach as well. The class size is typically 35 students, and students live across five different time zones in the U.S. and Canada, along with a few students in other countries. Synchronous activities are deliberately few, as this is one of the top reasons our students choose an online degree programme. Students actively engage with course content in collaborative learning activities, such as group projects and online discussions. All courses in the MLIS programme are taught online and, as it is at a public university and deeply affected by budget constraints, class size has been growing, which is negatively impacting ways of facilitating group activities and the online discussions. For the larger disciplinary context for the students, the theoretical framework of threshold concepts has only recently attracted attention in the library and information sciences, primarily in the area of academic librarianship, owing largely to the adoption in early 2016 of six threshold concepts for information literacy – called ‘frames’ or the ‘framework’ – by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL, 2016), replacing previous standards for information literacy. The ACRL framework was based on a study (Townsend, Brunetti, & Hofer, 2011; Townsend, Hofer, Lin Hanick, & Brunetti, 2016) that used the Delphi method, with data elicited from educators, LIS faculty members, and/or librarians who teach information literacy. The frames include concepts such as ‘Information has value’, ‘Research as inquiry’, and ‘Scholarship as conversation’. However, as discovered in the Decoding the 240

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Disciplines studies (Díaz, Middendorf, Pace, & Shopkow, 2008; Díaz & Pace, 2012; Pace & Middendorf, 2004) that paralleled the evolution of threshold concept theory, conclusions based on instructor views are inherently incomplete, lacking learners’ direct input. Shinners-Kennedy (2016) cites problematic outcomes from Delphi method research for threshold concepts, noting that instructors tend to be guided by ‘foundations of the discipline [that are] embodied in the concepts identified as core or fundamental. The tutor then falls victim to expert blind spot’ (p. 259). There is ongoing debate in the information profession about whether or not the ‘frames’ are in fact threshold concepts or would be more accurately described as core ideas and practices that need to be taught in information literacy courses (Anderson & Johnston, 2017); the discussion has centred on whether or not these core ideas have threshold concept characteristics. An additional concern is that the frames suffer from having ‘sidestep[ped] the question of disciplinarity’ (Webber & Johnston, 2016, p. 102). Nevertheless, the debate has led to important conversations around the nature of information literacy, how it is evolving, and when and how it should be taught. In higher education, there is the continuing challenge of finding effective approaches for what are often ‘one shot’ lectures (Buchanan & McDonough, 2017) by the instructional librarian. If the [ACRL] Frameworks are to further, not only conversations [among writing instructors and librarians], but also actions toward curricular changes (both within and beyond writing and library instruction), concrete and diverse approaches to the Frameworks need to be developed, explored, and shared. (Baer, 2016, p. 89) GUIDING OBJECTIVES

Two guiding objectives were put in place during the redesign of the course. The first was to ensure that I was a temporary guide (Higgs & Cronin, 2013). The teacher plays a walk-on role, exiting at term’s end, with the student continuing as the ‘hero of [his/her] own story’ (McCarthy, 1961, p. 190). Because of this, ‘it is important to help the learner to develop capacities to engage and thrive in liminal space and to succeed in crossing future thresholds without a high level of teacher assistance’ (Higgs & Cronin, 2013, p. 163). Modelling ways for students to engage, not only with new knowledge but to collaborate in their learning with each other, is fundamental to this first objective. This can be challenging with online learning, especially, as mentioned, when there are students in multiple time zones, and, because they are graduate students, most have career and family responsibilities. As a result, much of the group work is asynchronous, and any synchronous activities must be scheduled carefully. This transience of the educator’s role can also serve as one criterion when evaluating the integrativeness of a threshold learning experience. The teacher’s priority is to help the student succeed in liminal learning experiences and to support 241

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development of ‘attributes and habits of mind which characterise the integrative learner’ (Higgs & Cronin, 2013, p. 163; emphasis added). Thus the teacher’s role as temporary guide is essential to have front and centre during the processes of designing a course. As an example, for the online discussions, my role involves being initiator, facilitator, researcher, and even provocateur – but also to model these behaviours for students who then are encouraged to engage with each other in similar ways: to facilitate and (respectfully) provoke conversation in the online forums, and to pull in relevant research and ideas. The second guiding objective was to allow for troublesomeness. In redesigning the course, I deliberately created opportunities for students to wrestle, take risks, and be in a state of unknowing and uncertainty for a time. This was to align with how the grasping of threshold concepts involves these states of being (Land, 2016), and they are core to the liminal experience of transformative learning. Through these opportunities, students were encouraged to confront the counter-intuitive, alien, or unsettling aspects of threshold concepts – the very aspects which may cause learners to ‘get stuck’. The ‘stuckness’ may prompt students to enter a liminal state, triggering a potentially developmentally productive type of dissonance felt not only at the cognitive level, but also at the affective, epistemological, and ontological levels. (Timmermans & Meyer, 2017, pp. 9–10) Assignments were designed to make self-discovery of new knowledge necessary, and to be motivated by a need to know, as opposed to teacher-driven content (Blackie, Case, & Jawitz, 2010). This objective means that students are, at least for a time, uncomfortable and uncertain, often coping with ambiguity; however, it is not beneficial to remain in this state too long. Walker (2013) writes that ‘Too much uncertainty in this liminal state and the learner will not be able to progress beyond a surface understanding. Not enough uncertainty and the learner will not make the required transformation into a full participating member of a community of practice’ (p. 250). As described by Timmermans and Meyer (2017), ‘Transformative TC [threshold concept] learning may instigate feelings of ‘upset’ on several levels. Certainly, there is cognitive disequilibrium, but equally important is the epistemic and ontological unmooring’ (p. 3). RESEARCH UNDERPINNINGS

The research underpinning the course redesign was a grounded theory study that produced an integrated model of the novice-expert space for the domain of search expertise (Tucker, 2016). In order to provide an understanding of what drove the redesign of the course, what follows next is a brief overview of that research. The study found four concepts for search expertise with the characteristics of threshold concepts. The initial three are:

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‡ Information environment: the complexities of content creators and other players in the information environment are perceived and applied during a search; ‡ Information structures: database, index, record structures, and retrieval algorithms are understood; ‡ Information vocabularies: fluency in search capabilities related to language, including natural language, controlled vocabulary, and options such as proximity, truncation, and term frequency. ‡ The fourth threshold concept was Concept fusion, the ability to integrate the other three threshold concepts, to appreciate of the relevance of each concept, and to apply them to search outcome. It was further defined by additional properties: visioning (knowing and anticipating the next moves); dancing (being light on one’s ‘search feet’, ready to quickly change direction); and profound ontological shift (not just ‘I search’ but ‘I am a searcher’). In addition to the threshold concepts were findings not concept-based, including praxes and traits of expert searchers. In differentiating these attributes from threshold concepts, the differences between knowledge and skills were considered, the gap being knowing and applying (Ericsson & Pool, 2016). Most prominent were the traits of extreme perseverance, being willing to adventure, enjoying the hunt, and knowing when to end pursuit. Two of the ACRL information literacy frames (ACRL, 2016) speak to the importance of fluency in search (Hofer, Brunetti, & Townsend, 2013). The ‘Search as Strategic Exploration’ frame overlaps aspects of the search expertise concept fusion; the frame ‘Research as Inquiry’ describes research processes as iterative, an aspect of the search expert’s praxes, though not considered to be threshold knowledge in the search expertise model. The ACRL framework also identifies dispositions for ‘the affective, attitudinal, or valuing dimension of learning’ (ACRL, 2016, “Introduction”) and knowledge practices that are ‘demonstrations of ways in which learners can increase their understanding of information literacy concepts’ (ACRL, 2016, “Introduction”). Early research on threshold concepts in information literacy (Blackmore, 2010) argued for a ‘shift in focus from ‘teaching the use of’ to ‘promoting understanding of’ information products’ (p. 9). All three studies (Blackmore, 2010; Townsend, Brunetti, & Hofer, 2011; Tucker et al., 2014) characterised search activities as, not simply iterative, but strategies that respond to what is discovered during the processes of the search; this is based on the model of search behaviour known as ‘berrypicking’ (Bates, 1989), one of the fundamental theories in information seeking behaviour research. Berrypicking describes the iteration in information seeking and the wide range of search techniques and content sources that may be utilised. Its fundamental nature is that the user’s need evolves during the process of the search as information is discovered, and the searcher adapts the strategy to the particular need in the moment. The search expertise model has relevance for other disciplines in part because it is about learning experiences in the novice-expert liminal space (Tucker, 2016), and 243

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because it outlines concepts for advanced searching which is part of engaging in any academic research domain. It is important to underscore that search expertise may never develop – any form of expertise is rare, after all (Berliner, 1994; Ericsson, 2000; Gladwell, 2008) – and yet, it is the trajectory toward expertise that can have transformative sway (Ericsson, 1993; Ericsson & Pool, 2016; Tucker, 2016). FORMS OF STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

Broadly speaking, a primary purpose for threshold concept research is to explore difficulties in learning of subjects in order to support curriculum design (Cousin, 2009). There are three overarching themes to be considered when applying threshold concept theory to this purpose: ‘(a) sequence of content; (b) processes through which learners are made ready for, approach, recognise, and internalise threshold concepts; (c) ways in which learners and teacher recognise when threshold concepts have been internalised’ (Land, Meyer, Cousin, & Davies, 2006, p. 199). In their early work, Meyer and Land (2005) mentioned types of learning activities that might be used by curriculum designers: The task for course developers and designers is to identify, through constructive feedback, the source of these epistemological obstacles, and subsequently free up the blocked spaces. This might be achieved, for example, by redesigning activities and sequences, through scaffolding, recursiveness, provision of support materials and technologies or new conceptual tools, through mentoring or peer collaboration. (p. 377) To create context for this variety of learning activities, the construct of agency in learning is highly relevant. Rattray speaks about a person’s view of their own agency in a learning situation and how their optimism hinges on their belief they can ‘utilise multiple pathways and strategies to effect a positive outcome in the learning situation’ (2016, p. 69). This underscores why the learning environment needs to involve a variety of activities and forms of student engagement. Cousin (2006a, 2009, 2016) has written extensively on threshold concepts, including commentary on the affective dimension of threshold concepts and the state of anxiety that may accompany threshold learning (Cousin, 2006b). She noted that students need emotional capital to cope with the discomfort of an encounter with troublesome knowledge, and described the idea of emotional capital as ‘overlap[ping] but distinct from that of emotional intelligence [in that it is] a set of assets rather than a facility to process emotional issues’ (2006b, p. 138). Given this understanding, Cousin has situated the notion of emotional capital in ‘social circumstances rather than learner pathologies’ (2006b, p. 138). Learning can be difficult and, indeed, this very difficulty can be an indication of how much learning has taken place (Cousin, 2016). It is also more or less uncomfortable for different students who have varying levels of emotional capital (Cousin, 2006b). This is an important component of curriculum design, and a challenge to instructors with a 244

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large class, perhaps particularly in an online setting, where typically less is known about the students and, in the virtual environment, there are fewer clues about their affective experiences. The similar element of emotional intelligence (Goleman, 1995) has been studied widely in higher education and been found to be an indicator of a student’s potential for engagement with learning (Maguire, Egan, Hyland, & Maguire, 2017). In a recent study that controlled for factors such as academic ability and school activity engagement level, researchers found that emotional intelligence (EI) is ‘associated with both cognitive and affective engagement suggest[ing] that interventions aimed at increasing EI may have positive effects, not only on engagement, but on academic performance and student retention’ (Maguire et al., 2017, p. 353). In researching the degree to which student engagement affects academic performance, Carini, Kuh, and Klein (2006) found that university students with the lowest scores on standardised tests benefited more than those with the highest scores. Their finding was consistent with a later study of student engagement and self-reported gains in learning (Zilvinskis, Masseria, & Pike, 2017). The specific forms of student engagement that were used in the advanced search course are described next. There were three types of learning activities: hands on search exercises, seminar talks given by the students, and online discussion forums. In addition, there was a preliminary activity to raise awareness of existing perspectives and habits, called ‘student starting points’. Student Starting Points One of the first assignments in the course is an activity called ‘starting points’, conducted as a discussion after the students have introduced themselves to each other. The main purpose is to raise awareness of their existing perspectives, habits, and paradigms around searching. Many, for example, have not explored beyond Google for their search needs, and few have mental models for how search engines structure their content, interpret the user’s search terms, or rank the search results. Examining prior experiences, beliefs, and assumptions about what we have taken to be knowledge, can create space and possibility for new understandings (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005). Without this preliminary activity, less learning – particularly learning that is transformative – can be accomplished, and we are left under the ‘constraining spell of unexamined beliefs’ (Mezirow, 2000, p. xiii). Kinchin (2016) has suggested using concept mapping exercises to draw ‘explicit attention to prior knowledge’ (p. 78) and to make it visible, first to the learner, then for sharing with peers and the instructor. Activities such as ‘starting points’ that involve critical reflection about existing ideas – that turn out to be unfounded or incorrect – can be troublesome indeed. ‘Encouraging students to abandon their intuitive understandings is troublesome because it can involve an uncomfortable, emotional repositioning’ (Cousin, 2009, p. 204). A related factor concerns the impact of our limitations in perception, due 245

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to how strong our attachment can be to pre-existing beliefs and assumptions. The term ‘paradigm blindness’ was put forth by Crilly (2015) as part of describing a person’s fixation on and commitment to initial ideas and how stuck one can become to them. The term paradigm blinkers is perhaps more fitting, as the phenomenon as the experience is a narrowing of one’s view in the act of clinging to known ideas and practices, rather than a total not-seeing. This is similar to how, in cultural education courses, the teaching practice of destabilising is used to support student learning of deeply unfamiliar content that demands some shedding of previously held beliefs and prejudices (Hjortshoj, 1996). In advocating for allowing such experiences to take place, Hjortshoj (1996) describes their potential to ‘return us to that condition of creative bewilderment from which new understandings emerge’ (p. 41). Search and Strategy Exercises The first learning activity is an assignment involving hands-on search exercises. The students are given reference questions to be answered, along with reflective prompts to address about the database content and the search strategies enlisted. The latter questions are examples of using discovery and the need to know, rather than the instructor telling students about a strategic approach, then walking them through the skills and methods needed to apply that approach. This arrangement of problem solving exercises can ‘enable student to experience complexity and ambiguity’ (Kinchin, 2016, p. 77), while being supported in their discovery of threshold concepts for the domain of searching. To illustrate, students are asked to locate a specific database record for a given article from two different databases, although both are scientific databases, so fairly similar in content and data structure. Once they do this, they are asked to compare the subject terms assigned to the same article, Small, G.W. et al. (2009). Your brain on Google: Patterns of cerebral activation during Internet searching. American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 17(2), 116–126 in the two databases (Figure 17.1). Three questions are posed that call for considerable contemplation and analysis, and which support the information vocabularies threshold concept: ‡ What is different about the controlled vocabulary fields in the two databases? ‡ Why do you believe these differences exist? ‡ How would you approach a subject search differently in the two databases? As a second illustration, a more complex search topic is assigned that requires contemplating and coordinating multiple subject terms, then combining them with logical (Boolean) operators and applying database field restrictions. This creates the need to know both why and when to plot a strategy in advance and to plan for contingencies. This reinforces the information vocabularies exercise, supports 246

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Figure 17.1. Subject terms assigned to ‘Brain on Google’ article in Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics) and MEDLINE® (U.S. National Library of Medicine)

the information structures threshold concept, and it leads to learning about concept fusion in that students begin to combine concepts and to experience the attributes of flexibility and anticipating next moves in a search. In addition, they begin to integrate the learning into their daily search practices, moving the new knowledge into their developing identities as information professionals. This stage is ongoing and is a demonstration of what Mezirow has referred to as ‘the idea of reflection as a form of self-formation’ (2000, p. xiii; emphasis added). As one illustration, the students are able to both discover and internalise the need for planning at this juncture, having experienced dead-ends and unexpected results that missed the mark. They use a structured worksheet to outline the search strategy, including content source selections, database fields that might be used as restrictions to narrow the results, with further refinements such as weighting of controlled vocabulary terms (subject words or codes), and other parameters that depend on the database(s) chosen for the topic (Figure 17.2). The last search exercise illustration is conducted in Web of Science™ (citation index) to lead students toward understanding the connections among authors, institutions, and differences between peer-reviewed publications. They learn to generate a citation map (Figure 17.3) for a core article on a given topic for a data visualisation of the network of research literature and to use strategies other than keywords and subject terms for retrieving relevant articles. Students see the value of the connections created by researchers – in the role of content creators – in citing other authors and the impact measures that can accompany this phenomenon. They are able to generate citation maps by author and also to modify the maps and observe 247

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Figure 17.2. Search strategy and planning worksheet

Figure 17.3. Data visualisation in Web of Science citation map (Source: Web of Science Group/Clarivate Analytics)

regional and time-sensitive patterns in research topics. This illustration is one piece in support of the information environment threshold concept. The nature of the conceptual changes taking place for the learner can be characterised by the type of transformation and integration that occurs (Davies & Mangan, 2016). This citation index learning activity showed evidence of the students’ experiencing troublesome new knowledge that enabled them to perceive research literature and how researchers engage with others in entirely new ways. 248

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They move toward understanding of three threshold concepts (information vocabularies, structures, and environments) with these exercises, and they experience troublesomeness, as well as integrative and transformative learning. Seminar Talks Synchronous web-conference sessions are held twice during the course during which students give short presentations in a seminar setting of no more than 15 students. Midway through the course, each student chooses an idea or concept they believe is most valuable and that will impact their searching going forward. The two most common topics chosen are controlled vocabulary (as compared to user-supplied tagging and keywords) and database record structures. At the end of the term, students give presentations on their final projects which might be a training programme, a client report, or an essay. These final talks must demonstrate integration of new knowledge but also include asking their colleagues in the seminar for feedback on areas of the project that they’ve identified as ‘stuck places’ or areas that need further refinement. In this way, they are called upon to reflect on where they can move further forward in developing their understanding. In presenting to their peers, students articulate how the key conceptual takeaway they have chosen has affected their ways of searching and their perceptions of themselves as part of transitioning into information professionals. This calls for discourse about both the integrative and ontological aspects of their learning experiences (Meyer & Timmermans, 2016). Because the presentations to their peers cover new knowledge and how it has impacted them (including trouble spots encountered), they speak of new experiences and effects on their emerging professional identities. Through this activity, the students give voice to how ‘my new knowledge becomes assimilated into my biography and thus my sense of self’ (Cousin, 2008, p. 202). Online Discussion Forums Online discussion forums continue throughout the term, and the priority for the discussion environment is that they be a place where respect for intellectual curiosity is ensured. I’ve previously described the ‘starting points’ discussion that begins the course and, after this, there are themes for each discussion that are guided by threshold concepts though not explicitly stated as such. (They do end up reading articles about threshold concepts near the end of the course, and this turns out to be rather exciting for some students who think this theory now makes so much sense!) I also bring in topics and questions related to praxes and traits of expert searchers that are not based in threshold concepts, for example, the importance of knowing the subject domain in areas such as legal research or medical research. We debate search engine industry issues of extreme importance as well, such as privacy and automatic personalisation; many have by that time started using the DuckDuckGo search engine or Google 249

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Incognito because their awareness and concern have been raised for privacy issues and the ‘filter bubble’ (Pariser, 2011). Reflective writings shared in this way lead to both community formation and a greater sense of professional identity. There are, as in any virtual setting, issues of authenticity in the online classroom (Tucker, 2018), however, the advantages of online personae are also considerable. These discussions support the speaking of ideas and reflections for many students whose online ‘mask’ (Todd, 2008) may embolden them to speak out what they might not express in a faceto-face, synchronous setting. Their discussion posts at this later stage in the term demonstrate confidence in expressing ideas that represent a summative evaluation of learning and the affective experience. The discursive, integrative, and ontological aspects of threshold knowledge are evident. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

The four types of course activities described above, designed for the learning of concepts previously determined to be threshold concepts for developing search expertise, are summarised in Table 17.1. The analysis of each activity – for how it demonstrated the integration of threshold knowledge and for the threshold concepts supported – is outlined accordingly. In addition, the attributes and affective experiences elicited during the activities are highlighted. The next step in this research, evaluation of the redesigned course, is in progress, using student discussion posts as the main dataset, and thematic content analysis. The evaluation will cover the concepts the students identify as having been critical to what they learned, to assess commonality with the threshold concepts that were the basis of the course design, and also the affective aspects reported in discussion posts to gauge the nature of their learning experiences. An additional outcome expected from this assessment will be revisiting and updating the search expertise model, so that it continues to be a dynamic reflection of the threshold concepts in the domain (Land & Meyer, 2010). This study and its implementation of a course redesign based on threshold concept research contributes to the intersection of curriculum design and threshold concept theory. For furthering the evolution of the threshold concept theoretical framework, this work has added to the considerations involved in moving research into threshold concepts for a domain into the design of learning activities to support students on their way toward, and even through, the portals represented by those concepts. For curriculum design, this work has provided illustrations from an advanced search methods course, with multiple learning activities described and then analysed for their threshold characteristics. The activities included problem solving exercises, student presentations, and online discussions, as well as a preparatory activity that elicited students’ pre-existing ideas and beliefs to support them in raising awareness of their perspectives, habits, and paradigms that may limit them in grasping new knowledge. The types of activities and the novice-expert learning space are relevant across academic disciplines, and may be adapted for other fields of study. In addition, 250

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V. M. TUCKER Pariser, E. (2011). The filter bubble What the internet is hiding from you. New York, NY: Penguin Press. Rattray, J. (2016). Affective dimensions of liminality. In R. Land, J. H. F Meyer, & M. T. Flanagan (Eds.), Threshold concepts in practice (pp. 67–76). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Schön, D. A. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Shinners-Kennedy, D. (2016). How not to identify threshold concepts. In R. Land, J. H. F Meyer, & M. T. Flanagan (Eds.), Threshold concepts in practice (pp. 253–267). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Small, G. W., Moody, T. D., Siddarth, P., & Bookheimer, S. Y. (2009). Your brain on Google: Patterns of cerebral activation during Internet searching. American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 17(2), 116–126. http://doi.org/10.1097/JGP.0b013e3181953a02 Timmermans, J. A., & Meyer, J. H. F. (2017). A framework for working with university teachers to create and embed ‘Integrated Threshold Concept Knowledge’ (ITCK) in their practice. International Journal for Academic Development 24(4), 354–368. http://doi.org/10.1080/1360144X.2017.1388241 Todd, R. (2008). The thing itself On the search for authenticity. New York, NY: Penguin Group. Townsend, L., Brunetti, K., & Hofer, A. R. (2011). Threshold concepts and information literacy. Libraries and the Academy, 11(3), 853–869. http://doi.org/10.1353/pla.2011.0030 Townsend, L., Hofer, A. R., Lin Hanick, S., & Brunetti, K. (2016). Identifying threshold concepts for information literacy: A Delphi study. Communications in Information Literacy, 10(1), 23–49. http://doi.org/10.15760/comminfolit.2016.10.1.13 Tucker, V. M. (2016). Learning experiences and the liminality of expertise. In R. Land, J. H. F Meyer, & M. T. Flanagan (Eds.), Threshold concepts in practice (pp. 93–106). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Tucker, V. M. (2017). Threshold concepts and core competences in the library and information science domain: Methodologies for discovery. Library and Information Research, 41(125), 61–80. Tucker, V. M. (2018). Threshold concepts and information experience in information literacy professional education. Communications in Computer and Information Science, 810, 749–758. http://doi.org/ 10.1007/978-3-319-74334-9_76 Tucker, V. M., Bruce, C., & Edwards, S. L. (2016). Using grounded theory to discover threshold concepts in transformative learning experiences. Theory and Method in Higher Education, 2, 23–46. http://doi.org/ 10.1108/S2056-375220160000002001 Tucker, V. M., Weedman, J., Bruce, C., & Edwards, S. L. (2014). Learning portals: Analyzing threshold concept theory for LIS education. Journal of Education for Library & Information Science, 55(2), 150–165. Walker, G. (2013). A cognitive approach to threshold concepts. Higher Education, 65, 247–263. http://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-012-9541-4 Webber, S., & Johnston, B. (2016). Information literacy, threshold concepts, and disciplinarity. Fourth European Conference on Information Literacy (ECIL), Prague, Czech Republic. Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD). Zilvinskis, J., Masseria, A. A., & Pike, G. R. (2017). Student engagement and student learning: Examining the convergent and discriminant validity of the revised National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). Research in Higher Education, 58(8), 880–903. http://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-017-9450-6

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18. THRESHOLD CONCEPTS IN THE APPLIED MATHEMATICS BSC PROGRAMME A Structural Comparison with Threshold Concepts in the Computer Science BSc Programme

ABSTRACT

We established empirically which threshold concepts our students of the Bachelor’s Programme Applied Mathematics experienced and which characteristics they thought are applicable. The set-up of the research, its results, e.g., the students’ ability to reflect on their learning, and its provisional implications for teaching, might be of interest to researchers and teachers outside mathematics. Based on our research it would be interesting to see if comparable results and implications for teaching appear in other disciplines as well. Mathematics and Computer Science are comparable. INTRODUCTION

As a sequel to the investigation of Zwaneveld, Perrenet, and Bloo (2016) on threshold concepts identified by students in their Computer Science BSc Programme (CS) and threshold concepts their teachers expected their students would identify, we carry out a similar investigation among students and teachers of the Applied Mathematics BSc Programme. Our instrument is a questionnaire presented to mathematics students concluding their BSc programme, similar to the one used by Zwaneveld, Perrenet, and Bloo (2016). The students were introduced to threshold concepts and the following characteristics transformative: the perception of the subject changes totally; irreversible: one cannot go back to the earlier, more primitive way of seeing the subject; integrative: different parts of the subject become related; alien or counter-intuitive: at first sight the concept is strange or even absurd, and bounded: the concept bounds the discipline more clearly from other disciplines (Meyer & Land, 2006). The questionnaire asks the students to mention examples of threshold concepts from their own experience and to comment on the applicability of the characteristics. This activity is part of a compulsory reflection assignment at the end of their BSc Programme. As in the case of CS, we also asked teachers what they expected their students would mention as threshold concepts. Teachers were also introduced to the notion

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004419971_018

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of a threshold concept, but we did not tell them the results of their students. The outcome is input for possible improvement of the teaching. In the research on threshold concepts among the CS students and teachers, Zwaneveld et al. (2016) found few concepts with high frequencies and many concepts occurring just once. They conjectured that this would be different in the case of mathematics: a shorter list of threshold concepts, mentioned by most of the students. For, mathematics has, generally speaking, a stable curriculum and, due to the long tradition of research of its didactics, teachers can predict threshold concepts. It is then reasonable to expect a shorter list of threshold concepts and a more even frequency pattern than in the CS study. So, besides our wish to know which threshold concepts (including their frequencies) the math students mention, we were also interested if the conjectured difference between Mathematics and CS students was confirmed. We use the same methodology as Zwaneveld et al. (2016). This will be described in more detail in the section Instruments. This methodology turned out to be valid and reliable. In asking students and staff, we differ from, for instance, Nazim Kahn (2014) (students were not asked directly), Worsly (2011) (only students were interviewed), and Galligan, Wandel, and Todd Hartle (2010) (only staff were interviewed). We start this chapter with the theoretical background, our methodology, and the results of earlier research on mathematical threshold concepts. This leads to the research questions. Then we present our results, including a comparison with the results obtained by Zwaneveld et al. (2016) on computer science threshold concepts, and we finish with conclusions, discussion, and ideas for further research. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

Our most important theoretical background is the Threshold Concepts Framework, including the characteristics, developed by Meyer and Land (2006). In the second place we mention the outcome of the discussion between Zwaneveld et al. (2016) and Shinners-Kennedy (2013, 2016). The discussion concentrated on the question what the best way is to determine the thresholds. Instead of our methodology focusing on students and teachers, their methodology focuses on teachers only, in order to avoid hindsight bias and emotional load. In order not to lose the student input, we involved teachers and students. Mathematical threshold concepts have been studied before, so we start by giving an overview of these concepts, including the statistical ones, we found in the literature. As far as we know, the literature does not discuss the frequencies of these concepts. At the tertiary level we found the following identified threshold concepts: ‡ ordinary differential equations and multiple integration (Worsley, Bulmer, & O’Brien, 2008)

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‡ differentiation of function with the variable (also) in an exponent (Loch & McLoughlin, 2012) ‡ solving an inequality by multiplying both sides with the variable (Loch & McLoughlin, 2012) ‡ hyperbolic functions (Worsley et al., 2008), complex numbers (Classroom Notes, 2011) ‡ vector calculus (Craig & Campbell, 2013) ‡ proving of the Cayley-Hamilton theorem in linear algebra (Easdown, 2007) ‡ confidence intervals (Cope & Byrne, 2006) ‡ randomness or variation, sampling, the central limit theorem, and linear regression (Dunne, Low, & Ardington, 2003) ‡ calculation of expected frequencies, determination of the trend or association in data (Nazim Kahn, 2014) ‡ limits, cosets, continuity and differentiability, convolution and Fourier transform (Mason, 2015) ‡ definite integral as a limit (Scheja & Petterson, 2010) ‡ calculus (Petterson & Scheja, 2008) RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Our research concerning the mathematics domain is exploratory and comparative. The research questions are the following: ‡ Which threshold concepts do students mention? ‡ To what extent do the various characteristics of threshold concepts apply according to the students? ‡ Which concepts do teachers think their students mention most often? ‡ What are the similarities and differences between the students’ threshold concepts according to their teachers and the actual students’ concepts? ‡ Is it true that the frequency patterns of the mathematical threshold concepts and the computer science threshold concepts differ: less threshold concepts and a more even frequency pattern for mathematics than for computer science? The idea behind this last question is, as mentioned in the introduction, that since mathematics has a long teaching history including extensive didactical research, as opposed to Computer Science, a different pattern is quite conceivable. METHODS

Context The study was carried out in the context of the three-year Applied Mathematics BSc programme at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). This programme

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focusses on generally-accepted topics as analysis, (linear) algebra, probability theory, and mathematical modelling. Respondents Participants were students in the second semester of the third (last) year of the programme (N = 60) and about two third of their university teachers (N = 12). Due to a change of teachers responsible for the assignment, the students received a slightly different instruction for the task. Some students were given four non-mathematical examples of threshold concepts; all the others got a mathematical example: complex numbers. In our analysis, we treated the students as one group, notwithstanding this not-intended difference. We discuss this difference in the section on the quality of the measurement. The students were notified that their responses were being used for research purposes, and that their anonymity was assured Instruments The students’ task was part of a series of compulsory reflection assignments (digitally delivered). First, the notion of a threshold concept with its five characteristics was explained (Meyer & Land, 2006). About a third of the students were shown some non-mathematical examples, whereas the other students were shown a mathematical example. Students were asked to identify one or more threshold concepts from their own experience and to indicate the applicability of the five characteristics. The students’ texts were not graded, but only accepted if it was clear that the work had been taken seriously. The teachers’ task was partly similar to the students’ task. The threshold concept construct was explained during a plenary presentation at an educational meeting. The task had the individual paper-and-pencil format. The teachers were asked to list the three threshold concepts they expected their students would mention most often. Only concepts were asked for, not opinions about the applicability of the characteristics, nor explanations about the choice of concepts. Analysis Both authors categorised all the threshold concepts and the applicability of the five characteristics mentioned by the students. In about 80% of the cases, both authors came to the same categorisation. For about 10%, the differences could be ascribed to different interpretations of the formulations by the students: the level of specificity or text ambiguities. In these cases, categorisation was carried out by both authors together. The last 10 percent of differences was cleared after discussion between both authors. The first author categorised the threshold concepts mentioned by the teachers. For reasons of comparison with the CS results, we include the correlations, but we refrain from a detailed statistical analysis. 258

THRESHOLD CONCEPTS IN THE APPLIED MATHEMATICS BSC PROGRAMME

The authors of this chapter possess various relevant skills and roles in relation to the programme. Both authors have a mathematical background. Both are involved in educating mathematics teachers. RESULTS

In this section, we present the numerical results of our investigation. For the purposes of comparison, we also include the previously obtained results on CS (Zwaneveld et al., 2016). In those tables where we include the CS data, the correlation r of the Mathematics and CS results is also presented. Students’ Threshold Concepts Almost every student mentioned one to three concepts. From the response of one student, we were not able to clearly determine what threshold concept was meant. Our first table, Table 18.1, lists the frequencies. The number of mathematical threshold concepts is less than the number of computer science threshold concepts. With respect to the aforementioned frequency pattern (few threshold concepts with high frequencies and many with low frequencies), the correlation of the frequencies between the Mathematics and CS results is perfect: r = 1.00. By way of illustration, we present two examples of students’ responses, translated from Dutch, as literally as possible. Notice that some students constructed several of such examples. In the process of analysis, we added the italics terms for the characteristics and an extension, + or –, denoting the student’s opinion on the applicability. First example of a student’s response. In this piece I describe a threshold concept from my own experience. To me, the notion RI FRQWLQXLW\ ZLWK WKH DVVRFLDWHG İ GHILQLWLRQ DQG SURRIV ZDV D WKUHVKROG FRQFHSW Before studying this concept, I already had an intuitive idea of what continuity means. This idea was, however, rather informal: ‘If you can draw the graph without lifting’ your pencil’. Transformative+ (change in view from: continuity is no longer drawing the graph without lifting the pencil to the epsilon-delta-definition). Table 18.1. Frequencies of threshold concepts mentioned by students (Mathematics: N = 60; CS: N = 59 in 2014) Threshold concepts

Mathematics

CS

Number of threshold concepts mentioned

78

108

Number of different threshold concepts

37

53

Correlation r 1.00

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B. ZWANEVELD & H. STERK

Regarding this concept, I can still go back to my earlier way of looking at it. This way of looking at it is actually intuitively attractive to get a quick idea whether a function is continuous. Irreversible– (since the student can still use his former view). Understanding this topic and the corresponding proofs helped me in the JHQHUDO XQGHUVWDQGLQJ RI WKH CPHFKDQLVP¶ EHKLQG RWKHU İ GHILQLWLRQV DQG SURRIV I also understood why the concepts continuity and limits are closely connected. Integrative+. At first, the concept (with corresponding definition) was rather scary. Especially WKH ILUVW SDUW µIRU DOO İ !  WKHUH LV D į !¶ ZDV GLIILFXOW IRU PH DQG , GLGQ¶W XQGHUVWDQG WKDW \RX FRXOG WKHUHIRUH FKRRVH į GHSHQGLQJ RQ İ &RQVHTXHQWO\ , IRXQG WKH corresponding proofs difficult and counter intuitive: ‘You surely know nothing about İ WKHQ KRZ FDQ \RX FKRRVH į İ İ FDQ EH DQ\WKLQJ¶ Counter-intuitive+. Grasping this concept made me realise that giving formal definitions and proving a property indicate how formal and precise mathematics and its corresponding language is. My intuitive idea sounds nice, but to make it formal required quite some effort! Bounded+. Second example of a student’s response. My threshold concept is the notion of a ‘dual’. The concept was introduced during Linear Algebra 2. It concerned dual space, dual basis, etc. At that moment I understood none of it. In functional analysis the topic reappeared. Things were explained again in a somewhat different context as a result of which I did understand it. At first I didn’t understand any theory in which the word dual occurred, but now that’s no problem anymore. Transformative+. If I came across the word ‘dual’, this always gave me stress because I thought I wouldn’t understand it. Now, I take a quiet look at the theory or at what’s being asked and there is usually no problem anymore. Irreversible–. The concepts dual and dual basis were introduced in linear algebra. I couldn’t connect the material that was being discussed to the concept. When the notion reappeared during functional analysis and I did understand it, it became clear how the notion is related to the surrounding theory. Integrative+. The concept of a ‘dual’ appeared strange to me. I didn’t know what it was based on. When it was discussed, in a different context, in linear optimisation, it became even stranger to me, and I got even more confused about this notion. Counterintuitive+. When I didn’t understand the concept of a dual, I also didn’t understand which theory belonged to it. Now that I know what the concept means, it is clear which knowledge is needed for it, what is connected to it and what not. Bounded–.

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THRESHOLD CONCEPTS IN THE APPLIED MATHEMATICS BSC PROGRAMME

Table 18. 2. Percentages of thresholds characteristics judged applicable to the threshold concepts according to the students Characteristics

Mathematics

CS

Correlation r

Applicability (%)

Applicability (%)

0.98

Transformative

96

88

Irreversible

72

72

Integrative

63

64

Alien or counter-intuitive

82

78

Bounded

59

55

Applicability of Threshold Characteristics According to the Students The percentages indicating how often the five characteristics were considered to apply to the threshold concepts according to the students are listed in Table 18.2. Clearly, every characteristic is considered to be present in more than 50% of the cases a concept is mentioned. In the view of the students, the characteristic transformative applies most often, and the characteristics alien or counter-intuitive and bounded apply least often. Although the threshold concepts literature suggests that transformativity is a necessary condition for a concept to be a threshold concept, the data of our students shows that they perceive this (slightly) differently. The correlation between the relative frequencies of the Mathematics and the CS results is 0.98, indicating an almost perfect similarity in frequency pattern. Quite a remarkable result! Threshold Concepts Mentioned by Students From the 37 distinct threshold concepts, some were mentioned by many students, some only by one. Table 18.3 lists the corresponding frequencies. We observe again a shorter list for the Mathematics Programme than for CS, and similar frequency patterns: correlation r = 1.00. The threshold concepts mentioned by the students including their frequencies are shown in Table 18.4. Notice that the maximal possible frequency is 60 (the number of students). There are few high frequency threshold concepts and many low frequency ones. Out of the 37 concepts mentioned in total, two concepts are very frequently mentioned, 12 were mentioned two to five times, and 23 were mentioned only once. We call these latter ones the unique threshold concepts. Comparison with Mathematical Threshold Concepts Reported in the Literature The following four concepts we found in the literature were also mentioned by our students: limit, complex numbers (both concepts very frequently mentioned by the 261

B. ZWANEVELD & H. STERK

Table 18.3. Variation in the students’ concepts list Mathematics Number of times mentioned

Frequency in the list of 37 different concepts

CS

Correlation r

Frequency in the list of 53 different concepts

1.00

10 or more

1

2

7–9

1

0

2–6

12

16

1

23

35

Table 18.4. Threshold concepts mentioned by students Threshold concept

Frequency

Definition of limit

16

Threshold concept Reliability (in statistics)

Frequency 1

Complex numbers

8

(In)stability of numerical solutions

1

Induction

5

(Fourier- or Laplace-)transforms

1

Random variable

4

Variable

1

Metric

3

Cardinality

1

Matrix

3

Differential equation

1

n-dimensional space

2

Groups/rings/fields

1

Continuity

2

Negative numbers

1

Probability distribution

2

Representations

1

Norm

2

Open/closed sets

1

Dual linear space

2

Non-denumerability

1

Pointwise convergence

2

Convergence of series

1

Convergence

2

p-value (in statistics)

1

2

Group action

1

Continuous probability distribution

1

Memoryless distribution Other, unique concepts

23

Basis

1

Linear analysis

1

Markov-chain

1

Vector-integrals

1

Cross-product

1

Rings

1

Proving methods

1

Taylor-series

1

students), linear analysis, Fourier transform (hardly mentioned). So 33 concepts mentioned by our students were not found in the literature. And 15 concepts mentioned in the literature were not mentioned by our students. See Figure 18.1, which also contains the corresponding percentages. 262

THRESHOLD CONCEPTS IN THE APPLIED MATHEMATICS BSC PROGRAMME Threshold concepts mentioned by our students Threshold concepts mentioned in the literature

33 (of 37) 89%

4

15 (of 19) 79%

Figure 18.1. Numbers of the (non-) overlapping different thresholds mentioned by students and in the literature, and the percentages of the non-overlapping different threshold concepts Table 18.5. Frequencies of thresholds concepts predicted by their teachers (N = 12) Threshold concepts

Mathematics

CS

Number of threshold concepts mentioned

36

49

Number of different threshold concepts

20

21

Table 18.6. Variation in the teachers’ concepts list Mathematics

CS

Frequency in the list of 20 different concepts

Frequency in the list of 21 different concepts

5 or more

1

4

2–4

6

4

13

13

Number of times mentioned

1

Students’ Threshold Concepts Predicted by Their Teachers Almost every teacher mentioned two to three concepts. One teacher mentioned none (see Tables 18.5 and 18.6). In Table 18.6 we have taken the same categories for Mathematics and CS because the numbers of distinct threshold concepts mentioned by both groups of teachers are almost the same. In Table 18.7 we present all individual threshold concepts mentioned by the teachers, and their frequencies. Notice that the maximal possible frequency is 12. There are few high frequency threshold concepts and many low frequency ones. Of the 20 distinct threshold concepts mentioned, seven were mentioned two to five times. Comparison of the Students’ List and the Teachers’ List What is striking is the similarity in frequency structure (see Tables 18.4 and 18.7): few (two for the students and three for the teachers) high frequency threshold concepts 263

B. ZWANEVELD & H. STERK

Table 18.7. Threshold concepts expected by the teachers Frequency

Threshold concept

Frequency

Threshold concept

Complex numbers

5

Function as object

1

Definition of limit

4

Model

1

Induction

4

Validation

1

Infinity

3

Graphs

1

Linear space

3

Convergence of a series

1

Recursion

2

Uniform convergence

1

2

Irrational numbers

1

Public key

1

1

(Un)decidability

1

Non-denumerability

1

Tensor

1

Incompleteness

1

Proof

13

Other, unique concepts Formalizibility

Threshold concepts mentioned by students

30 (of 37) 81%

Threshold concepts mentioned by teachers

7

13 (of 20) 56%

Figure 18.2. Numbers of the (non-) overlapping different thresholds mentioned by students and teachers and the percentages of the non-overlapping different threshold concepts

and many (35 for the students and 17 for the teachers) low frequency ones. Note that the frequencies differ less within the group of teachers than within the group of students. Some concepts (seven) appear in both lists, which means that teachers rightly expected students to mention certain concepts. However, more than seven concepts were expected by the teachers, but were not mentioned by the students (13), and many more concepts were mentioned by the students, but not expected by the teachers (30). See Figure 18.2, also for the related percentages. In their investigation regarding the Computer Science Programme Zwaneveld et al. (2016) found ten threshold concepts mentioned by both students and teachers, 81% of the threshold concepts mentioned by the students were not mentioned by the teachers, and 52% of the threshold concepts mentioned by the teachers were not mentioned by the students. Mathematics shows a similar pattern. Based on a list with the threshold concepts mentioned by both students and teachers, by only the students, and by only the teachers, respectively, we calculated the percentages any particular concept occurs in the list of all 78 students’ concepts

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THRESHOLD CONCEPTS IN THE APPLIED MATHEMATICS BSC PROGRAMME

Table 18.8. The percentages each threshold concept is mentioned by students and teachers, respectively; in each column the number of threshold concepts with this pair of percentages is also indicated Students

1.3

2.6

3.8

5.1

0

1.3

2.6

0

1.3

0

6.4

10.3

20.5

Teachers

0

0

0

0

2.8

2.8

2.8

5.6

5.6

8.3

11.1

13.9

11.1

7

2

1

10

2

1

1

1

2

1

1

1

b

c

d

e

f

g

h

i

j

k

l

m

Frequency 20 Concepts

a

a basis, Markov-chain, cross-product, reliability, (in)stability, transform, variable, cardinality, differential equation, group/ring/field, negative numbers, representations, open/closed sets, continuous probability distribution, p-value, group action, linear analysis, vector-integrals, rings, Taylor-series b n-dimensional space, continuity, probability distribution, norm, dual space, convergence, memoryless distribution c metric, matrix d random variable e formalizibility, incompleteness, function as an object, model, validation, graphs, irrational numbers, public key, (un)decidability, tensor f non-denumerability, convergence of a series g uniform convergence h recursion i proving methods i infinity, vector space k induction l complex numbers m definition of limit

(including repetitions), and in the list of all 36 teachers’ concepts (again including repetitions). This resulted in the first two rows of Table 18.8. To avoid duplications, the frequency of threshold concepts with the same pair of percentages is added to each column in the third row. For instance, point (1.3; 2.8), in the sixth column with frequency 2 attached to it, refers to the fact that there are two concepts, nondenumerability and convergence of a series, with an occurrence of 1.3% in the list of the 78 times a concept is mentioned by the students, and with an occurrence of 2.8% in the list of the 36 times a concept is mentioned by the teachers. In Figure 18.3 a graphical representation of Table 18.8 is given. The scatterplot of Figure 18.3 illustrates the relationship between the lists of threshold concepts of the students and the teachers (correlation r = 0.50). In the CS research, this correlation was 0.49. Once again a very comparable frequency pattern between the students in the Mathematics Programme and Computer Science Programme.

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THRESHOLD CONCEPTS IN THE APPLIED MATHEMATICS BSC PROGRAMME

CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION

We present our conclusions by answering the research questions. Which threshold concepts do students mention? Students mention a variety of concepts. The concepts definition of limit (with epsilon and delta) and complex numbers have a higher frequency than all others. Many concepts are only mentioned by a single student (see Tables 18.1, 18.3, and 18.4). There is not much overlap between mathematical threshold concepts mentioned in earlier studies and the concepts our students mention. The two concepts with the highest frequency are in this overlap (see Figure 18.1). The students’ threshold concepts with high frequencies don’t differ from those in the literature, but almost none of the concepts with lower frequencies is mentioned in the literature. Possible explanations are differences in the curricula of different universities, and learning is an individual experience (see Ben-Ari, 2001, for an elaboration on this theme). Possible explanations for the great differences among the mathematics students are differences in study programmes. For about two thirds of the students, a quarter of their study programme consists of electives, inside or outside mathematics (a few of these electives are taken in the first year already). The other students did not have the same opportunity. Further, it is possible that some students followed an elective mathematics course in upper secondary school, Math D, of which the content is not prescribed. Usually, complex numbers is part of it. These students may not view complex numbers as a threshold concept any more during the complex numbers course in their first year, or perhaps they assume that the assignment was only related to the courses of their Bachelor Programme. Differences in the threshold concepts in our study versus those identified in the literature may be the result of the particular Eindhoven curriculum, or even the particular moments students were asked about thresholds. To what extent do the various characteristics of threshold concepts apply according to the students? Students report that all five threshold concept characteristics are applicable to their concepts: 62% or more, with transformative (96%) as the highest scoring one (see Table 18.2). Consequently, threshold concepts as described with the five characteristics do exist in mathematics, but not all characteristics are equally relevant. Which concepts do teachers think their students mention most often? The threshold concepts mentioned most frequently by the teachers are the following three: complex numbers, definition of a limit, and induction. Mentioned most frequently by the students are the first two of these three (see Tables 18.5, 18.6, and 18.7). What are the similarities and differences between the students’ threshold concepts according to their teachers and the actual students’ concepts? The pattern we find among our students, few threshold concepts with high frequencies and many concepts with low frequencies, is the same as the pattern found among the teachers’ answers, although the differences among the teachers are smaller than among the students. 267

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One can understand this, because the number of participating students is much larger than the number of participating teachers. The overlap in the list of the students and the list of the teachers is minimal: more dissimilarity than similarity. The top of both lists is the same, however (see Table 18.8, and Figures 18.2 and 18.3). Is it true that the frequency patterns of the mathematical threshold concepts and the computer science threshold concepts differ: less threshold concepts and a more even frequency pattern for mathematics than for computer science? Indeed, less distinct mathematical threshold concepts were mentioned than computer science thresholds (37 versus 53), not contradicting the conjecture. Still, the list of mathematical threshold concepts is rather lengthy, we expected between ten and fifteen (see Table 18.1). But, with respect to the frequency pattern, few high frequency threshold concepts, many low frequency concepts, and the variation in the students’ list of concepts, we conclude that the conjecture is not confirmed (see Tables 18.3 [correlation 1.00] and 4). With respect to the applicability of the five characteristics, the frequency patterns are strikingly similar (see Table 18.2 with a correlation of 0.98). These conclusions are more or less the same for the teachers. As Tables 18.5, 18.6, and 18.7 suggest, similar conclusions turn out to hold for the teachers. How to explain these phenomena? With respect to the number of concepts mentioned, maybe the Math group is not as homogeneous as we thought. Not every student takes the same courses in the same order – although the core mathematics courses are the same, not every student has the same teacher for a course, not every student has the same prior knowledge. With respect to the frequency patterns observed, we note that, although the core topics of the curriculum have a long tradition, it turns out that some threshold concepts remain prominently present. Implications for Education As few concepts are thresholds for many students and many concepts are thresholds for few students, what are the implications for education? Of course, teachers should give extra attention to concepts mentioned by many students (definition of limit, complex numbers, and maybe also induction and random variables: these concepts will receive special attention in the Eindhoven curriculum), but the teachers will also be informed that most threshold concepts differ for the individual student. These implications for education are at least also interesting for teaching other disciplines. The students showed that they are able to reflect on their learning, which is a positive conclusion in its own right. At the Durham threshold conference, Felten (2016) stressed this point also in his keynote (see also Ben-Ari, 2001). Quality of the Measurement As to quality of the measurement, we note the following. The greatest problem in analysing the students’ data was the fact that about a quarter of the students obviously 268

THRESHOLD CONCEPTS IN THE APPLIED MATHEMATICS BSC PROGRAMME

had difficulties in clearly formulating their thoughts on the threshold characteristics. This made it sometimes hard to understand what was really meant. Because the second author knows all the responding students very well, any doubt could be cleared up. Moreover, the assignment for the students was compulsory, so, we are convinced of the reliability. As mentioned in the section Methods/respondents, the group of students can be seen as consisting of two subgroups: one subgroup of 19 students (A) who received four examples from different non-mathematical domains, and one subgroup of 41 students (B) which received one mathematical example: complex numbers. There are more minor differences between the two subgroups. We restrict ourselves to a few details. For instance, subgroup A did not have the opportunity of the elective courses. In order to see to what extent the two subgroups differed, we analysed some results of the two subgroups separately. For instance, the relative frequencies in both subgroups with respect to complex numbers differ a lot: 0% in subgroup A and 20% in subgroup B, while the frequencies for the most frequently mentioned threshold concept, definition of a limit, are comparable: 23% and 18%, respectively. Also, we computed the correlation between the total number and the number of different threshold concepts mentioned in the first and the second subgroup, like Table 18.1: this correlation is 1.00. We also compared the two subgroups as in Table 18.3 (variation in the students’ concepts list). Here, the correlation turns out to be 0.91. Ideas for Further Research There is much similarity between the Mathematics Programme and the Computer Science Programme, both with respect to the frequency patterns and the applicability of the characteristics. Is this also true for other disciplines? In the didactics of mathematics, mathematical concepts have been studied extensively before. Skemp (1976) distinguished between instrumental and relational understanding of concepts. Instrumental understanding is about the use of a concept in performing calculations. A student with a relational understanding of a concept can place a concept in a greater relational network of concepts. Tall (2007) distinguished actions, like calculating the output of a function to a given input, the encapsulation of this action into an object, like the function itself, which can be manipulated as such. Van Hiele (1986) distinguished different levels of abstraction of concepts: the ground level, where a concept is a physical object, the first level is about the properties of an object, the second level is about the relations between similar objects, and the third level is concerned with the logic of the properties and the relations. Perrenet (2009) distinguished several levels of abstraction in computer science concepts. Zwaneveld (1999) distinguished the ‘image’ of a concept. That image contains several aspects of the concept: the meaning in every day terms (e.g. ‘the graph of a differentiable function is smooth’), its mathematical definition, and the use of a concept (e.g. while doing mathematical activities). Rosch (1978) investigated a cognitive categorisation and levels of concept representation. Of course, these approaches to mathematical 269

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concepts are not disjoint. It is at least interesting, and maybe useful, to investigate the mathematical-didactical approaches with the approach of the threshold concept Community. Almost all the threshold concepts mentioned by the students belong to first year courses. Do students no longer meet threshold concepts after the first year, with as a possible explanation that they are enculturated ‘enough’ into mathematics? ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We thank the teachers and students from Applied Mathematics at TU/e for their participation. We are grateful to Jacob Perrenet and Perry den Brok for their constructive remarks on an earlier version of this chapter. REFERENCES Ben-Ari, M. (2001). Constructivism in computer science education. Journal of Computers in Mathematics and Science Teaching, 20(1), 45–73. Retrieved from http://www.it.uu.se/edu/course/homepage/ datadidaktik/ht06/teaching/Moti-Ben-Ari-jcmst.pdf Classroom notes: Threshold concepts ALTC project: A national discipline-specific professional development program for lecturers and tutors in the Mathematical sciences. (2011). Gazette of the Australian Mathematical Society, 38(2), 72–74. Retrieved from http://www.austms.org.au/Publ/ Gazette/2011/May11/ClassNotes.pdf Cope, C. J., & Byrne, G. (2006, August 29–September 1). Improving teaching and learning about threshold concepts The example of confidence intervals. Symposium on Threshold Concepts, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. Craig, T. S., & Campbell, A. (2013). Vector calculus for engineers – The academic development model. CULMS Newsletter, 7, 21–25. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276889648_ Vector_Calculus_for_Engineers_-_The_Academic_Development_Model Dunne, T., Low, T., & Ardington, C. (2003). Exploring threshold concepts in basic statistics, using the internet. University of Auckland, NZ: IASE/ISI Satellite. Retrieved from https://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~iase/publications/6/Dunne.pdf Easdown, D. (2007). The role of proof in mathematics teaching and the plateau principle. In A. Hugman, I. Johnston, & M. Peat (Eds.), Proceedings of the assessment in science teaching and learning symposium. Sydney: Uniserve Science. Felten, P. (2016). On the threshold with students. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & M. T. Flanagan (Eds.), Threshold concepts in practice (pp. 3–9). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Galligan, L., Wandel, A., & Todd Hartler, R. (2010). Scaffolding distance learning in mathematics for engineering Identifying key troublesome knowledge. Brisbane: Queensland University of Technology. Retrieved December 2015, from http://core.ac.uk/display/11047354, OAI identifier: oai:eprints.usq. edu.au:19325 Loch, B , & McLoughlin, C. (2012). Teaching threshold concepts in engineering mathematics using MathsCasts. In Proceedings of the Australasian Association for Engineering Education. Proceedings of the 2012 AAEE Conference. Melbourne, Victoria. Retrieved from http://www.aaee.net.au/index.php/ resources/send/9-2012/682-teaching-threshold-concepts-in-engineering-mathematics-usingmathscasts Mason, J. (2015). Crossing the threshold: Epistemological obstacles and pedagogic circumventions. In M. A. Hersch & M. Kotecha (Eds.), IMA International Conference on Barriers and Enablers to Learning Math. Retrieved from https://ima.org.uk/1326/ima-international-conference-barriersenablers-learning-maths-enhancing-learning-teaching-learners/

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THRESHOLD CONCEPTS IN THE APPLIED MATHEMATICS BSC PROGRAMME Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (Eds.). (2006). Overcoming barriers to student understanding Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge. New York, NY: Routledge. Nazim Khan, R. (2014). Identifying threshold concepts in first-year statistics. Education Research and Perspectives, 41, 217–231. Perrenet, J. (2009). Levels of thinking in computer science: Development in bachelor students’ conceptualisation of algorithm. Education and Information technologies, 15(2), 87–107. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/s10639-009-9098-8 Pettersson, K., & Scheja, M. (2008). Algorithmic contexts and learning potentiality: A case study of students’ understanding of calculus. International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology, 39(6), 767–784. doi.org/10.1080/00207390801986908 Rosch, E. (1978). Principles of categorisation. In E. Rosch & B. B. Lloyd (Eds.), Cognition and categorisation (pp. 27–48), Hillsdale, MI: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Scheja, M., & Pettersson, K. (2010). Transformation and contextualisation: Conceptualising students’ conceptual understandings of threshold concepts in calculus. Higher Education, 59(2), 221–241. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/25622177 Shinners-Kennedy, D. (2016). How NOT to identify threshold concepts. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & M. T. Flanagan (Eds.), Threshold concepts in practice (pp. 251–265). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Shinners-Kennedy, D., & Fincher, S. A. (2013). Identifying threshold concepts: From dead end to a new direction. In Proceedings of the Ninth Annual International ACM Conference on International computing education research (pp. 9–18). ACM. Skemp, R. R. (1976). Relational and instrumental understanding. Mathematics Teaching, 77, 20–36. Tall, D. (2007). Embodiment, symbolism and formalism in undergraduate Mathematics education (p. 4). Plenary at 10th Conference of the Special Interest Group of the Mathematical Association of America on Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education(), San Diego, CA, USA. Van Hiele, P. M. (1986). Structure and insight A theory of mathematics education. New York, NY: Academic Press. Worsley, S., Bulmer, M., & O’Brien, M. (2008). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge in a second-level Mathematics course. In A. Hugman & K. Placing (Eds.), Symposium proceedings Visualisation and concept development (pp. 139–144). Sydney: UniServe Science, The University of Sydney. Worsley, S. R. (2011). The big ideas in two large first level courses of undergraduate Mathematics. In J. Clark, B. Kissane, J. Mousley, T. Spencer, & S. Thornton (Eds.), Mathematics Traditions and [new] practices (pp. 839–845). Proceedings of the 34th annual conference of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia and the Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers, AAMT and MERGA, Adelaide. Zwaneveld, B. (1999). Kennisgrafen in het wiskundeonderwijs. Maastricht: Shaker Publishing. (Dissertation, in Dutch; English title: Knowledge Graphs in Mathematics Education) Zwaneveld, B., Perrenet, J., & Bloo, R. (2016). Discussion of methods for threshold research and an application in computer science. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & M. T. Flanagan (Eds.), Threshold concepts in practice (pp. 267–282). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.

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PART 5 CROSSING DISCIPLINES

SHANNON MURRAY, ANNE MARIE RYAN AND BRAD WUETHERICK

19. EXPLORING THRESHOLD CONCEPTS ON THE EDGE Learning, Teaching and Assessment Practices

ABSTRACT

Navigating the edges of our thinking, our comfort zones, and the space between these and unexplored territories, is the essence of this chapter. Here we explore some of the ways students and faculty meet these transitions and consider how journeys through these reaches might unfold. This chapter reflects the thinking and ideas as originally addressed in the plenary panel discussion at the Biennial Threshold Concepts conference in Halifax in 2016. INTRODUCTION

If the theory of (threshold concepts) is to be useful in guiding teaching and improving student performance, it must be translated into principles that can inform the design of teaching and the curriculum. (Davies & Mangan, 2008, p. 37) How do threshold concepts prompt us to reconceptualise our understanding of what it means to teach, learn, and design courses and curricula? How has integrating threshold concepts into our teaching pushed us to the edge of our knowledge, comfort, and identity as a teacher? What new research and practice frontiers lie ahead as we contemplate the next decade of threshold concepts work? Wilcox and Léger (2013, pp. 9–10) argue that ‘threshold concepts represent a useful way to engage teachers in critically reflective dialogue: what does it mean to think and act as a teacher in postsecondary settings?’. This chapter reflects on the theme of the 2016 Threshold Concepts Conference, Thresholds on the Edge, which pushes us to think about and beyond the edges of our current understandings and practices around threshold concepts. Structured as three stand-alone narratives, each written by a member of the plenary panel at the 2016 conference, we explore ways to think about our students’ learning practices when encountering threshold concepts, our own teaching practices to help

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004419971_019

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students navigate threshold concepts, and the practices we use to assess students’ understandings about threshold concepts. NEW WORLDS AND OLD MONSTERS: THE EDGES OF AN UNDERGRADUATE ARTS DEGREE (SHANNON MURRAY)

The edges of old maps of the world are full of fantastical monsters: winged sea dragons, serpentine sea dogs, and bearded leviathans that are both warnings and enticements. I teach Early Modern English literature, and I start the first-year survey course with some very basic cartography. We try to decode the Theatre of the World map of Abraham Ortelius or Gerard Mercator’s Great Map of 1569. We explore what the maps suggest about the state of knowledge but also about attitudes towards the world, to knowledge, and to exploration. We search for the overt and covert implications involved in naming or charting, in what gets included and what gets left out. It’s a lively way to start thinking about how we can connect with world views very different from our own, but it’s also a chance to open a conversation that will percolate through the course, a conversation about how we learn and why, about who we are as students and scholars. One of the points we come to through our rudimentary map reading is that while the edges of the world open us up to risk, those edges also contain the potential for the greatest discoveries and transformation. I encourage students to think of themselves as explorers, to seek out new worlds but also to recognise that exciting journeys are almost always daunting, even perilous. Transitional moments in higher education have the potential to be the most transformational, but it’s important to remember that they, like uncharted voyages, can also be the most difficult, painful, and terrifying. We may delight as instructors in those uncomfortable liminal spaces, but our students might rightly see them less as doorways to new understanding and more as uncharted and infested waters, ready to swallow them up. In the first year, students grapple with expectations that are high and often hidden, but, more than that, they may find their identities, their very idea of themselves, shaken, questioned, shifting. Universities devote people, money, and time to that transition, knowing how important it is for persistence and success, but the other transition from university to the rest of life is at least as difficult, as Gardner and Van der Veer (1998) suggest in The Senior Year Experience. A typical graduating student may have spent 17–20 years in some kind of educational setting, and graduation can mean leaving that familiar environment and finding a new and strange one. If the gap from high school to university is a big one, the chasm from degree to the world after the degree gapes even wider. I teach English literature in a Faculty of Arts with a four-year degree, and I am drawn to the edges of those gaps and chasms, not because they are easy, to borrow from John F. Kennedy, but because they are hard. Through the middle of a degree, my focus can be more on the delights of my discipline: the pleasures of poetry, the thrill of mastering something of Shakespeare, Milton, or Donne. When I teach courses 276

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at the first or fourth year, though, the material is largely secondary: the process of transition matters more. Learning thresholds in those middle years might have us struggling with periodicity or narrative voice or the limits of genre. The more I work at the edges of the degree, the more I am convinced that the important thresholds there are cross-disciplinary. They are the ways of thinking, habits of mind that allow transition and transformation to happen, support the reshaping of identities, and form a foundation for success in the next stages of their lives. There are two that I talk to my students about in the foundational first-year literature survey, as well as in my Arts Capstone course, a senior-level seminar designed to give graduating Arts students the time to look back and look forward. The first, of course, is the very idea of learning thresholds. At the 2016 Biennial Threshold Concepts Conference, we’ve heard again and again that asking students to identify threshold concepts in their own disciplines – and suggesting what those thresholds have in common – helps both them and us. The shift from mere description to analysis, for example, is an essential concept to master for students in English, History, or Philosophy, and presenting it openly as a threshold, explaining what some of the features of threshold concepts are, can normalise some of the struggles they may experience. If you are confused, uncomfortable, even irritated by a new way of thinking, threshold concepts tell us, you’re probably on the right track. I also believe that presenting the idea of troublesome knowledge to students early can subtly shift a fixed mindset into a growth mindset, and might also encourage that other currently popular virtue of grit (Duckworth, 2016). Growth mindsets (Dweck, 2007), the belief that work and trial and seeking help and even failure are more important in learning than raw, natural talent, are hard to come by among my students, and I can understand why. In education we are too often rewarded for doing those things well that come naturally to us, and we are encouraged to avoid subjects and programmed in which we will have to struggle to do well. Learning threshold theory (Meyer & Land, 2003) implies that that struggle is a natural, even desirable step towards mastery. That idea might encourage students to persist even when the going gets tough: and to find ways to get to the other side of the doorway. Of course, threshold concepts have one clear advantage over theories of resilience or mindset: a doorway on the path is such a rich metaphor! I am fortunate as a literature teacher; my material provides so many occasions to talk about the endlessly resonant ‘life as journey’ metaphor, from Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces to Sir Gawain’s quest, Satan’s escape from Hell, Rosalind’s flight to the Forest of Arden, or Harry Potter’s train to Hogwarts. My first-year students are asked to think about themselves as the heroes of their own educational journeys, and the fourthyears begin their course by drawing the journey of their educational autobiographies. For students at moments of transition, the second essential threshold concept is surely ‘transfer’. This is a learning threshold that I admit I had for two decades of teaching expected of my students, but expected them to come to naturally, as if by magic, with no help from me. Moore’s (2012) article on ‘Designing for Transfer’ makes a compelling argument that while an ‘underlying premise of education is 277

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that students will transfer what they learn in one course to subsequent courses and beyond the academic institution’ (p. 19), this transfer is rarely taught or supported; and yet instructors (like me) are shocked when it doesn’t happen. So what if all through the undergraduate degree – but especially in those important transitional moments – we talked openly about what it means, say, to learn about a particular writing genre in one class and then to resurface it but adapt it in another class? I have an exercise I call ‘Unpacking an Assignment’, in which students are asked to list – on their own, then in small groups, then with the whole class – everything they have had to do in order to complete an assignment. The more esoteric and impractical the assignment, the better. They list how they had to plan, write, research, organise, argue, edit, format, find evidence for, get feedback on the assignment; and maybe they get to issues of audience or creativity, individual or team work, time or project management. Once the class has a detailed list like this, it’s an easy move to show what knowledge, skills, and attitudes they had to demonstrate for one of these assignments is important in the next courses they take, in the other disciplines they work in, and in the careers they hope to have. These two threshold concepts – the idea of learning thresholds themselves and the idea of the transfer of knowledge from one realm to another – seem to me to be powerful tools to help students in any discipline navigate the transition from high school to university or from university to the rest of life. Like an old sextant or a new GPS, these two function as encouragements to new explorers to push a little further beyond comfortable boundaries. With them, students might do more than follow the paths of previous explorers: they might draw new maps of their own. CROSSING THRESHOLDS AS FACULTY (ANNE MARIE RYAN)

Teaching invites us into a relationship with our students. As discipline experts, we are typically at ease within our specialty fields; however, with little or no formal training, we may not be as comfortable with our teaching. We may even encounter a threshold concept or two (Meyer & Land, 2005, 2006) as we approach the teaching and learning environment, and find ourselves teetering on the edge of liminality (Land, Meyer, & Baillie, 2010), that zone of discomfort we move through on the road to developing mastery. When Teaching Is a Threshold Concept Bunnell and Bernstein (2012) argue for the consideration of two critical threshold concepts involved in the transformation from ‘traditional’ teaching to scholarly teaching: shifting from teaching as telling to teaching as an active, inquiry-based process, and recognising teaching as a public rather than simply a private act. Realising that we can learn from the students themselves about their learning, is arguably also a threshold concept in the transformation to scholarly teaching. Ellsworth (1997) 278

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poses the idea of developing ‘a third ear’, whereby what is important is not only what the student knows, but what it is that shapes that knowledge for an individual student. In other words, what is it that we can learn from our students if we engage a third ear? However, even as we listen, there is a parallel threshold we may face: we must figure out how to maintain our personal authenticity while taking on new approaches, new information, and new ideas. Palmer (1997) suggests that ‘good teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher’ (p. 10). In my own teaching journey, the realisation that I needed to be true to my own identity in my teaching was an epiphany that was both freeing and challenging. We must ask ourselves, ‘Who am I, as teacher?’ For me, my teaching identity is always under development, and is a melding of my authentic self with reflection both on my teaching and on the students’ learning, leading to a response that may be uncomfortable change. For example, we may be giving a well-honed, true-to-self explanation for a tricky concept over a number of years, with a belief that we are helping students understand. One day, as we (finally) engage the third ear and realise that students’ have an entrenched misconception with respect to this concept, we are faced with the realisation that our long-trusted way is not working. We must change our approach if students are to cast aside their misconception. Our resistance to change can prove to be a real barrier to developing that authentic teaching identity, one that is as much about learning as it is about teaching. Even if we imagine that crossing the threshold would be a good thing to do, daring to embark on that journey through the portal is the point at which we may freeze. As disciplinary experts, we are used to being in control, knowing our discipline: the risks we take are calculated and well informed. As disciplinary teachers, we rely on our passion for our discipline to tide us through and hope that no one recognises how much of an imposter we can feel. Our teaching identity is fragile and easily threatened by any hint from students, colleagues, ourselves, or others, that we are not ‘perfect’ in what we are doing. To strengthen this fragile teaching identity requires venturing into the unknown and taking risks as we build that relationship with our students, knowing that in some way we must start afresh with every new group of students we teach. Indeed, both Palmer (1997) and Kinchin and Wiley (2017) draw attention to our fragile teaching identity and our reluctance to change, even as the nature of teaching evolves and demands we change. Travelling through the Liminal Space Taking risks in teaching inevitably at some point will put us in a liminal space. How do we find the courage to venture through the liminal space, knowing that we are aiming for a moving target, as our students, the context, and we ourselves are always in the process of transformation? To address this challenging issue, I want to share what I have found helpful for my own teaching journey.

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For my first few years of teaching, I sought a community or someone who would share my questing about how to teach so students could learn. This was a struggle, as we tend to be private in our teaching, but finding that community truly did make a difference for me. Knowing I was not alone was a source of confidence and courage to change. To quote Palmer (1997), If we want to grow as teachers – we must do something alien to academic culture: we must talk to each other about our inner lives – risky stuff in a profession that fears the personal and seeks safety in the technical, the distant, the abstract. (p. 12) All the tips and ideas in the world are not helpful if they do not ‘fit’ who we are: we must first know ourselves before we can be the teacher and the learner our students need. Even ideas rooted in the research literature must fit with who we are as teacher-learner; they must feel ‘right’ for us as an individual if they are to propel us forward. Making small changes rather than trying to revolutionise everything, can also create confidence and provide us with the courage to take more and slightly bigger steps along the path to change. Importantly, when we find anew the joy in students’ learning and respond to this joy, we are motivated to dare to change. Watching, listening, and sharing in students’ learning is a true joy we can all experience, and most evident when we engage our ‘third ear’ (Ellsworth, 1997) and really listen to what the students are letting us know. We can hear it in their words, read it in their writing, and see it in their excitement as they (re)discover the joy of learning. We can also uncover a great deal about their learning or their own stuck spots, as we note what they do not say, what they omit from their writing, what their body language communicates, and in what they show us that perplexes them. But to learn from this, we must remain open. Bunnell and Bernstein (2012) suggest that encouraging faculty to cross the threshold to scholarly teaching is best approached through drawing on their disciplinary ways of knowing and of action. How might we use what we do know well to help us find the courage to develop our scholarly teaching? As disciplinary scholars, we are all driven by curiosity, by the sheer excitement of discovery. We must draw on this curiosity and see teaching also as a discovery, full of possibilities and the joys and challenges that carry their own reward: a reward that outweighs the frustrations, the disappointments, and yes, even the failures. We owe this effort to our students, and to the future that will be theirs to navigate. SHINING A LIGHT ON THRESHOLD CROSSINGS (BRAD WUETHERICK)

Consider the story of students who are enrolled in an introductory art history course. In that class, one of the core threshold concepts the instructor has embedded in the course is to understand that there is a ‘language’ to the symbols found in art that 280

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can be learned in the context of one image and then can be ‘read’ in subsequent images, whether or not those images had previously been encountered by the viewer (Wuetherick & Loeffler, 2014). This concept was a core component of the course material, and was discussed at length during the semester. The students were given opportunities to apply this principle in class when the instructor would discuss the imagery in one piece of art, and the meaning behind those symbols and images, and then would ask the students to do the same in small groups with a new image that they had not yet seen. Traditionally, the instructor included one piece of art that the students had never seen before on the final exam in the course, but was directly connected to the work discussed at length in the course. It was through this assessment that the instructor aimed to determine whether or not students had mastered the threshold concept, yet every year, some students would completely struggle with the task on the exam. Some would only partially be able to apply what they had learned in the course to this new image, while yet others would clearly be able to apply the ‘language’ of the art to ‘read’ the image effectively. This allowed the instructor to determine which students had mastered the threshold concept, and identify others who perhaps only ‘mimicked’ an understanding (Meyer & Land 2003) or who remained stuck in a state of liminality with respect to that threshold. The instructor, however, remained frustrated because this threshold was critical to the students’ ability to progress in the field, and, even if they did not continue in art history, was critical to the student being an informed ‘viewer’ of art in the future. By that point in time, it was already too late for the instructor to provide meaningful feedback to the learners about their conceptual misconceptions in ways to influence meaningfully their future learning processes. Davies and Mangan (2008) argue for four pedagogic principles that need to be used in embedding learning activities for when students encounter threshold concepts in courses. First, the instructor must highlight the variation in the students to ensure that there is a sufficient foundation of basic concepts in the class to make it possible to undertake the acquisition of threshold concepts. For example, as larger proportions of the class have significant preconceptions or misconceptions about the precursory knowledge expected, it is increasingly unlikely for individual students to master the threshold concept. Second, instructors need to demonstrate how disciplinary experts overcome thresholds by highlighting the variation in using key disciplinary ways of thinking and practising (or ‘procedures’) (Middendorf & Pace, 2004; Wuetherick & Loeffler, 2014). Third, instructors need to help students integrate their learning (by practising those key ‘procedures’) to rework their understanding of previously acquired concepts in the light of the newly encountered learning threshold. And fourth, they need to help students understand that all learning is provisional and uncertainty is a normal part of the learning process. Even if we succeed in creating such a learning environment, the question remains – how will we, as instructors, know if they have crossed the threshold? It has been argued (ARG, 1999; Boud & Soler, 2016) that the assessments we use in our courses 281

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are the most powerful message we give to students about what we care about. If we care about students’ mastery of threshold concepts, then the assessment we use to understand their learning needs to make explicit that importance. This becomes manifest in how we structure space for student variation, and begin to listen and look for student understanding (for example, in the language used by the students) in the assessed work our students produce. As we facilitate students’ navigation through the liminal space of a particular learning threshold, there is always a possibility of them becoming stuck. It has been argued that many traditional assessments can result in students providing a ‘correct’ answer, while still retaining misconceptions that would indicate that the student has not mastered threshold concepts experienced in that course (Land & Meyer, 2010; Marek, 1986). If we are truly interested by the question of whether or not students have crossed a particular learning threshold, this requires us to reconsider the nature of our assessment practices in particular. We need to monitor the students’ progress by shining a light on, and subsequently revealing, the thought processes that generally remain private and troublesome to the learner, particularly given the fact that students may not wish to reveal their lack of understanding (Cohen, 1987). Boud (2000) argues that for us to understand effectively what students’ understandings are, we need assessments that are both formative and sustainable rather than solely summative in nature. While formative assessments (those designed to give the students feedback on their comprehension, learning needs and academic progress through low stakes learning activities) are relatively well explored in the literature (Bennett, 2011; Yorke, 2003), the concept of sustainable assessments is perhaps newer to some. Sustainable assessments are those assessments that are focused on helping the students identify for themselves ‘whether they have met whatever standards are appropriate for the task in hand and seek forms of feedback from their environment (from peers, other practitioners, from written and other sources) to enable them to undertake related learning more effectively’ (Boud, 2000, p. 152). Rather than an assessment being done ‘to’ students, sustainable assessment practices should be ‘mutually constructed’ between students and instructors to allow for a more accurate ‘informed judgment’ of the student’s understanding, by both the student and the instructor (Boud & Soler, 2016, p. 402). Returning to our example from Art History, this might become manifest by the instructor reshaping the assessment practices in the course to be in better alignment with the threshold outcome, and the teaching and learning strategies used throughout the course. For example, when the students work in groups to practise applying the threshold concept of ‘reading the language of art’, the instructor might preface the work by explicitly highlighting the particular learning threshold being encountered, explaining the types of preconceptions and misconceptions that are commonly encountered with that particular learning threshold that make mastery difficult, and modelling explicitly how a disciplinary expert might navigate that threshold. During the opportunities for students to practise navigating that learning threshold (where the instructor has the students practise ‘reading’ a new image they 282

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have not previously encountered), it is important to build in opportunities to provide formative feedback to the students so that they can understand how their conceptual understanding of that threshold concept might be improved. The instructor might also then ask the students to reflect explicitly (in writing and in conversations with peers) on their conceptual understandings of the threshold concept, in order to improve their own self-assessment capabilities and to more accurately understand where misconceptions might remain. Formative and sustainable assessment practices have been shown in studies to dramatically improve students’ summative assessments, while also helping the students more effectively navigate troublesome knowledge encountered in subsequent learning environments (Boud & Soler, 2016). As assessments are designed with the intention of explicitly examining threshold concepts, it is critical that we ask how we effectively ‘shine the light’ on students’ conceptual understanding in ways that provide meaningful feedback to the students on their learning processes (in ways that can be acted upon by the students to improve their learning), and help refine the students’ own capabilities to engage in accurate self-assessment. CONCLUSION

We encourage readers to think about the edges of their students’ learning and the nature of learning within and across the disciplines. We also invite you to reflect on the edges of your own teaching and assessment practices. In doing so, we encourage you to ask yourself questions about how to use the Threshold Concepts Framework as a way of focusing on the learning processes you need to support with your students, and to reflect on your role as an instructor in facilitating and shining a light on those processes in ways that illuminate whether students successfully cross the learning thresholds encountered in all programmes. REFERENCES Assessment Reform Group (ARG). (1999). Assessment for learning Beyond the Black box. Cambridge: The University of Cambridge School of Education. Bennett, R. E. (2011). Formative assessment: A critical review. Assessment in Education Principles, Policy & Practice, 18(1), 5–25. doi:10.1080/0969594X.2010.513678 Boud, D. (2000). Sustainable assessment: Rethinking assessment for the learning society. Studies in Continuing Education, 22(2), 151–167. https://doi.org/10.1080/713695728 Boud, D., & Soler, R. (2016). Sustainable assessment revisited. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 41(3), 400–413. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2015.1018133 Bunnell, S., & Bernstein, D. (2012). Overcoming some threshold concepts in scholarly teaching. The Journal of Faculty Development, 26(3), 14–18. Cohen, S. A. (1987). Instructional alignment: Searching for a magic bullet. Educational Researcher, 16(8), 16–20. doi:10.3102/0013189X016008016 Davies, P., & Mangan, J. (2008). Embedding threshold concepts: From theory to pedagogical principles to learning activities. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & J. Smith (Eds.), Threshold concepts within the disciplines (pp. 37–50). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Duckworth, A. (2016). Grit The power of passion and perseverance. New York, NY: Scribner.

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S. MURRAY ET AL. Dweck, C. D. (2007). Mindset The new psychology of success. New York, NY: Ballantine Books. Ellsworth, E. (1997). Teaching positions Difference, pedagogy, and the power of address. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Gardner, J. N., & Van der Veer, G. (1998). The senior year experience Facilitating integration, reflection, closure, and transition. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Kinchin, I. M., & Wiley, C. (2017). Tracing pedagogical frailty in arts and humanities education: An autoethnographic perspective. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 17(2), 241–264. doi:10.1177/1474022217698082 Land, R., & Meyer, J. H. F. (2010). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (5): Dynamics of assessment. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & C. Baillie (Eds.), Threshold concepts and transformational learning (pp. ix-–xlii). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Land, R., Meyer, J. H. F., & Baillie, C. (2010). Editors’ preface: Threshold concepts and transformational learning. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & C. Baillie (Eds.), Threshold concepts and transformational learning (pp. ix–xlii). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Marek, E. A. (1986). They misunderstand, but they’ll pass. The Science Teacher, 53(9), 32–35. Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (2003). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge 1 – Linkages to ways of thinking and practising within the disciplines. In C. Rust (Ed.), Improving student learning Improving student learning theory and practice – 10 years on (pp. 412–424). Oxford: Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development. Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (2005). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (2): Epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning. Higher Education, 49(3), 373–388. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-004-6779-5 Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (2006). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: Issues of liminality. In J. H. F. Meyer & R. Land (Eds.), Overcoming barriers to student understanding Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (pp. 19–32). New York, NY: Routledge. Middendorf, J., & Pace, D. (2004). Decoding the disciplines: A model for helping students learn disciplinary ways of thinking. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 98, 1–12. doi:10.1002/tl.142 Moore, J. L. (2012). Designing for transfer: A threshold concept. The Journal of Faculty Development, 26(3), 19–24. Palmer, P. J. (1997). The courage to teach Exploring the inner landscape of a teacher’s life. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Wilcox, S., & Léger, A. (2013). Crossing thresholds: Identifying conceptual transitions in postsecondary teaching. The Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 4(2), 1–14. http://dx.doi.org/10.5206/cjsotl-rcacea.2013.2.7 Wuetherick, B., & Loeffler, E. (2014). Threshold concepts and decoding the humanities: A case study of a threshold concept in art history. In C. O’Mahony, A. Buchanan, M. O’Rourke, & B. Higgs (Eds.), Threshold concepts From personal practice to communities of practice (Proceedings of the 4th Biennial Threshold Concepts Conference) (pp. 118–122). Dublin: National Academy for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning. Yorke, M. (2003). Formative assessment in higher education: Moves towards theory and the enhancement of pedagogic practice. Higher Education, 45(4), 477–501. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1023967026413

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20. INVESTIGATING THRESHOLD CONCEPTS IN THE SCHOLARSHIP OF TEACHING AND LEARNING, AND THE INFLUENCE OF DISCIPLINARY BACKGROUND ON THE RESEARCH PROCESS

ABSTRACT

This chapter is a convergence of two PhD studies into threshold concepts (Meyer & Land, 2003, 2005) in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). Much of the threshold concepts research is based within specific disciplines or courses, and is centred on the undergraduate, (e.g., Smith, 2012) or postgraduate experience (e.g., Keefer, 2015), or an exploration of educational developers (e.g., Timmermans, 2014). This chapter looks instead towards the experience of faculty; located at the edges of disciplinary research and concerned with their experiences of bridging fields through SoTL. BACKGROUND

We met at the 5th Biennial Threshold Concepts Conference in Durham, in 2014, and discovered both that our studies were similar, and that we were uncovering similar findings. We also discovered a connection between us as researchers, as Anne had completed the Faculty Certificate Programme (FCP) on SoTL Leadership at The University of British Columbia (UBC) in 2010, and Andrea was currently a teacher on the course. As of August 2014, Andrea had been teaching at UBC for six years, first as an Adjunct Teaching Professor in the Faculty of Education and then as a member of the UBC Scholarship of Educational Leadership (SoEL) Program1 instructional team. Her academic background is in the Humanities and Secondary Social Studies Education. Anne’s background, in contrast, is in the Life Sciences, having spent seventeen years teaching the largest cohort of biology students in Europe. It was from this that her interest in SoTL was sparked, as the large student group made it very attractive to educational researchers who wanted a large sample size. Our mutual interest in threshold concepts in SoTL led us to correspond, and to offer a workshop at the 6th Biennial Threshold Concepts Conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 2016, based on the contrasting methodologies we had used to investigate threshold concepts in SoTL.

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004419971_020

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THE STUDIES

Anne’s Study I have had a growing interest in how academic staff (faculty) engage with SoTL for about ten years. It started with my own experiences of the Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education (PGCert) that I undertook as a new teacher at a research-intensive university in Scotland, and the gap that I could see between what we explored in the PGCert classroom, and the practicalities of teaching large undergraduate classes in Life Sciences. While there was a lot of talk of educational theory in my role as a student, I became aware that this theory was not often put into practice in my classroom, and that dealing with large undergraduate classes was often about running to stand still, rather than a scholarly approach to teaching. I was fortunate to be a member of the University of Glasgow’s University Teachers’ Faculty Learning Community (Bell et al., 2006; MacKenzie et al., 2010), the topic of which was Excellence in Teaching in Higher Education and the importance of SoTL. I also became an institutional rep for the UK Higher Education Academy’s Centre for Bioscience, which encouraged and supported SoTL and pedagogic research (PedR). Both these opportunities made me aware of an ever-widening gap between a scholarly approach to teaching, and everyday practice as a teacher. By the time I had completed the FCP at UBC in 2010 I made the decision to continue the study of SoTL, and applied to a doctoral programme, where my intention was to look at how UK Life Science academics engaged with SoTL and PedR. I also became aware of a growing uneasiness surrounding engagement with SoTL in the Life Sciences, as explored by scholars such as Niamh Kelly, Susan Nesbit and Carolyn Oliver (2012) who looked at the length of time it took to become proficient as a SoTL scholar. Andrea’s Study I consider myself to be an educator, but teaching at a research-intensive university left me at a loss. Fortuitously, my arrival as an adjunct was coupled with involvement in a Teacher Education cohort of the UBC SoTL Leadership Program. This proved to be a transformative experience for me, as well as a number of my cohort members. Not only did the programme prod me to integrate familiar practice with unfamiliar adult learning theory, but also it gave me a language to describe what I was seeing, or wanted to see and do in my classroom. What I would like to generate is an understanding of the larger issues at play as educational leaders engage in SoTL, and if this study is to make recommendations, they have to be made from rigorous, empirical scholarship. Threshold concepts provided a crystallising framework as I experienced and then saw, again and again, participants in the UBC Faculty Certificate Program in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning struggle with epistemological and ontological changes. As I conducted this research study, I was particularly cognisant and reflexive 286

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of how my teaching, past learning experiences, and strongly held opinions could impact the project. While I have attempted to put aside, as much as possible, my theoretical ideas and place the focus on the participants’ experience, it is important to acknowledge that I am a product of the programme that I am studying. The skills and abilities that I have honed were originally developed as a cohort member myself. Both of us describe similar journeys towards a growing interest with SoTL. Each of us experienced liminality, as we attempted to understand our experiences. For Anne it was a dissonance between her experiences as a PGCert student and as an experienced undergraduate educator. In Andrea’s case, liminality was experienced through the FCP and her role as an adjunct. These dual roles foregrounded the complexity of experiencing SoTL as a student, in a theoretical way, and experiencing it as an educator, in a practical way. METHODOLOGIES

The methodologies used in the two studies are in stark contrast, and owe much to the academic backgrounds of the authors. Andrea’s background is in qualitative research methodologies in Education. The methodology she employed was van Manen’s (1997) interpretive phenomenological analysis framework. In contrast, Anne, as a Life Scientist, was drawn to an alternative approach to investigate threshold concepts, choosing to use Trigwell, Martin, Benjamin & Prosser’s (2000) Model of Scholarship as a means to investigate threshold concepts in the four dimensions described in the paper. Anne’s Methodology I interviewed a number of Life Science Teaching-Focused Academics in universities throughout the UK. I was aware that there were epistemological and ontological barriers to certain aspects of SoTL, and was aware of a lot of examples of ‘practice narrative’ where practitioners describe innovative practice without referring to educational literature. I was drawn to Trigwell et al.’s (2000) Model of Scholarship because it offered four dimensions, covering: ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

Literature and Theory (Informed dimension), Publications and Presentations (Communication dimension), Reflection on practice, and Conception (of teaching and learning)

All of the above are a necessary part of engagement with SoTL, but are a more encompassing definition of SoTL than only pedagogic research. I used the levels within each dimension, which signify the journey from novice to expert practitioner, as a means to identify areas where academics got stuck or failed to progress; or where they were able to identify and articulate a transformative experience. I was also able to identify where each of the dimensions became ‘troublesome’, which gave added 287

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weight to the identification of threshold concepts. Using Trigwell’s model allowed me to categorise experiences of SoTL according to its matrix. Andrea’s Methodology Interpretive phenomenological inquiry places the individual’s subjective experience and understanding of the individual’s world as the focus of inquiry, but provides no detailed procedures for the researcher to follow. However, van Manen (1997) outlined six steps that informed the research procedure of this study. These steps are: (1) turning to a phenomenon of interest; (2) investigating experience as lived rather than conceptualised; (3) reflecting on the essential themes; (4) describing the phenomenon through writing and re-writing; (5) maintaining a focus on the phenomenon; and (6) balancing the research by considering the parts and the whole. In order to answer the research questions, it was important to understand the experience and strategies of the participants as they navigated the SoTL programme. Data were collected through classroom observations, interviews, document analysis, and reflective writing. The observation, interview, and document analysis protocols were focused on exploring the ‘stuck places’ (Meyer & Land, 2003) as a jumping off point for the threshold concepts in postgraduate SoTL learning. The questions, influenced by the work of Kandlbinder and Peseta (2009) and Kiley and Wisker (2009), investigated the key concepts in SoTL, topics that helped participants understand the key concepts, topics or themes that were challenging to learn, and strategies for overcoming these challenges. While the primary method of data collection was in-depth responsive interviews (Rubin & Rubin, 2005), participant observation in the classroom sessions of the UBC SoTL Leadership Program immersed me in their experience. Document analysis of participants’ portfolios also allowed me to enter their reflective process. My research did not follow van Manen’s steps in a linear process, instead using iterative data collection and analysis to produce a rich description of the faculty members’ experiences of learning SoTL. Each step was important in the collection and analysis of the corpus of data. Both the methodologies employed reflect the background of each of the authors. Anne relied on a deductive process of categorisation, trying to make sense of her data via an already established matrix, reflecting her scientific training. Andrea, on the other hand, used a more immersive, iterative process, indicative of her background in Educational research. FINDINGS

Despite using two completely different and contrasting methodologies, with different academic participant groups, the findings from both studies were similar. A number of identified threshold concepts resonated in both studies. Despite being separated

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by an ocean, and drawing from different academic populations, the results from both studies evidenced similar issues. This serendipitous triangulation (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2007) adds weight to the evidence of existence of threshold concepts within SoTL. Anne’s Findings Trigwell et al.’s (2000) Model of Scholarship was a fruitful framework for me to investigate threshold concepts in SoTL. Using the framework allowed me to pinpoint where each participant was in terms of progression through the levels of each of the four dimensions of scholarship. I was able to identify that progression through the dimensions was not linear, and that there were barriers encountered which hampered the development of the participants. While progress between levels was experienced, there was little evidence to suggest that each level represented a threshold per se. Those thresholds that were encountered were both epistemological and ontological. Informed dimension. Central to development of engagement with SoTL was understanding of educational literature and theory, characterised as the Informed dimension. However, there was a tendency for Life Scientists to shy away from mainstream educational literature as being ‘too heavy’ and difficult to understand. They were much more comfortable engaging with Life Science pedagogic journals which concentrated on practice. Communication dimension. The reticence to engage with mainstream educational literature impacted on the Communication dimension as participants restricted themselves to Life Science publications and presentations. It was unusual for participants to publish in mainstream publications, put off by engagement with educational literature, by the language, and by the discourse. The reluctance to let go of the identity of a scientist revealed an ontological threshold, which in turn identified related epistemological thresholds. Reflection dimension. Of the remaining two dimensions, surprisingly, there was little evidence to suggest that reflection was difficult for the individuals in the group. However, there was evidence that the reflection itself was troublesome for those whose engagement with educational literature was at a superficial level, not because they were not able to reflect on their practice, and identify areas for improvement, but that they were less likely to find solutions, as their familiarity with the relevant literature was not at the required level. Conception dimension. The transformation from a Teacher-Centred conception of learning to a Student-Centred conception was the starkest of the thresholds. It was transformational in nature, demonstrated an ontological shift, and opened up

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new opportunities as a Teaching-Focused Academic, as it allowed the transformed individual to act as a facilitator of student learning. Paradigm/Analytical dimension. In addition to the thresholds identified using the dimensions of the Trigwell et al. (2000) model, I also pinpointed others, which existed in the space between the Informed and Communication dimension. These related to the use of qualitative research methods, data handling and approaches to data analysis, similar to those identified as being troublesome in the doctoral experience (Salmona, Kaczynski, & Wood, 2016; Wisker, 2016). I called these the Paradigm and Analytical dimensions. These thresholds, in particular, in addition to being transformative, were bounded in nature, as they were dependent on being foreign to the background experience of the participants. Andrea’s Findings While this research corroborates what Bunnell and Bernstein (2012) have suggested as threshold concepts for faculty members who engage in scholarly teaching, it also adds specific examples that document the perceived and real institutional challenges. Over the sixteen years of the UBC SoTL Leadership Program, change was not uniform, with some participants becoming more active in SoTL (institutionally and nationally), and others confining the effects of the programme to their classrooms. Some participants suggested that they came to the UBC SoTL Leadership Program with an interest in change (both personal and professional) and consciously put themselves in intellectually and ontologically challenging positions. But almost all recognised that their experience changed their whole approach to learning, seeing the programme as ‘an enlightening experience’ and ‘a stepping off point’ that opened their eyes. Developing curiosity about the classroom was identified as an introductory way into authentic educational questions. While the educational leaders who became novice SoTL scholars cultivated the identity of an educator, they could adopt mimicry to facilitate early threshold crossing. Interestingly, this mimicry happens at all levels. The uncertain, liminal position of a novice can be scary, but it can also be tremendously generative. Previous studies have discussed identity transformation (Meyer, 2012) and ontological shifts (Trafford & Lesham, 2009) as important aspects of threshold concepts mastery. The findings of this study suggest that it was important to draw upon an holistic view of approaching and passing through threshold concepts, especially when it came to integrating the unique practices of an interdisciplinary field like SoTL. Participants recognised that the ability to transcend disciplinary boundaries was instrumental in navigating the liminal state. The theme of research in the scholarship of teaching and learning was the most prominent, and it captured several of the other organising themes. Using a framework and research paradigm, previously identified as threshold concepts in doctoral education (Kiley & Wisker, 2009), were also identified as influential 290

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threshold concepts in SoTL. Issues such as the language and discourse of SoTL and recognition of teaching as public, researchable act were highlighted as foundations for developing SoTL scholarship. This study of threshold concepts in the scholarship of teaching and learning for educational leaders sheds light on effective ways to support educational leaders, connecting these ‘lonely planets,’ and thus fostering communities of practice around the scholarship of teaching and learning. DISCUSSION

Our initial meeting was both accidental and fortuitous. By using two contrasting approaches to explore the same issue, that of how engagement with SoTL develops, we have been able to start to build a compelling case for threshold concepts in SoTL. From our initial meeting we discovered many similarities in our findings despite the differences in sample population, disciplinary background and geographical location. We also had to negotiate our own differences, as quite often we described the same threshold in different language. The threshold concepts identified for SoTL owe much to those identified in the doctoral experience (Keefer, 2015; Salmona et al., 2016; Wisker, 2016). As such, the experience of the doctoral student and the academic should be explored more closely. The doctoral experience is viewed as an apprenticeship; successful completion of the PhD thesis is a rite of passage, which allows the candidate admission to a community of practice. For the academic embarking on a SoTL journey, the trajectory is similar. Despite being an expert in their discipline, they may still be novices with regards to SoTL. The distance they have to travel may also be influenced by their preceding disciplinary knowledge. Kelly, Nesbit and Oliver (2012) make a compelling case for the academic’s transition from STEM to SoTL, citing a timespan of up to ten years to make the transition. This time is comparable to the doctoral experience/ postdoctoral experience, specifically in life sciences, where it may take a decade of education and postdoctoral training before one can attempt to find a faculty position. Therefore, although academics may be experts in their disciplinary area, they are required to restart the process when they move to another area. The existence of thresholds is apparent, particularly with STEM academics because of the contrast between paradigms. The Canadian and UK cohorts displayed many similarities in their engagement with SoTL. Both were willing to develop their expertise within the unfamiliar paradigm, and were positively disposed to pedagogic research. There was a tendency, especially with the life scientists in the UK to refer to their own disciplinary background when carrying out research; so issues of hypothesis versus research questions, discipline-specific pedagogic or mainstream literature arose. However, academic curiosity and a willingness to engage in research on teaching and learning were beneficial to support participants through some of the intellectual challenges of novice SoTL scholarship.

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As educational leaders engaged in learning SoTL, the participants of both studies were able to navigate the novice to expert continuum (Eraut, 1994) with varying levels of fluidity. While the participants cognitively understand the steps in developing expertise, many were troubled by their position as novices, especially when they are experts in their respective fields. The threshold concept of ‘studentness’ connects the troublesomeness of the novice to expert continuum with Glynis Cousin’s (2012) discussion of ‘studenthood’. Cousin describes the reciprocal relationship between student and instructor as an important factor in the navigation of liminality in threshold concepts. In our studies, learning to feel like a student includes choosing to take on studenthood and acknowledging their relative novice position as SoTL scholars. Not only did the recognition of studentness help educational leaders’ approach to learning a new field, but they also spoke of an ‘a-ha’ moment where they developed an appreciation for the challenges their students face. As institution-level/Faculty-level educational leaders are to be conducting research in an educative frame, often with unfamiliar methodologies, it is imperative to spend time introducing the methodologies of educational research. This recommendation supports the work of Kanuka (2011) and Svinicki (2012). It is often taken for granted that participants are excellent researchers, however they are not familiar or comfortable with educational research. As instructional teams, we often assumed that the participants, all successful scholars in their own fields, would be as skilful in their research in SoTL. But this assumption misses the key and fundamental issue that they are engaging in scholarship in a new field, which may or may not connect with the field/discipline of their training. Educational leaders, as SoTL scholars, need to be guided through the language and culture of a new field. While SoTL and Education research have had a tenuous relationship up to this point (Huber & Morreale, 2002; Kanuka, 2011), it is important that participants understand that they are conducting research in educative spaces and therefore it behoves them to understand the educative practices, theories, and research methodologies (not just methods) of that discipline. Strategies to support connecting SoTL and educational research could include connecting novice educational leaders with SoTL mentors, engaging a librarian to assist participants with their literature reviews, or modelling the different methods that could be used to approach a research question through different methodologies. Rather than seeing their instructors as the only resources, novice SoTL scholars need time to discuss their developing conceptions of SoTL, the feasibility of research questions, the adopted methodology as well as methods, and the ethical considerations of pedagogical or curriculum research. The participants of Andrea’s study consistently requested time to interact with other participants and programme graduates, especially as many novice SoTL scholars feel isolated, and foresee little support within their home departments or faculties. This type of programme would require the allocation of significant classroom time to go into depth on some of the pressing issues; however it is suggested that this focus will support increased permeability within institutional cultures and create a safe space for developing SoTL 292

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skills. Making connections across campus helped educational leaders use their crossdisciplinary connections to sustain SoTL research. For the UK cohort, connections were also of importance. However, in this case, local community was less well formed than was external community. Of note to UK academics was the importance to the group of the Higher Education Academy Centre for Bioscience, a national hub which acted as a focal point for individuals interested in SoTL to congregate. The Centre for Bioscience not only supported the development of SoTL expertise and facilitated a vibrant national network for the duration of its existence; it also fostered the transformation of a large group of Life Sciences academics into pedagogic researchers. This is further emphasised by the continuation of the community, with an annual meeting currently supported by the Royal Society of Biology (https://www rsb.org.uk), and sponsored by Oxford University Press. One major divergence between the two studies was exhibited in the understanding of boundedness within the threshold concepts in learning SoTL. Threshold concepts research is frequently conducted within a single disciplinary culture (e.g., Engineering, Accounting, etc.). As a result there is consistency in the application of the characteristics of threshold concepts. However, the Canadian cohort was interdisciplinary and boundedness was rarely exhibited as a characteristic of the threshold concepts. While the multidisciplinary nature of educational research within the research-intensive university context may mean that disciplinary or conceptuallybounded aspects of threshold concepts may be less useful when attempting to investigate threshold concepts in their wider sense, it may be a worthwhile endeavour for future studies to look in depth at the barriers which confront academics from various disciplinary areas, in order to address them. RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS

These studies explore different experiences and articulate specific recommendations in order to build SoTL faculty development programmes that incorporate and understanding of the threshold concepts that we have uncovered. Our key recommendations are: Embrace Being a Learner Considering initial engagement with SoTL as similar to doctoral education encourages novice SoTL scholars to approach pedagogical research with practised academic curiosity, and the open-mindedness of a student. Research Questions Drive SoTL Projects Commensurate with the context of higher education, educational leaders should be encouraged to incorporate research methodologies and methods that align with their research questions, rather than their academic background. 293

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Cultivate a Community The ability to draw upon a community of educational scholars supports on-going engagement in SoTL scholarship. It serves repeating that the institutional culture of the department, school, and faculty must support educational leadership and scholarship explicitly and implicitly (Hubball, Clarke, & Poole, 2010). There are two levels of culture: the larger university level which supports larger SoTL initiatives and the pervasive faculty, or department level which controls the first steps toward promotion, tenure, and merit. The local level of institutional culture is key in determining what research is done and how it proceeds at the local level. Having institutional policies is only useful if they are also supported at the local level. This support needs to come in many forms including recognition, strategic mentoring, incentives, resources, and, most importantly, time. Underpinning the results of this study is the reality that educational leaders are situated within a complex network of personal, professional, and financial tensions. These leaders have complex circumstances for coming to a SoTL Leadership programme and differing engagement with the field of SoTL. Their willingness to engage in teaching and learning research is a key factor in their approach to threshold concepts in SoTL as is the level of support they receive at a local level. NOTE 1

See http://international.educ.ubc.ca/soel/

REFERENCES Bell, S., Bohan, J., Brown, A., Burke, J., Cogdell, B., Jamieson, S., … Tierney, A. (2006). University of Glasgow University teachers’ learning community. Practice and Evidence of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 1(1), 3–12. Retrieved April 20, 2018, from http://community.dur.ac.uk/pestlhe.learning/index.php/pestlhe/article/view/122/136 Bunnell, S. L., & Bernstein, D. J. (2012). Overcoming some threshold concepts in scholarly teaching. Journal of Faculty Development, 23(3), 14–18. Retrieved April 20, 2018, from http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/nfp/jfd/2012/00000026/00000003/art00003 Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. (2007). Research methods in education. London: Routledge. Cousin, G. (2012, June). Threshold concepts as an analytical tool for researching higher education. Paper presented at the NAIRTL Conference, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin. Eraut, M. (1994). Developing professional knowledge and competence. London: Falmer Press. Hubball, H. T., Clarke, A., & Poole, G. (2010). Ten-year reflections on mentoring SoTL research in a research-intensive university. International Journal for Academic Development, 15(2), 117–129. doi:10.1080/13601441003737758 Huber, M. T., & Morreale, S. P. (2002). Situating the scholarship of teaching and learning. In M. T. Huber & S. P. Morreale (Eds.), Disciplinary styles in the scholarship of teaching Exploring common ground (pp. 1–24). Washington, DC: American Association for Higher Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Kandlbinder, P., & Peseta, T. (2009). Key concepts in postgraduate certificates in higher education teaching and learning in Australasia and the United Kingdom. International Journal for Academic Development, 14(1), 19–31. doi:10.1080/13601440802659247

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INVESTIGATING THRESHOLD CONCEPTS IN SOTL Kanuka, H. (2011). Keeping the scholarship in the scholarship of teaching and learning. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2011.050103 Keefer, J. M. (2015). Experiencing doctoral liminality as a conceptual threshold and how supervisors can use it. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 52(1), 17–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 14703297.2014.981839 Kelly, N., Nesbit, S., & Oliver, C. (2012). A difficult journey: Transitioning from STEM to SoTL. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 6(1), Article 18. https://doi.org/ 10.20429/ijsotl.2012.060118 Kiley, M., & Wisker, G. (2009). Threshold concepts in research education and evidence of threshold crossing. Higher Education Research and Development, 28(4), 431–441. doi:10.1080/07294360903067930 MacKenzie, J., Bell, S., Bohan, J., Brown, A., Burke, J., Cogdell, B., … Tierney, A. (2010). From anxiety to empowerment: A learning community of university teachers. Teaching in Higher Education, 15(3), 273–284. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562511003740825 Meyer, J. H. F. (2012). Variation in student learning as a threshold concept. Journal of Faculty Development, 26(3), 8–13. Retrieved April 20, 2018, from http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ nfp/jfd/2012/00000026/00000003/art00002 Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (2003). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: Linkages to ways of thinking and practising within the disciplines. In C. Rust (Ed.), Improving student learning Improving student learning theory and practice – Ten years on. Oxford: Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development. Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (2005). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (2): Epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning. Higher Education, 49(3) 373–388. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25068074 Rubin, H. J., & Rubin, I. S. (2005). Qualitative interviewing The art of hearing data (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Salmona, M., Kaczynski, D., & Wood, L. N. (2016). The importance of liminal space for doctoral success: Exploring methodological threshold concepts. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & M. T. Flanagan (Eds.), Threshold concepts in practice (pp. 155–164). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Smith, K. (2012). An investigation of student learning using threshold concepts in a first year cell biology course (Unpublished Master’s thesis). University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. Retrieved from https://circle-prod.library.ubc.ca/bitstream/handle/2429/41938/ubc_2012_spring_smith_ karen.pdf?sequence=1 Svinicki, M. D. (2012). “Who is entitled to do SoTL?” International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 6(2). Retrieved April 20, 2018, from http://www.georgiasouthern.edu/ijsotl/ v6n2/invited_essays/Svinicki/index.htm Timmermans, J. A. (2014). Identifying threshold concepts in the careers of educational developers. International Journal for Academic Development, 19, 305–317. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 1360144X.2014.895731 Trafford, V., & Leshem, S. (2009). Doctorateness as a threshold concept. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 46(3), 305–316. doi:10.1080/14703290903069027 Trigwell, K., Martin, E., Benjamin, J., & Prosser, M. (2000). Scholarship of teaching: A model. Higher Education Research & Development, 19(2), 155–168. https://doi.org/10.1080/072943600445628 van Manen, M. (1997). Researching lived experience Human science for an action sensitive pedagogy (2nd ed.). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Wisker, G. (2016). Beyond blockages to ownership, agency and articulation: Liminal spaces and conceptual threshold crossing in doctoral learning. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & M. T. Flanagan (Eds.), Threshold concepts in practice (pp. 165–178). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.

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21. DIVERSITY, HYBRIDITY AND NEW REVELATIONS IN CONCEPTUAL THRESHOLD CROSSINGS IN CROSS-DISCIPLINARY AND INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH LEARNING

ABSTRACT

This chapter makes a relevant contribution to literature on threshold concepts in three ways. Firstly, it considers conceptual threshold crossings in doctoral research, those stages of breakthroughs in learning leading to conceptual, critical and creative work. Secondly, it focusses on cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary breakthroughs in understanding, intended or accidentally emerging during research discussions and/or joint work. Thirdly, it focusses on the recollections and responses of supervisors on contributions to understanding and research learning which crossand interdisciplinary research and/or projects can enable. INTRODUCTION

This chapter focuses on conceptual threshold crossing in doctoral research learning and research learning more generally, in which the breakthroughs in learning derive from rich new insights enabled by crossing disciplinary boundaries. It concentrates on the inter- and cross-disciplinary research learning which doctoral supervisors recognise in their own research journeys and those of their students. In doing so, it first offers new thoughts on the value and nature of inter- and cross-disciplinary insight to solve particular research problems and answer specific questions in a project. It then suggests that inter- and cross-disciplinary research learning offers opportunities for a deeper and more far-reaching change of perspectives and research approaches which can move beyond the limitations of tribal boundaries of a disciplinary focus on knowledge creation and research learning. It deals first briefly with my own interdisciplinary research crossings in literature and pedagogy then reports on insights into inter- and cross-disciplinary research reported during international supervisor workshops. Threshold concept theory helps consider the disciplinary focus of research while conceptual threshold crossings theory offers insights into breakthrough moments of research thinking and subsequent practice, enabled by cross and interdisciplinary sharing and working, developing and enriching the field.

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004419971_021

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LITERATURE REVIEW

Work on threshold concepts has largely concentrated on disciplinary constructions of knowledge, revealing transformed ways of seeing, understanding and creating knowledge in the disciplines. However, the tribal nature of disciplines (Becher, 1989; Becher & Trowler, 2001) and the learning and perspectives on knowledge creation related to them (Land, 2012) might be both a guide to, but also a limitation on, some research approaches and learning. For both specific projects and more generally, thinking outside the disciplinary box often offers opportunities for something new and exciting to emerge, new ways of thinking and perceiving, as well as new solutions to problems. Questions, problems, innovations, do not sit easily in disciplinary boxes even though we are perhaps urged to make them do so. Like life, they tend to be broad and messy, and while taking a single disciplinary perspective helps some kind of focus, it also limits our chance to open up the whole wide set of issues, and then narrow down to focus on what can be said about them, or sorted out, fixed, furthered. Cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary work could open up new ways of looking at both specific problems and projects and at knowledge creation and interpretation more generally, offering new perspectives in and on research learning and the processes and outcomes of research. This could be useful for framing research and carrying it out at every stage through to the contribution to knowledge and new ways of thinking. Developing a disciplinary identity and approach helps to bring a question or problem into focus, enabling researchers to trouble received wisdom and open up insights enabled by the world view, discourse and knowledge construction enabled by such a focus. However, problems and knowledge creation never stand still. There is ongoing discussion about the fluidity of disciplinary boundaries where the conclusion of the most recent book revisiting this ‘tribal’ issue of disciplines, Tribes and territories in the 21st-century: Rethinking the significance of disciplines in higher education (2012) notes ‘The metaphor of tribes and territories has probably outlived its usefulness’ (Trowler, Saunders, & Bamber, 2012, p. 257). Here and earlier in the book, the authors/editors mention ritualistic practices and tribal leaders but move on to consider something more fluid, building on Catherine Manathunga’s point earlier in the book that tribes and territories are a metaphor rooted in rather suspect historical and ideological legacy, and that the metaphor might usefully be changed, for instance to one of oceans with tides in which ‘spaces “flow” into each other, merging to form different types of knowledge groupings as problems and needs arise’ (Manathunga & Brew, 2012, p. 51). This offers a perspective which is more fluid, allows for transformation, and has a living flow rather than a limiting rigidity. Barnett (2011) also uses water and change imagery when he talks of ‘the liquid university’ (p. 32) and knowledges, rather than knowledge, suggesting that now, disciplines are less fixed, instead they ‘dissolve in this epistemic freneticism’ (Barnett, 2011, p. 113).

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Trowler et al.’s (2012) first chapter talks of various commonly-understood characteristics of disciplines of which clustering in university departments is one, but the third is ‘theories and concepts that can organise the accumulated specialist knowledge efficiently’ (p. 6) which is, for me, an unacknowledged but clear link to threshold concept theory. And he goes on to discuss lack of agreement about disciplinary fields and boundaries with the interesting examples of the ‘restless disciplines’ of social sciences (Commission on Social Sciences, 2003, p. 24) and then the changing boundaries of English Literature. As a literature teacher and scholar, I was and am always in the midst of that, exposing the permeable boundaries between popular and high art, between text and the context and culture which inflect, infuse and project through it, and the now rich mix of creative, scholarly and critical work which English has become, even at PhD level. Those boundaries were fought over (and often still are) like a disciplinary civil war. However, thinking, researching and creating across them, even within a single now broader discipline, offers rich insights into the ways, for example, creative processes operate differently in different contexts to produce different forms of literary work, some more oral, some breaking the seeming bounds of forms of expression, leaking across into film, graphic novel, challenging the hegemony of production and reception as well as of form and expression. Understanding and sharing the language, the ways of constructing knowledge and of making sense of the world which grows from and constitutes your discipline can be like being part of an exclusive club, with the rites of passage and the boundaries this also assumes. Catherine Manathunga’s querying of the term ‘tribes and territories’ raises all the issues of division and hierarchy around difference, perhaps replicated somewhat in the prioritisation of one discipline over another, the labelling of some as ‘Mickey Mouse’ and the clear concentration of research funding regimes in other disciplines. With discipline identity comes the security of feeling one of a kind. However, Emerson reminds us that ‘people wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them’ (Emerson, 2010/1836). A tension between belonging and security, and testing this, being unsettled, emerges here. Another tension is between security and paralysis. There is some sense of security in the sameness, familiarity of thinking practices, behaviours and language of the disciplines, which can, like all identifiable secure situations, barricaded against difference, lead to rigidity of thinking and of researching, our focus here. Interdisciplinarity is in the spirit of embracing difference and opening up of questions and questioning processes to different perspectives. Rigidity leads to entropy, and so it could be with limited disciplinary thinking in research. One of the last things we want in research is a comfortable rigidity and familiarity, a slowing down, loss of heat, shuttered minds and lack of energy. The restlessness, unsettledness and openness to new perspectives, questions processes and definitions. It then becomes part of a research ecology embracing diversity and hybridity, which is more likely to see, identify, approach and even find answers to the ongoing and new questions.

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It is not accidental but essential that researchers seek the energies, perspectives, processes and practices of interdisciplinarity. THRESHOLD CONCEPTS AND CONCEPTUAL THRESHOLD CROSSINGS

So how does this relate to threshold concepts and conceptual threshold crossings? Threshold concepts theory revolutionised our thinking about both perspectives on the world, and knowledge construction. It has been and is very popular, and useful, acting out Lewin’s (1951) ‘There’s nothing so practical as a good theory’ (p. 169). It has led the way for colleagues from a very broad range of disciplines to recognise, teach to and encourage students to gain and use threshold concepts as windows to the way they see the world, as a historian, biologist, mathematician and so on, to deepen their understanding of how the discipline sees the world, and constructs knowledge. As Ray Land notes (2012, p. 175), ‘Disciplines have developed their own conceptual worlds, with their own robust “ways of thinking and practising” (McCune & Hounsell, 2005, p. 255) and “knowledge practices” (Strathern, 2008, p. 11)’, pointing out the link between disciplinary tribal securities and academic identity. For doctoral students and other research learners, threshold concepts are also important and so are the stages in their research learning journeys at which they might get stuck, pass through some form of liminality, glimpsing new understanding, and then cross conceptual thresholds. Work on conceptual threshold crossings (Kiley & Wisker, 2009; Wisker & Kiley, 2010) focuses on the stages in postgraduate student research learning where breakthroughs and learning leaps take place. These occur as ideas, processes, insights, theories, and revelations from research practices. Integration of new reading, and new findings within the familiar, nudge researchers through liminal spaces of confusion and potential into new understanding and knowledge construction. Doctoral students also experience the silo thinking of disciplines, and the insights of threshold concepts could here be on the one hand helpful, and on the other perhaps restrictive if they contain the researcher within the purity of the single disciplinary focus. Some of the wider problems doctoral researchers engage with cross disciplinary boundaries; some of the troublesomeness of their research experiences might well be caused by or be a symptom of that boundary crossing, but so too are the new understandings, ways of going about the research, and their new perspectives. Some of the literature focussing on working across disciplines emphasises the troublesomeness of encountering and gaining facility with knowledge, theory, methodology and methods in the other discipline or disciplines as the student works alone or with colleagues to address research questions and problems from a cross- or interdisciplinary perspective. Some of this work focuses on the cross-disciplinary experience by academics from one discipline working with the education discipline of higher education (HE), and pedagogy in order to theorise, understand, reflect on and evaluate their own teaching practices in HE. This merging and splicing with a new disciplinary perspective and practice in order to succeed in postgraduate 300

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teaching programmes in HE and professional recognition schemes (Leibowitz et al., 2018) is not the focus of this chapter as such, but the inter- and cross-disciplinary nature of the learning for staff on such schemes is being developed for a future publication. Perhaps because a focus on teaching and learning is underpinned by reflection and personal changes in understanding the discipline through the eyes of students to enable their learning breakthroughs, it offers some similarities with this discussion. Our consideration here concerns the troublesomeness of the new perspectives and discourse, and the revelations and conceptual threshold crossings of splicing these disciplinary insights to understand and articulate teaching and learning in a specific discipline. LITERARY AND PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICE AND WRITING

Earlier in this piece, I mentioned the opportunities to explore how cultural context affects modes of writing and reading in literary studies and how crossing the disciplinary boundaries between creative writing and literary study enables a further exploration of the link between the critical and creative processes, the reflection enabled by exploring the critical and creative bases of one’s own creative writing, the PhD student’s creative writing highlighting effects of culture, form, experience, and intention on the creative piece. This is an opening up of the different disciplinary approaches in a broad reading of literature as a discipline. In my own practice, I also transition between higher education pedagogical theorising and practice, and literary practice. This has enabled me to explore, in particular, how working with students with the creative, imaginative elements of contemporary Gothic texts, as they open up social justice areas and engage our active thinking with issues of identity, ‘otherising’ that which is constructed as foreign, and dangerous complacencies around the familiar leads to new awareness of social justice issues. It also demonstrates the power of forms of literature to further critical thinking and speculation on overcoming problems (Wisker, 2015). To conduct the exploration and write about it, I have to transmute the theorising of pedagogical practice with that of literary practice. In an earlier piece (Wisker, 2015, p. 3), I wrote that: Literature teaching and learning is a risky and dynamic experience, an interaction, a dialogue between people, ideas, language, text to create meanings. It is more of a form of praxis than the gaining of a body of knowledge. My pedagogic practice, teaching literature, aims to engage students in active learning, in a dialogue with the texts, considering the arguments and values with which these texts engage, and how they engage with them. Threshold concepts (Land, et al., 2005, 2006) inform the strategies I use so students engage with ways in which texts use representation, language and form, in context, to enable transformational learning and change. Threshold concepts have been very helpful in this work, enabling students to recognise the way they engage with literature, while writers such as Salman 301

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Rushdie, Toni Morrison and Margaret Atwood often overtly state their intentions to stir readers to consider social cultural and environmental issues, often using the disturbing of complacency enabled in the literary Gothic. My pedagogical practice engages students as partners (Healey, Flint, & Harrington, 2014) actively exploring the cultural, historical, political, environmental sources, links, and arguments in the texts using their own research practices, including ‘switch it on’ working in groups with iPhones, iPads and PCs in this exploration. There are only a few theorists whose work helps transitions between the two, and critical thinking provides a splice in this hybrid theorising, practice, and writing. THE STUDY

New research discussed in this chapter focusing on cross- and interdisciplinary research learning has emerged from insights produced by supervisors reflecting on their own research learning journeys and those of their doctoral students and projects teams, while taking part in supervisor development workshops (participation in the research by choice, ethically approved). It reveals the troublesomeness and transformational qualities of bringing insights from one discipline research orientation to bear on another. It shows the uniting of different disciplinary insights, discourse, worldview and threshold concepts, theories, methodology methods, fieldwork practices and data analysis processes to bear on questions, issues and problems, and the rich fusion of these into conceptual threshold crossing moments of new insights and above all new, rich, hybrid knowledge. APPROACH AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS

This new research was conducted with doctoral supervisors and postgraduates during supervisor development workshops (Sweden, South Africa, UK, 2013–2017). It builds on earlier research which focuses on doctoral learning journeys (Trafford, & Robinson, 2010; Wisker et al., 2010) on doctoral student awareness of crossing conceptual thresholds at various stages in their research learning journeys (Kiley & Wisker, 2010; Wisker & Kiley, 2009) and supervisor ‘nudging’ of support for those conceptual threshold crossings. Doctoral students and supervisors in the various projects previously reported were aware of moments of stuckness, troublesomeness, liminality and gradual or sudden breakthroughs in understanding in research leading to working at a more conceptual, critical and creative level appropriate to PhD success (Kiley & Mullins, 2002; Trafford & Leshem, 2008). These we labelled conceptual threshold crossings to recognise the stages in the research journey, as distinct from the disciplinary threshold concepts. The overall questions I sought answers to are the same as those in Wisker (2018) which elicited disciplinary responses. The underpinning questions were as follows:

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1. What do supervisors working in different disciplines remember and understand of their own realisation of threshold concepts and conceptual threshold crossings during their doctoral learning journeys? 2. Do these differ and if so how do these differ between different disciplines? 3. What do supervisors identify concerning threshold concepts and conceptual threshold crossings in the learning journeys of their doctoral students? 4. What ‘nudged’ their own and their students’ achievement of threshold concepts and conceptual threshold crossings? 5. How might they ‘nudge’ their students’ achievement of threshold concepts and conceptual threshold crossings? FINDINGS

The responses concerning interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary research, plans, processes, experiences and results emerging from research learning practices were a surprise result. Like the responses on discipline-based research, they were produced from the comments as participants discussed effective research learning in their own projects as postgraduates, working with the students as supervisors, and working on post-doc projects as research learners. Some of the reported interand cross-disciplinary research conceptual threshold crossing moments concentrate on dealing with specific issues, problems, projects in context, probably the most familiar moments of interdisciplinary research work. Others evidence development as the modes of inter-discipline or cross-discipline research emerged as an effective approach more generically, resulting from sharing ideas, co-considering problems, offering different disciplinary perspectives, when working together with researchers from a different disciplinary base. The participants recognise breakthroughs which such inter- or cross-disciplinarity stimulated. Main findings were as follows: 1. An awareness of discipline based threshold concepts and conceptual threshold crossing stages in the research, some similar to and some which differ between different disciplines (Trowler et al., 2012). 2. Cross-discipline and interdisciplinary opening up of perspectives, research practices, theorising, contexts, ways of seeing, writing practices, creating and enabling what counts as knowledge. 3. Cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary insight and transfers between disciplines. Examples of participant responses from the data analysis are labelled alphabetically to ensure confidentiality. As mentioned earlier, the research which developed with the workshop work sought responses about conceptual threshold crossings and I expected disciplinary oriented responses. Interdisciplinarity and cross-disciplinarity were surprise responses which I have reported here. One unexpected result was, in several instances, taking a theory, a method, an approach from one discipline and applying it

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in another – that is, using the lens or theoretical perspective usual in one and applying it in another. Some participants reported merging different theories, perspectives and methods, perhaps because it was an interdisciplinary project or perhaps because it was a joint project, and one of the researchers came into that project with their views from another discipline. While there were discipline-based data analysis and interpretation processes, the adaptation of a schema of understanding from one discipline to another was often seen as helpful in revealing parallels, patterns or different perspectives. A more alien system and perspective enables researchers to see their discipline, its research learning questions and the knowledge produced in a different light through using perspectives offered by the new discipline. Where a supervisor’s or student’s background is in a different discipline, the locus of the combination resides in the perspective of this researcher and new insights are produced because of the combining and the interpretations offered. Awareness that these are schema, models, patterns to handle knowledge creation, representation and interpretation, rather than the reality of that knowledge and findings, appears to be a conceptual threshold crossing for several people in different disciplines, ranging from the sciences through social sciences to arts and humanities. In the humanities and arts, representation is a threshold concept, while recognising representation and an interpretative framework is a breakthrough moment in research learning in the disciplines. Both sharing this understanding in a workshop, and bringing an interpretative framework in from one discipline to another are recognisable moments of conceptual threshold crossing. Much interdisciplinary or cross-disciplinary work focuses on solving problems in a specific project. Also of interest here is a more general engagement with interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary theory and methods, which leads to a changed interdisciplinary perspective which goes beyond a single problem and project. This, where it occurred, was of major interest in the reported work, and in the findings. Following the thematic analysis, a few key themes emerged. In various different disciplines, the practice of transferring ideas, theories or research practices between disciplines can be summed up as: 1. transfer of theory between fields opens new perspectives; 2. crossing disciplinary cultures and approaches: shifting patterns of thinking and research opens up new understanding; and 3. coining new terms crystallises understanding. Transfer of Theory between Fields Opens New Perspectives The first group of responses relates to inter- and cross-disciplinary research breakthroughs in a range of disciplines, rather than focusing on a specific project. This suggests that the merging of disciplinary approaches might cast a new light

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more generally on research in this discipline/these disciplines, rather than just being useful in addressing a problem in a specific project. Crossing Disciplinary Cultures and Approaches: Shifting Patterns of Thinking and Research Opens up New Understanding Crossing discipline cultures and approaches also emerged as an interesting development which encouraged breakthroughs in learning, or conceptual threshold crossings. A graduate from urban housing opened up their ways of seeing issues by aligning their work with their other major interest, artistic practice, and finding a theorist who also aligned with the theories. The conceptual threshold crossing took place when he realised how he could transfer the ideas, theorising and practices from one field or discipline into another and how this offered transformed ways of thinking, and then of practising. The result was a fruitful PhD and an ongoing collegial working experience: I am in backgrounds in urban planning which has the understanding of the world in that you design the environment and it shapes how people work and you set up a vision and you try to contain everything, which during my education really didn’t fit into what I was thinking. I also had parallel artistic practice, so ten years ago or so, I was doing one of those artist in residence somewhere in Finland. Then, I started reading this book called Small Change by an architect who also wrote a book called Housing without Houses which I was shocked. It would be unthinkable with all the other literature I was given during my education. He was suggesting that things can be open ended, things can be spontaneous, you can still do something and contribute to the discipline, which shifted my perception on how I was perceiving my own discipline. And then I had also the chance as a new fan, I managed to get into contact with him and now I’m working with him. We have developed some sort of relationship during this process and do workshops and so on, which totally opened my mind. (X) The shock expressed in this extract indicates the troublesomeness of the new. She expresses her previous perspective as ‘the understanding of the world’, understating the changing of previous ways of thinking and set beliefs. Changing her job and coming to get new work in a new country, she realises there are new, culturally inflected perspectives and expresses the troublesome nature of this as ‘I was shocked, it would be unthinkable’. The shock is both to do with cultural contextual change, and with meeting and working with new disciplines and their ways of researching and knowledge creation. The orthodoxies of ways of thinking and perceiving learning, of research and of ways of doing things are so well established in these systems oriented but quite creative disciplines that the views are very strange and foreign. However,

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the new crossover thinking leads to a different perspective on the discipline, so she ‘shifted my perception on how I was perceiving my own discipline’ (X). X is very aware that she has crossed a conceptual threshold here (even though this is not the expression she would use). Her disciplinary perception about knowledge creation, boundaries, opportunities and worldview have been shifted through this proximity with thinkers from a different culture and discipline. Coining a New Phrase/Term Colleagues discussed the need to find new terms to express how the cross- and interdisciplinary insights produced new understanding. We also identified that one of the experiences crossing the conceptual threshold is possibly inventing a new term. And there is an example from my history where I thought about a very awkward term, in my view, which is ‘computer aided diagnosis’. I wanted to take information from image analysis that isn’t visible and feed it back into the diagnostic process so that that diagnostician doesn’t become superfluous, but he becomes supported. So that how I came up with the term ‘diagnostic decision support’. (R) Some new findings from this research, appearing in several disciplines, emerge from the supervisors’ awareness of the importance of transfer and creating something new. Participants who reported on their work with cross- and interdisciplinary research process, theorising, and interpretation emphasised their excitement at the new perspectives and ways of working, enjoyed the energy of the dialogue and the insights it helped to generate, and felt they were going to be able to go away with new understanding from sharing this inter- and cross-disciplinary thinking in the workshop. For some, it was actually generated in the workshop, for others, reflected on, remembered, understood anew. This new work offers insights into supervisors’ and postgraduates’ awareness of discipline- and interdisciplinary-based conceptual threshold crossings and their appreciation of the ways in which working at a cross or interdisciplinary frontier could advance and enrich the practices and natural stages of the research project development, the sharing, co construction and articulation. This, they felt, helped their own research and could lead them to help ‘nudge’ students to work at more conceptual, critical and creative levels in their doctoral work. CONCLUSIONS

Conceptual threshold crossing in doctoral learning is a stage or series of stages in the research and writing processes at which the troublesomeness of the new and the transformational insights of the research work initially might cause confusion, but then lead through such a liminal space of doubt and possibility to surprising new revelations and constructions. Most of the work on conceptual threshold 306

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crossings has focussed on this experience in a particular project or rather even more generically as an appreciation of stages in the work and the transformation they can lead to, nudged by supervisor events. This new work arises from workshops with supervisors and postgraduates focusing on developing the conceptual work of the PhD. The revelation about the rich contribution of interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary theorising, decoding, researching, translating and sharing emerged initially by accident as good research findings often do, when managing discussions and relatively formal reporting back (all ethically approved and agreed by participants). Workshops and work conducted with supervisors focusing on conceptual threshold crossings in their own research learning journeys and those of their doctoral students identified rich practices of transferring between disciplines – of theories, approaches, methods, and ways of seeing the world. Little work has been done in the interdisciplinary or disciplinary transfer or splicing, hybrid nature of research processes and situations, and this forms the basis of new knowledge. During the course of these workshops which were engaging supervisors in considering how to support doctoral students in crossing conceptual thresholds in their own disciplines, the supervisors began to identify both the ways in which they and their students had constructed new knowledge through cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives and the interdisciplinary conceptual threshold crossing moments, when this hybrid understanding forms something new. The research reveals that some of the most exciting disruptive conceptual threshold crossings and the new understanding and creations of knowledge developed from the meeting and dialogue between discipline-based thinking and research practices, offering new perspectives on stuck, old or intransigent problems. Biologists applied ideas and processes to economic problems and vice versa; creative researchers worked with the more scientific minded. The moments of revelation in the workshops were themselves conceptual threshold crossings in the research learning which was shared between the supervisors and postgraduate participants. Together they understood anew, realising that transfer of theory between fields opens new perspectives; crossing disciplinary cultures and approaches, shifting patterns of thinking and research opens up new understanding; and coining new terms crystallises understanding. Conceptual threshold crossings and insights into addressing or solving research problems are seen to be enabled by interdisciplinary conceptual threshold crossing: something is unlocked and something new is made. REFERENCES Barnett, R. (2011). Being a university. Milton Park: Routledge. Becher, T. (1989). Academic tribes and territories Intellectual enquiry and the cultures of disciplines. Buckingham: Society for Research into Higher Education and the Open University Press. Becher, T., & Trowler, P. (2001). Academic tribes and territories Intellectual enquiry and the cultures of disciplines (2nd ed.). Buckingham: Open University Press/SRHE.

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G. WISKER Commission on the Social Sciences. (2003). Great expectations The social sciences in Britain. London: Academy of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences. Retrieved from http://www.the-academy.org.uk/ Emerson, R. W. (2010/1836): Essays First and second series. New York, NY: Library of America Paperback Classics. Healey, M., Flint, A., & Harrington, K. (2014). Students as partners in learning and teaching in higher education. New York, NY: Higher Education Academy. Kiley, M., & Mullins, G. P. (Eds.). (2002). Quality in postgraduate research Integrating perspectives. Proceedings of the International Quality in Postgraduate Research Conference, Centre for the Enhancement of Learning, Teaching and Scholarship, University of Canberra, Canberra. Retrieved from http://www.qpr.edu.au/Proceedings/QPR_Proceedings_2002.pdf Kiley, M., & Wisker, G. (2009). Threshold concepts in research education and evidence of threshold crossing. Higher Education Research and Development, 28(4), 431–441. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 07294360903067930 Kiley, M., & Wisker, G. (2010). Learning to be a researcher: The concepts and crossings. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & C. Baillie (Eds.), Threshold concepts and transformational learning (pp. 399–414). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Land, R. (2012). Crossing tribal boundaries: Interdisciplinarity as a threshold concept. In P. Trowler, M. Saunders, & V. Bamber (Eds.), Tribes and territories in the 21st century Rethinking the significance of disciplines in higher education. London/New York, NY: Routledge. Retrieved from https://www.routledge.com/Tribes-and-Territories-in-the-21st-Century-Rethinking-the-significance/ Trowler-Saunders-Bamber/p/book/9780415880626 Land, R., Cousin, G., Meyer, J. H. F., & Davies, P. (2005). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (3): Implications for course design and evaluation. In C. Rust (Ed.), Improving student learning 12 — Diversity and inclusivity (pp. 53–64). Oxford: Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning and Development. Land, R., Cousin, G., Meyer, J. H. F., & Davies, P. (2006). Conclusion: Implications of threshold concepts for course design and evaluation. In J. H. F. Meyer & R. Land (Eds.), Overcoming barriers to student understanding Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge. London/New York, NY: Routledge. Leibowitz, B., Wisker, G., & Lamberti, P. (2018). ‘Crossing over’ into research on teaching and learning. In E. Bitzer, L. Frick, M. Fourie-Malherbe, & K. Pyhalto (Eds.), Spaces, journeys and new horizons for postgraduate supervision (pp. 149–62). Stellenbosch: AFRICAN SUN MeDIA. Lewin, K. (1951). Problems of research in social psychology. In D. Cartwright (Ed.), Field theory in social science Selected theoretical papers (pp. 155–169). New York, NY: Harper & Row. Manathunga, C., & Brew, A. (2012). Beyond tribes and territories: New metaphors for new times. In P. Trowler, M. Saunders, & V. Bamber (Eds.), Tribes and territories in the 21st century Rethinking the significance of disciplines in higher education. London/New York, NY: Routledge. McCune, V., & Hounsell, D. (2005). The development of students’ ways of thinking and practising in three final-year biology courses. Higher Education, 49, 255–289. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734004-6666-0 Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (2005). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (2): Epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning. Higher Education, 49, 373–388. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/25068074 Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (Eds.). (2006). Overcoming barriers to student understanding Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge. London/New York, NY: Routledge. Strathern, M. (2008). Knowledge identities. In R. Barnett & R. Di Napoli (Eds.), Changing identities in higher education Voicing perspectives. London/ New York, NY: Routledge. Trafford, V., & Leshem, S. (2008). Stepping stones to achieving your doctorate By focusing on your viva from the start. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Trowler, P., Saunders, M., & Bamber, V. (2012). Tribes and territories in the 21st-century Rethinking the significance of disciplines in higher education. Abingdon/New York, NY: Routledge. Wisker, G., & Kiley, M. (2010). Learning to be a researcher: The concepts and crossings. In J. H. F. Meyer & R. Land (Eds.), Threshold concepts within the disciplines. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.

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DIVERSITY, HYBRIDITY AND NEW REVELATIONS Wisker, G. (2015). Teaching literature Contemporary Gothic, threshold concepts, social justice and dialogue. New York, NY: Higher Education Academy. Retrieved from https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/ knowledge-hub/teaching-literature-contemporary-gothic-threshold-concepts-social-justice-anddialogue Wisker, G. (2018). Different journeys: Supervisor perspectives on disciplinary conceptual threshold crossings in doctoral learning. Critical Studies in Teaching and Learning, (CriSTaL), 6(2), 40–59. Retrieved from http://cristal.epubs.ac.za/index.php/cristal/article/view/148 Wisker, G., Morris, C., Cheng, M., Masika, R., Warnes, M., Lilly, J., … Robinson, G. (2010). Doctoral learning journeys – Final report of the NTFS-funded project. Retrieved from https://www.brighton.ac.uk/research-and-enterprise/groups/education/research-projects/doctorallearning-journeys.aspx

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PART 6 WRITING ACROSS THRESHOLDS

LINDA ADLER-KASSNER AND ELIZABETH WARDLE

22. NAMING WHAT WE KNOW (IN WRITING STUDIES) Engaging Troublesome Trends in Educational Policy and Practice

ABSTRACT

In this chapter, we discuss current trends in American higher education that focus on efficiency and accountability rather than on the kinds of messy and complicated learning valued in threshold concepts theory. In the U.S., the efficiency goal is supported by uses of big data and predictive analytics that seem antithetical to the goals of deep learning entailed in teaching threshold concepts. We explore this trend and ways to counter it. INTRODUCTION

As we engage with others in our roles as teachers, researchers, and administrators, we have observed two views of learning. The first is shared among threshold concepts scholars: learning is messy, contextual, and individual. The second seems to drive policy at institutions in the U.S. and likely elsewhere: education is in crisis, learning should be governed by strict and quantifiable measures of accountability, and learners’ paths should be quick and efficient. In this chapter, we’ll describe these views, describe how big data are currently seen as a solution to the ‘crisis’, and outline our concerns about this idea and its impact on authentic learning. Finally, we’ll consider bridges to be built between big data and threshold concepts, and ways we might engage in conversations about big data and learning on our campuses. Our goal in this analysis is to consider how better to engage in discussions about analytics and learning. TWO VIEWS OF LEARNING

View One: Learning Is Messy and Contextual One of the major contributions of threshold concepts is the framework that it provides to conceptualise learning. As threshold concepts researchers draw on interviews with students and faculty about the liminal experience of crossing thresholds, though, the language they invoke itself signifies the fluidity – the messiness – of this experience.

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004419971_022

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For instance, in their summary of threshold concepts and learning, Land, Rattray, and Vivian (2014), drawing on earlier work by Meyer and Land (2005) conceptualise the liminal space of learners’ experiences as ‘liquid, simultaneously transforming and being transformed by the learner as he or she moves through it’ (Land et al., 2014, p. 199). They go on to describe liminality as ‘unsettling’ and ‘as a transformative state that engages existing certainties and renders them problematic and fluid. It is also a suspended state in which understanding can approximate to a kind of mimicry or lack of authenticity’. The liminal state is sometimes experienced as ‘oscillative, as the changed perspective slips in out of focus and eludes the learner’s grasp’ (2014, p. 199). The ‘oscillative’ and fluid experience that Land, Rattray, and Vivian (2014) describe is reflected in our own research with learners as they move through thresholds. Here we provide two examples drawing on interviews we’ve conducted with learners in challenging courses. In the U.S. educational context, a ‘course’ (or a ‘class’) refers to learning experiences with multiple students and a single faculty member (also sometimes aided by graduate teaching assistants) taken during an academic term. Linda interviewed Chris, who described (in a series of interviews) his experience in the first course in a three-course series on Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The course’s professor, Werner Kuhn, structured the class around what he defined as ‘core concepts’ of GIS: field, locations, events, objects, and networks, and two meta-concepts, granularity and accuracy. Seen through the threshold concepts literature, Chris is a remarkably successful learner. In his first interview near the course’s conclusion, Chris initially discussed how he found the class troublesome: I think when I first entered the class I was very confused because a lot of the concepts were seemingly simple. But just the way you think about these concepts kind of threw me off in the beginning…. coming into the course I expected it to be a very point and click class. As he continued, Chris modelled the transformation and integration that can occur in encounters with concepts that learners find to be threshold. The concept of ‘location’, for him, was most important. The fact that location is relative… really threw me off, like, ‘Wait a second’. So that’s the beginning of me rerouting my spatial thinking…. I’m starting to think that in order to provide a location for something it’s always in reference to something else. After the course’s completion, Chris also referred to this shift in his thinking: that location was relative was ‘kind of paradigm-changing…. It feels like you’re losing everything and you have to get it back together, but when you get it back together it’s all new things…. It’s that struggle of rewiring…’. Chris’s descriptions of ‘rerouting’, ‘thinking spatially’, ‘looking at things differently’, and ‘rewiring’ point to epistemological change that occurs when 314

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learners approach and begin participating in threshold concepts. As he applied this way of thinking about location to other things, he modelled integration. Elizabeth’s examples come from students in a new major in Writing and Rhetoric at her then-university. She framed her course around threshold concepts using Naming What We Know (Adler-Kassner & Wardle, 2015) as a primary text. This book, which we co-edited, articulates some of the threshold concepts in Writing Studies. Elizabeth assigned students to reflect on several threshold concepts and consider where they had encountered and grappled with them in their university experiences. Completing this assignment was difficult for all of the students, but each student found it difficult in different ways and for different reasons. Two examples illustrate the fluidity involved with learning and positioning around threshold concepts of a field. Even when they have ostensibly just completed the same set of experiences, this experience is not consistent for all students. The first student, Tiona, struggled with the threshold concept that ‘writing is not natural’ meaning, writing is not an innate ability for humans (but must be learned). This concept and its phrasing threatened Tiona’s identity. She described the struggle in her reflection essay: […] writing has been linked to my identity for as long as I can remember […] I had always considered myself to be a ‘natural’ writer […] Growing up all of my teachers praised me and used me as the example of how writing should look. Then I came to the Writing and Rhetoric Capstone class and my world was turned upside down […] All of my life my identity was tied to how easy it was for me to write. I picked this major because of how easy it was for me to write. I understood that no one was born with the ability to physically write, but I was waiting for someone to validate that I was, in fact, a natural writer, even if no one else in the world was […]. Just encountering this troublesome concept seemed to cause Tiona an identity crisis that coloured everything she did. Another student, Mikael, chose difficult threshold concepts to write about; in the process, he demonstrated that he had moved to a post-liminal space where he talked about ideas as disciplinary professionals do and that those ideas informed his thinking and actions across settings. For example, he tackled the threshold concepts, ‘Writing involves negotiating language difference’ and ‘Assessing writing shapes contexts and instruction’, explaining: […] when [the author who defined the threshold concept] talks about negotiating language differences, I believe he’s calling for a compromise between writers, readers, and teachers. […] As a tutor to multilingual writers, I know I have the power to assess writing and to deem it acceptable based on its degree of conformity to academic standards. […] I become apprehensive at being an agent of [the] institution, one who metes and doles [out] the rules 315

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unto deficient writers […]. As I gained experience, I became cognizant of how sociolinguistic privilege is the act of judging how others communicate.1 Despite similar background and work experience in a writing centre that was also structured around threshold concepts of writing, Tiona and Mikael differed in what they found troubling and when, and how they integrated new and prior knowledge. While many factors were associated with these differences (identity, disposition, use of prior knowledge, etc.), timing seemed the most important factor. Like all students, they were able and willing to move into liminal and post-liminal spaces surrounding particular concepts at very different times as a result of where they had been and what they had brought. When we talk about learners’ encounters with threshold concepts, then, examples like these as well as the ones provided by Land, Rattray, and Vivian (2014) and others provide evidence for learning as a complex, fluid, and even messy, process. This claim takes into account three different and overlapping factors associated with learning. First: Time. Learning unfolds over time in a two-steps-forward, one-step-back process as learners move toward, away from, and back toward thresholds. Chris describes this through his discussion of the concept of location in his GIS class. Learners are ready for difficult ideas at different times, depending on a host of factors, as Tiona and Mikael illustrate. Second: Location in communities of practice. Learning takes place among groups that have things in common: language, rituals, and strategies for learning how to learn – in order to accomplish common goals. These are features of communities of practice, a concept defined by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger (1991). Academic disciplines are prime examples of communities of practice, and participation encountering threshold concepts is one of these communities’ defining features. Members develop identities associated with communities of practice as they move from novice to expert – in this case, within disciplines. Third: Embodied action. The literature on threshold concepts recognises the affective and embodied nature of ‘seeing through and seeing with’ as something generated, at least in part, from the learner (e.g., Efklides, 2006; Kreber, 2009; Timmermans, 2010). We see this in Chris’s discussion of location, or in Mikael’s description of his changed approach to tutoring practices as a result of his learning. Together, these three features show how learning is messy, complex, and contextual. View Two: Education as Crisis in Need of Accountability This close focus on individuals over time, in context, and through embodied action in context is not the dominant perspective surrounding understandings of what 316

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learning means – at least currently in the United States. This is especially true at the level of policy or public discourse in the U.S. . At this level, education is often framed as bloated and failing. If teachers are good, it’s because they care. Most of them, however, are portrayed as not good, and suggest that students are suffering. As researcher Ben Williamson (2017) has noted, this characterisation is evident in many data-associated or data-driven efforts associated with education. Describing HackingEDU, a conference for such efforts, Williamson says that these efforts locate [...] education as it currently exists as a problematically broken system which is in need of revolutionising. It proposes that the solution is in the hands of software developers and others who can write code. It suggests that the availability of masses of educational data can be used to gain insights into the problems of education, and to find solutions at the same time. And it also demonstrates how private sector technology companies have begun to fixate on education and their own role in fixing it. (Williamson, 2017, p. 3) Faculty members in Writing Studies know this story of crisis and accountability well. In one version of our discipline’s history, writing courses in the U.S. were born from a supposed crisis in the literacy practices of students at Harvard in the late 1800s (Kitzhaber, 1990; Ohmann, 1976). This first-year writing course was charged with ‘inoculating’ students to ‘write well once and for all’, providing what David Russell (2002) has called ‘general writing skills instruction’. By the early 1950s, however, writing began to emerge as a distinct discipline, and faculty members began to explain how this approach didn’t account for how successful writing actually happens. Instead, using theory from Aristotle to Kenneth Burke, and drawing on new research about writers’ processes (e.g., Flower & Hayes, 1981; Perl, 1979), they redefined the focus of writing classes: helping writers develop strategies to study and adapt to writing expectations in various situations and at various times. Time, location, and embodiment are central components in this study of writing. Since qualities of good writing are context-specific, writers must learn to analyse expectations for writing in context. But policy makers, legislators, and test makers in the U.S. often seem to believe that writing is something in need of diagnosis, to be delivered or even remedied by metaphorical ‘inoculation’. As a result, people who don’t study writing make curricula, rules, policies, and tests that are antithetical to what we know about how writing actually works and is learned. THRESHOLD CONCEPTS ABOUT WRITING AS A RESPONSE

These stories about learning and writing led us to the idea that became Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies. For this project, 29 teacher-scholars from our field participated in a wiki, proposing ideas, phenomena, knowledge, or orientations they considered to be threshold concepts. Over several months, they made suggestions and engaged in debate. The two of us met and distilled from these conversations one meta-concept (‘Writing is an activity and a 317

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subject of study’) and five overarching threshold concepts. Each of the overarching concepts also had related sub-concepts that were related to the primary one. Many reflect the characteristics associated with learning that we identified earlier: that learning about writing is situated in time and location and must be embodied. Our motivation for naming threshold concepts of our discipline was as much about contributing to and even shaping public discourse about writing as it was compiling them for fellow researchers, teachers, and students. Impacting public discourse is an uphill battle, however. Daily, we see evidence of commonly held conceptions about writing that are just wrong, but that are repeatedly played out in stories about learning, writing, and learning to write in public policy and public discourse. Big Data as a Solution to Educational Crisis Recently, we’ve observed that when these stories about education seek answers to writing-related (and other) ‘problems’ (at least in the U.S.), the ‘solutions’ invariably include ideas about efficiency, reduced time on task, and eliminating failure, such as those that we highlight above and that Williamson (2017) discusses in his research. We’ve noticed one theme in these stories that appears repeatedly as a ‘solution’ to stories about a broken educational system: the use of big data. For the purposes of this discussion, we are concerned with two widespread uses of big data analyses: prediction, as in predictive analytics, and facilitating learning, as in learning analytics. Many predictive analytics and learning analytics products, especially those marketed to university by for-profit entities, are not necessarily aligned with beliefs about learning as a messy and complex process involving time, location, and embodiment. Fundamentally, this is in part because these efforts are driven by what Williamson (2017) describes as a process of ‘datafication, […] the transmission of different aspects of education […] into digital data […] [which] can be measured, calculations can be performed on it, and through which it can be turned into charts, tables, and other forms of graphical presentation’. As Williamson (2017) notes, however, datafication requires that learning be represented in particular ways. ‘If you want to build some digital e-learning software, you have to figure out how to do that in lines of code: to encode educational processes into software products’ (p. 5). Processes involving time and location can be datafied. But epistemological transformation that occurs when learners cross the liminal threshold associated with threshold concepts – when learners ‘[question] existing assumptions and [craft] new ones to see the world from a more complex perspective’ (Baxter Magolda, 2004, p. 31) – is difficult to represent in code. At the same time, it seems analytics are here to stay, powerful tools funded by powerful money. As we consider how to respond, we want to enumerate three concerns with factors of the analytics equation – even as we attempt to be open to the possibilities of predictive and learning analytics. Prediction: First, we are concerned about prediction. Predictive analytics are being used widely in education, sorting mechanisms designed to send learners down 318

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different paths. Fenwick and Edwards (2015) point to the ‘possibility of improving student attainment through predictive analytics that match teachers and students, reshuffle student work groups and ‘recommend’, like Amazon, resources and classes to individual students’. To help predict students’ employment paths and suggest suitable curricula, these analytics are linked with ‘projected labour skill demands, demographics, aptitude tests and markers of students’ online engagement (like time spent viewing pages)’ (p. 123). Critics of predictive analytics have noted many issues associated with their use, however. They are retrospective, drawing on data from past practices and performances in order to identify a potential future (Barocas & Selbst, 2016; O’Neil, 2015; Pariser, 2011). The data that they draw on are necessarily ideological – as Cathy O’Neil points out, ‘algorithms are [just] opinions represented in code’ (2015, n.p.). As a result, the recommendations that come from the use of predictive analytics can be ‘simultaneously rational and unfair (Schauer, 2006, as cited in Barocas & Selbst, 2016, p. 668). They seem neutral, but they can make ‘certain individuals actuarially saddled’ by statistical inferences that are sound, but not necessarily accurate (p. 691). Our discipline has a long history of experience with and research on sorting-asprediction and its implications. Via tests, students have been labelled and identified in particular ways and placed into different types of writing courses for decades (see Stanley, 2010). These are often separated into two groups: ‘basic’ or ‘preparatory’ courses, which are seen as remedial and often do not award degree credit, and courses that typically fulfil requirements and count toward degrees. As a field, we have learned through long and painful experience that writing, identity, and one’s senses of self are tightly entwined (views outlined in several threshold concepts in Naming What We Know). We also know that placement into these different types of courses – i.e., non-credit bearing courses that are seen as remedial, versus other courses – has consequences not only for students’ college trajectories and their senses of themselves as learners and as people. Placement and sorting decisions are often related to race, class, gender, educational background, home language, etc. – serving as de facto gatekeeping devices that keep out or marginalise certain kinds of students (e.g., Agnew & McLaughlin, 2001; Inoue, 2015; Inoue & Poe, 2012). Through this experience, we have come to understand the potential power of prediction and to approach predictive analytics as they can be delivered through big data with trepidation. Scholars in our discipline have long studied the history and impact of ‘literacy’ testing, assessment, and sorting that fail (sometimes intentionally) to take into account relevant contextual factors (e.g., Brannon, 1995; Galindo, Castaneda, Gutierrez, Tejada, & Wallace, 2014; Hill & Parry, 1992; Kendall, 2010; Kramer, 1990; McSeveney, 1987; Prochaska, 2001; Trachsel, 1992). Marketing materials from companies touting the use of learning analytics often reinforce our concerns. To be sure, it is difficult to know how the promises extended in these materials were enacted on the campuses where they have been taken up. Nonetheless, it is readily apparent the ways in which these companies present the potential of analytics as a strategy for ‘simplifying’ the complicated process of 319

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learning. EAB,2 for instance, highlights Southern Methodist University’s (SMU) work with their predictive analytics platform. The materials say that the platform pinpoints classes and majors where certain students are more (or less) likely to succeed in an effort to improve the school’s graduation rates. In its promotion materials, EAB quotes Stephanie Dupaul, SMU’s Associate Provost for Enrolment Management: ‘It’s a resource issue, it’s a reputational issue, it does impact – I’ll say it – the rankings’ (EAB, 2014). But many questions aren’t answered – or even raised – in this conversation: what do students lose out on when they’re told that X major is easier or will earn them higher grades? What are they told about what data inform the advice they receive, or about the consequences for faculty teaching ‘hard’ classes that students are urged away from? What does it say about institutional priorities, too: about whether reputation and ranking are being highlighted before learning (and what that says about the institution’s priorities for its students), and about the alignment of institutional priorities and those of students and instructors? What does it say about institutional priorities, about whether reputation and ranking are being highlighted before learning (and what that says about the institution’s priorities for its students), and about the alignment of institutional priorities and those of students and instructors? Data Sources and Uses A second concern is what goes into analytics and the stories about learning that those choices reflect. As Williamson (2017), O’Neil (2016), and others have consistently demonstrated, these platforms are driven by quantified data. One illustration can be found in Degree Compass, a predictive analytics programme that is offered by Desire 2 Learn (D2L), a rising player in the world of learning management. In a video, Tristan Denley, a mathematician who developed Degree Compass while the Provost at Austin Peay University, describes the product in the following way: When it comes to higher education, time is the enemy. The longer it takes a student to actually complete a degree program, the less likely it is that they will ever complete that degree. Very often it’s the case that students end up taking classes that just don’t fit their degree. Of course it just ends up being the case that it takes much longer for them to graduate. (n.d.) In the video, Denley seems to focus on identifying the courses in which students will be ‘most successful’, getting down what he calls a ‘nice clean path’, and reducing as much as possible the opportunities for failure or struggle. We will note that in an interview that we and others conducted with Denley, he discussed in much richer ways what motivated the production of Degree Compass, explained the ways in which it was meant to be used by humans (and not to replace them), and discussed ways to avoid unintended consequences. Unfortunately, the richness of this discussion is not evident in the promotional materials associated with the video. Instead, it tells a

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story about learning quite different than the one told by Tiona, Mikael, or Chris. And as people who study language and language use, we are concerned with the stories being told about education in materials like these. We are not arguing that this is the only story about education to which advocates of predictive analytics adhere. We are arguing that this is a dominant story, particularly in the sales and marketing materials – and stories matter. The language of this particular story suggests a vision of education focused on efficiency, reduced time on task, and helping students get the highest grades possible rather than of learning or mastery as the primary focus (or ‘selling point’, if you will). Teacher and Student Agency Our last point of struggle concerns teacher and student agency in conjunction with predictive and learning analytics. This point is more slippery because the range of possibility is so broad. Some systems provide information for learners or teachers, who can then use data as well as their own experiences and contexts. Other systems provide a more directive roadmap, telling students and advisors which way to turn at the next decision point. Researchers like Simon Buckingham Shum have done exceptionally thoughtful work on analytics that reflect the concerns that we raise here. In the midst of his proposals, he makes the point that these choice points are always propelled by humans and reflect ideologies and values, a reality that is often not obvious to the end users or stakeholders (simon.buckinghamshum net). For example, EAB promotes their Student Success platform by highlighting its use at Georgia State University, which ‘used data mining to determine [that] […] only 25% of students who earn a [grade of] C [on a scale from A, typically indicating excellence, to F, indicating failure] in the first class of a political science major went on to graduate’ (EAB, 2014). EAB’s predictive analytics platform ‘provides a red flag’ regarding the students who earn those C grades, but many things are unclear here. After the flag is raised, how do advisors proceed? Do students receive extra help? Are faculty in that major informed so they can make pedagogical changes? Access to data and formulae associated with analytics also raises critical issues. The more that the judgments driving the results of learning analytics are used, the more they become ‘facts:’ things that are, rather than judgments that have occurred (Bowker, 2010, pp. 266–267; see also Bowker & Starr, 1999). The judgments that have occurred are obscured. Often the algorithms used to create judgments are inaccessible, ‘black boxed’. As their results become facts they, too, are black boxed. While this may be true of other educational research as well, the proclamations made by algorithmic systems relying on data that are often inaccessible or undisclosed are especially difficult to counter or question. Judgments produced by the software were presented as ‘facts’ that faculty, advisors, and students shouldn’t question.

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CAN WE RECONCILE WITH BIG DATA AND ANALYTICS?

Whether or not our view of learning is compatible with the view of learning that we often see represented in predictive and learning analytics, we have to find ways to be present in conversations taking place (with or without us). As we engage, we can ask questions that extend from our shared interest in threshold concepts, learning, and analytics: ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

How is learning defined? By whom? How is it represented and valued? What consequences are attached to those definitions and values?

It might be possible to imagine some ways to embrace big data and analytics that keep the learner and their context front and centre. For instance – and completely hypothetically – we might be able to expand on the kind of crowd-sourced effort that we used to develop Naming What We Know, either within specific disciplines or even across them. This might mean initiating a sizable project that begins to identify distinct features associated with movement we see in learners around threshold concepts: over time and within locations that take the form of communities of practice. We’d then need to quantify these features, assigning them specific values. We could then start to develop correlations between these points and different types of achievement – not only success or lack thereof, but also points along the liminal pathways that we associate with learning. Yet, even as we suggest this, we are uncomfortable with it. We wonder, for example, how such efforts might define ‘achievement’ and ‘success’. But let’s keep pushing the hypothetical. While time and location might possibly be quantified in a way that is representative of our understanding of learning, it’s hard to imagine how ‘embodiment’ could be quantified. We might be able to work around it through some proxies like dispositions, affects, or emotions, but we haven’t yet been able to think about how to represent what a colleague of Linda’s in computer science called ‘general intelligence’. He said that it was possible to quantify whether someone had learned an empowering concept, but to have an ontology associated with it would be hard – computers, he explained, aren’t currently able to do that. Of course, that doesn’t mean that computer scientists aren’t trying. IBM, for example, is using its Watson programme to offer a ‘personality insights service’ that uses pieces of writing to ‘help discover actionable insights about people and entities, and in turn guides end users to highly personalised interactions’ (http://www. ibm.com/watson/developercloud/personality-insights.html). But even when wellintentioned, systems can too easily rely on Big Data to result in what mathematician O’Neil (2016) calls a ‘pernicious feedback loop’, that contributes ‘to a toxic cycle and help[s] sustain it’ (p. 29). As we try to put our view of learning into pragmatic conversation with big data and predictive analytics, we need to think with people like Douglass Easterly, 322

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Director of Advising at University of California San Diego’s John Muir College, who has remarked on the cautions built into their system against profiling learners (Straumsheim, 2016). For such thinking to be productive, we should all aim for what O’Neil describes as healthy models of analytics: ones that are ‘transparent and continuously updated, with both the assumptions and the conclusions clear for all to see’ (as cited in Straumsheim, 2016, p. 27). These models don’t rely on proxies and ensure that the people being modelled ‘understand the process and share the model’s objectives’ (p. 27). Within our discipline of Writing Studies, a number of encouraging efforts along these lines, especially associated with learning analytics, reflect just the sort of bridge building that we are hoping for and that are aimed at the level of the student, instructor, and classroom. These include programmes like Eli Peer Review, developed out of Michigan State University, and The Write Class, a programme developed by writing faculty members from postsecondary institutions in Idaho. It’s worth noting, too, that data can be incredibly useful – big, small, or otherwise. We are not arguing that data analytics shouldn’t be part of a mix of information available to faculty and students. Instead, we are arguing that when it comes to learning and teaching, faculty who think about those processes over time, in contexts, and through embodiment need to be part of the discussion. The questions need to be asked and answered through a shared focus, driven by humans (not machines), with time, location, and embodiment in mind. One of the biggest challenges in interacting with uses of Big Data is at the level of policy. As people who study language, we know that stories about education and its purposes and problems not only reflect but also shape the ideas that people hold. The metrics by which institutions of higher education are measured are shaped by the stories told. These metrics are at least part of what is driving American universities to purchase analytics systems like EAB, in part to boost retention and graduation rates and thus improve their U.S. News and World Report rankings and increase their state funding. One way of thinking about this is to recognise that a floundering magazine (Diamond, 1986) increased sales, in part, by telling a particular kind of story about what constitutes educational excellence through data This story has since been one of the drivers of policy and practice (Wermund, 2017). To change this discussion, we must first educate ourselves and other stakeholders. In doing this, we can’t ignore the pressing concerns that make big data so appealing – debt, graduation and retention rates, and so on – while reconciling them with the way the authentic learning happens. In our Appendix, we have included a set of questions that readers might ask on their local campuses when administrators seek to introduce analytics systems. Knowing how analytics systems work, though, is not enough. We must use this knowledge to change the language and focus of discussions about education, particularly in the U.S. School should be framed, first and foremost, as a site for making knowledge, learning difficult ideas, thinking critically, and solving difficult

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problems – a place where students, faculty, and even institutions grapple with troublesome knowledge in liminal spaces and become the kinds of thinkers and problem solvers we so urgently need. Together, our challenge is to find ways to help reshape public stories about education so that they focus first on learning and reflect what we all know about the importance of time, location, and embodiment to deep learning across contexts and time. Our challenge is to remind people that the first goal of education is to create flexible learners and careful thinkers. APPENDIX: QUESTIONS TO ASK ABOUT ANALYTICS SYSTEMS

‡ Who designed this system? ‡ What is that company trying to accomplish (if a company is involved)? What do they stand to gain from our use of this product? ‡ Where did the data come from? Is it local (from our school)? ‡ What sample size is represented in this data set? Is this ‘whole data’ or just ‘big data’? Is the data set complete? ‡ How many data sets are combined in this system? What errors do each of those data sets have? How might those errors be magnified in the combining of the sets? ‡ How will the data be analysed? ‡ Do you know what the algorithms are? Do you know how they change or what is being done to them? ‡ Who designed the algorithms? ‡ Who is analysing and interpreting the data? ‡ What biases do these people bring to that analysis and design? Who/what kinds of people are not represented during that analysis and design? ‡ What is the context for the data that are not taken into account by this system? ‡ Have the students/other people from whom data are collected given informed consent? What is our process for ensuring that we are asking careful questions about ethical data use? ‡ Who has access to the data? For what purposes? With what constraints and safeguards? What do the companies do with our students’ data? ‡ How are the data used? To target those deemed at risk in order to provide help and support toward success? Or are the data used to guide action that might lead to a pernicious feedback loop that it helps sustain? Is it a model that profiles people by their circumstances and then helps create the environment that justifies assumptions about those people? ‡ Is there a way to appeal the decisions or recommendations of this system? ‡ Is the model on which this system is based transparent: are its assumptions and conclusions clear for all to see? Do the students whose data are collected understand the process and share its objectives and values? ‡ Who owns the data?

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NOTES 1 2

Mikael has since co-authored an article about his experiences (Hall, Romo, & Wardle, 2018). At one time, EAB stood for ‘Educational Advisory Board.’ Now, however, the company’s name is only the three letters.

REFERENCES Agnew, E., & McLaughlin, M. (2001). Those crazy gates and how they swing: Tracking the system that tracks African-American students. In G. McNenny & S. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Mainstreaming basic writers Politics and pedagogies of access (pp. 85–100). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Borocas, S., & Selbst, A. D. (2016). Big data’s disparate impact. California Law Review, 106(671), 671–732. http://dx.doi.org/10.15779/Z38BG31. Bowker, G. C. (2010). All knowledge is local. Learning Communities An International Journal of Learning in Social Contexts. Bowker, G., & Starr, S. (1999). Sorting things out. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Brannon, L. (1995). The problems of national standards. College Composition and Communication, 46(3), 440–445. Crawford, K. (2013). The hidden biases in big data. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2013/04/ the-hidden-biases-in-big-data Denley, T. (2016, February). Interview by Linda Adler-Kassner, Heidi Estrem, Susan Miller-Cochran, and Elizabeth Wardle. Denley, T. (n.d.). Degree compass. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20wF6SHLSWw Diamond, E. (1986, September 22). The Zuckerman report: Up front on the ‘spy’ case. New York Magazine. EAB. (2014, December 12). Time analyzes higher education analytics wave’. Retrieved from https://www eab.com/daily-briefing/2014/12/12/what-is-behind-the-analytics-wave-in-higher-education Fenwick, T., & Edwards, R. (2015). Exploring the impact of digital technologies on professional responsibilities and education. European Educational Research Journal, 15(1), 117–131. Fenwick, T., Mangez, E., & Ozga, J. (2014). Governing knowledge Comparison, knowledge-based technologies, and expertise in the regulation of education. London: Routledge. Flower, L., & Hayes, J. (1981). A cognitive process theory of writing. College Composition and Communication, 32(4), 365–387. Galindo, B., Castaneda, S., Gutierrez, E., Tejada, A., & Wallace, D. (2014). Challenging our labels: Rejecting the language of remediation. Young Scholars in Writing, 11, 5–16. Hill, C., & Parry, K. (1992). The test at the gate: Models of literacy in reading assessment. TESOL Quarterly, 26(3), 433–461. Inoue, A. (2015). Antiracist writing assessment ecologies Teaching and assessing for a socially just future. Fort Collins, CO: WAC Clearinghouses and Parlor Press. Inoue, A., & Poe, M. (2012). Race and writing assessment. New York, NY: Peter Lang. Kendall, C. (2010). Left behind: The high stakes of (il)literacy in the 21st century. Open Words, 4(2), 4–22. Kitchin, R. (2013). Big data, new epistemologies and paradigm shifts. Big Data and Society, 1(1), 1–12. Kitzhaber, A. (1990). Rhetoric in American colleges, 1850–1900. Dallas, TX: Southern Methodist University Press. Kramer, D. (1990). No exit: A play of literacy and gender. JAC Journal of Advanced Composition, 10(2), 305–320. Land, R., Rattray, J., & Vivian, P. (2014). Learning in the liminal space: A semiotic approach to threshold concepts. Higher Education, 67(2), 199–217. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marcus, J., (2014, December). Here’s the new way colleges are predicting student grades. Time. Retrieved from http://time.com/3621228/college-data-tracking-graduation-rates/

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23. BEGINNING TO SEE THE CONNECTION BETWEEN EVERYTHING Developing Scholarly Identity in Writing Studies through Threshold Concepts

ABSTRACT

In this chapter, we describe our work using threshold concepts with non-traditional students in writing programmes. Non-traditional students face additional risks in college attendance and therefore require additional support in uncertainty management. Despite a wide variation in teaching circumstances, threshold concepts proved especially successful in supporting the development of confidence and skills for these groups. We further describe the institutional changes made to accommodate this work. INTRODUCTION

Despite making up an ever-increasing percentage of total university student populations, the challenges faced by ‘non-traditional’ students (NTS) – those who are not wealthy, do not come from a family with parents that attended university, are multilingual, a person of colour, those who are returning to school after years in the workforce, or are caregivers – are well known. These students are less likely to seek support from professors (Kim & Sax, 2009), less likely to seek support from student services (Witkowsky, Mendez, Ogunbowo, Clayton, & Hernandez, 2016), more likely to struggle with financial and familial concerns that block attendance (Devlin & McKay, 2014a), and significantly less likely to graduate from college (Engle & Tito, 2008). For these students, attendance at university is a loaded decision, as they consciously enter an environment where they are unfamiliar with the norms and cultures while being keenly aware that they do not fit the pattern of the ‘traditional’ student. A sense of ‘cultural dislocation’ (Christie, Munro, & Fisher, 2004, p. 629), is often cited as one of the key reasons for non-continuation. When students feel they stand apart from the predominant culture of the university, it can be harder to develop resilience and maintain momentum when faced with moments of academic uncertainty (Thomas, 2002). However, as academic success relies on the ability to take risks and argue for one’s own position, non-traditional students are at a particular

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004419971_023

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disadvantage when they begin to write, both during the process of writing and in the delivery of the final product. Our shared interest in threshold concepts arose despite surface-level differences in our positions. Tekla is an assistant professor of Writing and Language Studies at a large state university in the United States. Erika works as a learning developer within a central administrative department of a research-intensive university in England, specialising in the support of graduate students on taught Masters programmes. Nevertheless, we both approach student writing and departmental change through the lens of threshold concepts (Timmermans, 2014). In both of our programmes, the majority of our students are members of at least one category in the NTS framework. At the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (RGV), approximately 80% of the 28,000 students are Hispanic, and 60% are first-generation students. By comparison, Hispanic students make up 16.5% and first generation students approximately 30% of the national college level enrolment (US Department of Education, 2016). Similarly, at the University of Warwick, while 30% of the general student population is from overseas, that level reaches 60% at the master’s level, compared to 38% nationally (Universities UK, 2016). Academic writing, with its emphasis on synthesis, creativity, and originality, poses a particular challenge for non-traditional students. Students who already feel their positions are precarious, or feel uncertain about their ability to learn to negotiate unfamiliar systems, are more likely to fall back on ‘shallow’ academic skills like rote memorisation and paraphrasing, rather than use the kinds of metadiscursive markers that create persuasive essays (Lea & Deakin, 2016). Through using threshold concepts, we seek to address this uncertainty and create what Thomas (2002, p. 432) refers to as ‘parity of academic status’ by proactively naming and acknowledging stuck moments in our students’ learning and writing processes. PROCESS BASED WRITING ACROSS THE OCEAN

Writing instruction looks very different at universities in the UK and United States, and so despite the difference in levels of education, both of us work with students who are frequently being asked to develop their own research-based ideas for the first time. In writing studies, composition instruction is focused on the development of writing through an emphasis on generating ideas, creating multiple drafts, and revising a text with a particular audience in mind, often in a collaborative, ‘messy’ environment. This process-based writing is frequently compared to product-based writing. Product-based writing is more concerned with the creation of a wellorganised text by a single individual; delivery of a polished text is more important than the development of ideas and theories. Prior to attending our courses, many of our students have primarily learned a product-based model and are therefore anxious about their academic writing; after all, how can they deliver a polished product when they know they don’t fully understand the material they’re developing? In the United States, students often begin to confront the idea of writing as invention and as a 328

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source of critical thinking in what is broadly called the ‘first year composition’ course (FYC), a 16 to 32-week class1 which is required by most universities. However, they may skip FYC by achieving a high enough score on their state or national tests, or by participating in advanced placement programmes in high school; this is more likely to be true of students in higher income brackets (The Education Trust, 2013). If this is the case, they will likely confront process-based writing for the first time as upper-level students in the university. The idea of process-based writing is likely to be strange to many students due to the nature and extent of standardised testing in the United States. High school students take the national ACT/SAT exams to place into college. The writing portion of these tests involves reading a 700–800 word text and writing a five-paragraph essay about it in 40–50 minutes; state-level testing follows a similar format. In Texas, there is the additional element of Texas House Bill 588, which guarantees admission to a state college for all high school students graduating in the top 10% of their class. Students are informed that their ability to get into college rests on these exams, and their English courses frequently involve being drilled in tactics to pass with the highest possible score, rather than preparing them for the kinds of research and writing they will be doing in college (Ruecker, 2013). This combination of factors means, in effect, that students, and especially non-traditional students, enter college through excellence in obedience and replicating information. In FYC, however, they are suddenly asked to produce their own ideas, to investigate the systems around them, and develop their own interests. In the United States, process-based writing instruction at the undergraduate level has been normalised for nearly fifty years, coinciding with the increased enrolment of students during the 1960s and 1970s. Donald Murray’s well-known essay, ‘Teach Writing as a Process, Not Product’ (1972) is frequently seen as a marker of the move to process pedagogy. There, he suggests instructors teach not specific forms, but ‘the process of discovery through language’ (p. 4), and writing as occurring in stages of pre-writing, writing, and revising. In his suggestions for pedagogical practices, he says that ‘the text of the writing course is student writing’, and that student writers must have enough time for their learning processes to occur (pp. 4–5). While they have been expanded over time (Crowley, 1998), these methodologies still ground composition instruction and can be challenging for students who have primarily been successful through memorisation and repetition. Conversely, UK Higher Education could be characterised as an ‘elite’ system as recently as the early 1990s, despite intermittent attempts to expand access from the 1963 Robbins report onwards (Bathmaker, 2003). Students were therefore assumed to be from privileged educational and family backgrounds that were familiar with the genres and nuances of higher education, and in particular to possess ‘adequate literary competence’ (Wingate, Andon, & Cogo, 2011, p. 70). In contrast to the US model outlined above, the UK has no overall tradition of composition instruction at university, relying instead on a model designed to address the occasional anomalous student unfamiliar with the expectations of academic writing. 329

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Because postgraduate students in the United Kingdom do not receive writing instruction, they can struggle in moving from highly structured undergraduate degrees to one where writing is a primary mode of discovery and assessment. The looser structure of a PhD is harder to negotiate, especially as UK PhDs typically have no taught elements, unlike the coursework section of the US model.2 While this is a challenge for all PhD students, those with no family background of higher education find themselves attempting to navigate unspoken norms of both scholarship and behaviour with little guidance. Instead, students seek support from central services, such as libraries or careers centres, and the supervisor who may be more or less interested in providing hands-on writing development, depending on their time and interests. UK students are working within a system where, as Tagg (2015) says, ‘teaching policy can often be shaped by a monolingual ideal whereby languages are taught as fixed, isolated entities and students held up as “deficit speakers” in comparison with “native speakers”’. This isolation leads to students reducing their communities largely to those who speak their first language and to an ideological division between academic and non-academic work, which is antithetical to the transformative goals of process-based writing studies and threshold concepts. Nontraditional students may not have the social capital to successfully advocate for themselves and experience significant anxiety around seeking support. Indeed, as the discourse of the University is so unknown to them, they may not even realise that such support is available and that seeking it is an option (McKay & Devlin, 2014). Crozier, Reay, Clayton, Colliander, & Grinstead (2008) report first-generation, low-income (FGLI) students may opt out of, or withdraw from, opportunities to develop academic and social capital in a way that middle-class students do not, thus reinforcing this divide. SUPPORTING OUR STUDENTS THROUGH A THRESHOLDS CONCEPTS APPROACH

For both American and UK NTS, then, we see many of the same challenges in learning to write well. For our students, the need for certainty in their academic work is higher than it is for more traditional students; navigating expectations is more difficult due to language differences and because their expertise in school is tied to their personal identity. In his study on the use of threshold concepts in undergraduate seminars, Felten (2016) suggests that teachers need to attend to: ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

the affective experiences of learning; the classroom and curriculum as troublesome sites for liminality; the sense of confidence and belonging necessary for crossing thresholds; the disciplinary and the trans-disciplinary nature of thresholds in learning. (p. 7)

Process-based writing theory has long emphasised that writing requires the acceptance of unknowingness, and that the best work will come through pushing on the boundaries of theoretical and practical knowledge. Haas and Flowers (1988) 330

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noted that lower-level students viewed reading and writing as an information exchange and suggested we instead teach them it is work that ‘can involve not only translating one kind of representation into another, but reorganising knowledge and creating new knowledge, new conceptual nodes and connections’ (p. 169). When asked what they want to get out of composition courses, students frequently answer, ‘I want to learn how to write a research essay’, or ‘I want to write good enough for my other classes’. That is, they want to learn manageable content. They view writing as something you are either good at or not, and they put themselves in the latter category. In contrast to student desires, composition instructors are likely to ask why the student thinks an aspect of a text is important, either to themselves, or to a group, and reiterate that all meaning is flexible. This emphasis on development, reflection, and identifying not just content, but how we approach and understand content, has become the primary focus of contemporary writing instruction. This theoretical centre, which is so closely aligned with threshold concepts, asks students to shift both their skills and their identities into territory that is deeply uncomfortable for them. THRESHOLD CONCEPTS AND TEACHING IN CONTEXT

As a skills developer at the University of Warwick, Erika’s work involves both planning individual writing and research curricula across multiple graduate-level departments as well as developing one-off workshops open to all taught graduate students in the university. Previously her role as a researcher developer at the University of Birmingham involved planning and delivering writing and academic skills workshops for postgraduates on research programmes, including one-off workshops and summer schools. These workshops brought students together from multiple disciplines. This generic approach is common in skills development in the UK and while it offers economies of scale, there are challenges in supporting students from so many different disciplines. This is especially the case in writing development, where discipline and genre are inextricably linked. For graduate students, the messy, non-linear process of research is reflected in the process of writing itself. Getting ‘stuck’ (Ellsworth, 1997) – a common occurrence when students encounter threshold concepts – can feel a lot like failure. Erika observed this in her writing workshops at the University of Birmingham where students spoke of feeling anxious, disrupted, and demotivated. These ‘stuck places’ in doctoral writing are outlined more fully by Johnson (2013). Johnson’s students reported being unable to make progress when writing up research data, identifying conceptual frameworks, or working with ‘academic’ English, areas that Erika’s students also identified as an issue of concern. Both Johnson’s group and Erika’s group struggled with ‘understanding the troublesome knowledge that must be understood within the conceptual space of doctoral writing’ (Johnson, 2013, p. 237) which led to long periods of being stuck and a resulting lack of confidence and writing motivation. Here, the threshold concept of ‘Developing Self-Efficacy’ 331

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(Johnson, 2013, p. 239) emerges as a key element in maintaining motivation and in creating a shift in identity from ‘student’ to ‘researcher’. With postgraduate writing, the writing itself becomes a threshold concept as students move towards mastery of the subject and generating new knowledge. They are developing doctoral-level arguments, working with theory, and experiencing the process-based nature of research and writing. In a ‘keeping going’ workshop, Erika used TCs as the theoretical framework to explore writer’s block and writing anxieties, drawing on the work of Kiley (2009). Doctoral students related confusion and anxiety around ‘doctoral level’ arguments and research, integrating theory, or understanding the iterative process of research writing. Kiley’s TCs of ‘argument or thesis, theory or model, and framework’ (Kiley, 2009, p. 300) were used to illustrate and explore these moments where students failed to make progress. These sticking points were identified as observable and predictable moments in learning, rather than personal moments of failure. Students then discussed specific ‘stuck points’ in a paired exercise. They were able to start to see these stuck moments as moments of possibility, and all reported feeling more confident in their ability to deal with writing setbacks in the future. As shown in feedback comments below, Erika’s students particularly valued the opportunity to talk through and discuss stuck points and to think more broadly about why they happened. This may point to the unspoken nature of many threshold concepts in doctoral writing and suggests that we should find more ways for students to benefit from these moments of discussion in order that they can ‘talk out’ their frustrations and feelings of liminality. This workshop really exceeded my expectations! Great to have a competant [sic] facilitator, interesting contents and a brilliant balance between interactive and non-interactive components. I have so many new ideas now! (Student feedback, 4 December 2014) I found the opportunity to discuss writing problems with peers/the course leader very useful. (Student feedback 10 February 2015) I like the idea there is enough time for discussion (Student feedback 6 May 2015).3 Threshold concepts in writing are particularly useful for educators working outside academic departments or in cross-disciplinary settings, enabling students to think about their writing process and discuss them with students from different fields. Students who saw their difficulties with writing and research as evidence that they did not fit into the institution instead began to reframe them as liminal moments in the shift in identity to what Trafford and Lesham (2009) have referred to as ‘doctorateness’. Tekla sees similar responses in her student self-reflections. She began teaching in the Writing and Language Studies Department at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in Fall 2015. While student success rates were high, early student 332

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feedback indicated students sometimes found the primary concepts of the courses too abstract. This feedback indicated a higher level of discomfort than she wanted, and showed that while they were learning the skills required, they were not always sure why they were learning them. If the students fully understood that they could regularly occupy areas of academic uncertainty and that this was vital to their progress, it would certainly not feel abstract or separate from their work but would become a key aspect of their scholarly identity. That this was happening in classes that were themselves focused on writing about writing, when it had not happened at her previous university, inspired her search for identifying factors and remedies. She first introduced threshold concepts to Technical Writing, a 25-student lecture and practicum course which primarily comprised Computer Science majors. This upper-level course fulfils writing requirements for students across multiple majors, and the level of anxiety students bring to the course is very high. In an informal survey at the beginning of the term, over 90% of students openly said that they were ‘not good at writing’. When asked for further information, they were open about being uncomfortable with the ambiguity of writing and writing assessment, especially as compared to their computer courses where ‘It’s easy to tell if I’m right’. Three sections from Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies (Adler-Kassner & Wardle, 2015) were assigned during the course: ‘Writing Expresses and Shares Meaning’, ‘Writing Creates and Enacts Identities and Ideologies’, and ‘Genres Are Enacted by Writers and Readers’. Tekla referred back to threshold concepts (TCs) as an idea, and TCs helped ground the course frequently during class discussions. Like many writing instructors, Tekla builds threshold concepts into her assignments and assessments, drawing on the history of process and meta-discourse in writing studies. The class was assessed via a learning portfolio, a standard part of Tekla’s practice. Initially, she was slightly concerned that, having used TCs so explicitly in the course, students might view TCs as a kind of threshold concepts checklist – a kind of thing to be memorised and then discarded after the end of the semester (Adler-Kassner & Wardle, 2015). However, while students did not mention threshold concepts as such in their portfolios, they self-reported making strong connections between the ‘abstract’ theory and the way they viewed more general learning by the end of the semester.4 One student described the writing studies threshold of shared meaning as part of their final reflective essay on the course: First you asked us to define Technical Communication and through a lot of patience from your part eventually we agreed on a couple of things. It involved expressing your purpose, being concise, and clear. We were vaguely correct, but a lot of us weren’t aware of one very important thing, things mean different things to different people. This to me, and I imagine to others was baffling! How could we have missed something so trivial all these years! I always struggled to communicate with others including 333

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family and friends and always wondered why; but I never arrived at that essential conclusion. Now our goal of the class shifted toward understand how our audience defines things, because ultimately that is what determines how concise your writing can be without losing clarity. Then I discovered that my suspicions were true, genre is defined by both the writers and readers. It’s created by our natural desire to categorise things in order to understand the world around us, a sort of habitual response to recurring situations. Since our definition of things can be based on other things and can be modified by new knowledge, genre can be created or adjusted over time, so genre is only relatively stable. Furthermore, we started looking into the deeper implications of genre and realised it’s defined by a group of writers and readers, a sort of community. Another, after a discussion on the different kinds of texts we read throughout the semester, identified that we create ideologies through writing and reading: [in my blog] I wrote ‘Talking about commonplaces … made me realise that we live surrounded by commonplaces …. They are like ideologies, they just appear out of nowhere ruling our daily lives’. I still think the same about them, I did my short analysis about a trash container and now I see them everywhere, when I see them all I think are common places about it. I enjoyed doing this assignment because it just made me think a lot. Another student reflected on the larger idea of threshold concepts, that pieces can and must be put in place before new and more advanced practices can be completed; this was a direct contradiction to the ‘I’m not good at writing’ statements made at the beginning of the term. At first [the assignments] felt very bizarre and didn’t make much sense. However, now I am beginning to see the connection between everything. […] In putting all this into practice I have begun to like the quality of my work more. This is, like Hawkins says, ‘doing the thing’. They are all little processes of a bigger process. It is about doing the thing for every little thing, and when put together we are able to do the greater thing, which in the end is understanding what we were moving towards since the beginning. As a teacher, several things stand out about these entries which are representative of the rest of the course portfolios. The first is the authority with which students are describing their own work; whether they did well or poorly in the class as a whole, the students were able to identify clearly exactly what they did. Relatedly, they wrote a lot; this set of portfolios was considerably longer than Tekla had received in the past. Finally, while in the past students have articulated the relationships between their assignments and skill development, this group was able to reflect more clearly and more adeptly about their learning and the course concepts than students in 334

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Tekla’s previous classes could. For example, by the end of the semester, they agreed without question that audience changed language, an idea many of them had not considered before. By normalising the process of learning and writing as lumpy, sticky, and troublesome, threshold concepts give our students a vocabulary to talk through barriers of understanding. They offer us a way of examining and framing writing and research, and of reconceptualising stuck places as learning moments. Whether in an undergraduate or postgraduate context, we find that threshold concepts enable us to talk about writing as a process of exploration and discovery, rather than funnelling students into one ‘correct’ or ‘right’ way. In turn, students learn that even the most abstract ideas can be broken down into a set of steps and labelled ideas; by utilising threshold concepts, students can help bridge the gap between the kind of ‘safe’ content-based learning they’re familiar with and the research they are doing in their new environments. For non-traditional students, this move toward research itself as an activity they can navigate allows them to see themselves as active participants in their courses, their own learning processes, and the larger system of the university. THRESHOLD CONCEPTS AND SYSTEMIC CHANGE In addition to the course and workshop-level work described above, we’ve found ourselves traversing our own threshold concepts as tutors and educational developers in facilitating change processes (Timmermans, 2014) in our departments and practices. Faculty redesign of learning outcomes, from a top-down model to a process approach, is made possible through TCs at RGV. At Warwick, a significant redesign of Masters development is underpinned by emerging TCs. As a result of her ongoing work in writing across departments, Erika’s shift to a new role supporting one-year Masters students enables a rethinking of the institutional approach to Masters skills development, moving from generic bolton to curriculum-specific support. Research with students and staff, including a series of semi-structured interviews, has identified preliminary threshold concepts in Masters–level study. During interviews, faculty were asked to reflect on when Masters students slowed down or failed to progress. Through repeated discussion and conversation, Erika then drew out the implications of these moments and identified which were instrumental to both successful continuation of study and understanding of Masters-level learning, before arranging them around three broad themes. This semi-directed but still discursive approach was based on Johnson’s (2013) work identifying threshold concepts in doctoral spaces and is also similar to the approach taken by Adler-Kassner and Wardle (2016) in identifying threshold concepts in writing studies. Erika’s preliminary threshold concepts were remarkably consistent across disciplines. This suggests that they may describe fundamental elements of the nature and process of being a Masters student. While of course much more work needs to be done with wider populations to fully confirm if these stuck places are truly threshold

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concepts, the early results are interesting precisely because of this uniformity across very different disciplines. The concepts identified were: Writing the Dissertation: finding an authentic ‘Masters’ voice; understanding referencing as part of the academic conversation; framing questions; the uncertainty of independent research; incorporation of theory; forming and sustaining an argument in long-form writing. Cultures: understanding the unwritten rules of departmental culture; cross-cultural work in groups; transition from directed undergraduate culture to independent Masters culture. Mastery: What it is to be Masters student; shift in identity and expectations and how the work is viewed and framed; moving away from ‘taught-to’ to ‘investigation and discovery’; acknowledgment of uncertainty; expectations around reading, preparing for seminars, and making own decisions. The development programme is shaped around these concepts, representing a significant change in approach and content. The project is in its early stages but initial informal feedback is positive. Using threshold concepts as the framework seems to enable easier embedding within the programme and links to existing objectives as both (framework and programme) focus on the process of learning to ‘be’ a Masters student. The concepts offer a way of thinking holistically about the programme, moving away from ‘bolt-on’ concepts of discrete skills and towards process-based learning and writing. For students, faculty, and staff, this is a significant change; the previous model of sending ‘remedial’ students away to workshops meant that both the student’s difficulties and the people who dealt with them were less important than faculty leading lectures (Bailey, 2013). At the University of Texas RGV, the Writing and Language Studies (WLS) department was able, as part of its placement in a newly created institution, to articulate its own goals and principles for faculty. As WLS split off from the Literature department, it was felt that a separation from the single-authored monograph model for tenure and promotion would also be appropriate. Although we are early in the new system, the department strongly encourages collaborative and multi-authored articles; multiple book chapters in anthologies; digital, visual and aural projects; and cross-disciplinary work. Furthermore, it values this kind of work just as much as book projects. While not perhaps extraordinary, this emphasis nevertheless indicates a foundation in the idea of writing and language itself as a process within and between communities and puts theory into practice in a way that many English and Rhetoric programmes in the United States struggle with. In part, this comes from a departmental buy-in to threshold concepts. Our FYC programme, which spans two semesters and serves approximately 6,500 students per year, demonstrates the value of threshold concepts for our institution; we developed a customised edition of Writing About Writing (2017), a composition theory text based in TCs, to further meet the needs of our non-traditional students. Finally, annual department workshops

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emphasise development and process for faculty as well as for students; the diversity of accepted projects encourages faculty at all levels to push toward their own areas of liminality, a position more frequently visited only by fully tenured professors. In both our cases, facilitating institutional change requires careful relationship building, advocacy, and the space to try and potentially fail. This mirrors the processes our own students go through in writing programmes. Comfort levels with higher education’s cultural norms is a key indicator of student success. While economic differences play a role in the alignment of college and student values, studies have shown that non-traditional students struggle with universities’ emphasis on independence, which runs counter to the typically interdependent structures non-traditional students experience in their non-academic lives (McKay & Devlin, 2014; O’Shea, 2016; Stephens, Fryberg, Markus, Johnson, & Covarrubias, 2012). This cultural mismatch leads to students feeling assignments are more difficult, and they perform poorly compared with their traditional counterparts. As Felten (2016) says, ‘to permanently cross a threshold, seminar students insisted, they needed to believe that they belonged on the other side’ (p. 6). While this is frequently a difficult advancement for all students, for students whose identities are already tenuous, complex, and loaded, believing they belong is especially challenging. For these groups, using threshold concepts in our writing instruction has been useful in reducing anxiety about the shifting identity that inevitably results from the occupation and reoccupation of liminal spaces of learning. In our departments, we see a similar shift in developing more visible connections between the core values of writing studies and the ways the departments are operating within the university itself. As with our students’ writing journeys, this shift is lumpy, sometimes troublesome, but ultimately (we hope) powerfully transformative. We can sometimes still feel our own identities as educators and academics are tenuous, just as our students find their identities as scholars and learners contested and difficult to claim. Threshold concepts offer us ways of seeing the possibilities inherent in stuck places and recognising the partnerships and advocacy needed to effect change. This piece, from the practice that inspired it to the writing of it, is one such model of partnership, and we hope it will inspire more. Writing is understanding developed through networks, and so distancing ourselves from a monolingual, monographic, monolithic model of success is to forcefully align ourselves with a university experience we believe in. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank the University of Birmingham for sharing feedback comments from workshops delivered by Erika Hawkes during her time there, the students of The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley for sharing their work, and the outside reviewers for their invaluable help in editing this piece.

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NOTES 1

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3

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In the United States, universities typically (but not always) run on a two-semester system that includes two 16-week terms, one in the autumn and one in the spring, with a month-long mid-winter break. Most universities also offer compressed classes during shortened summer semesters. Students usually take 3-6 classes that run the entirety of the semester, these are called courses. In the United Kingdom, most universities use a three-term system, having 11-week autumn, spring, and summer terms. United Kingdom universities use modules that may run for one or two terms, depending on the discipline or course of study. An assessed unit of study is typically referred to as a module in the UK, with ‘course’ being used more informally to refer to both one-off workshops: ‘a note-taking course’ and to shorter collections of classes: ‘a three-week project management course’. Writing has been considered a specific field of scholarship within United States English departments since at least the 1960s, and we have followed their model of using ‘courses’ to refer to a class that takes the entirety of a term or module to complete, regardless of its length. This is despite the growth of Professional Doctorates. PDs do typically incorporate some taught elements, but Mellors-Bourne et al. (2016) estimate no more than 8,300 students were enrolled on PDs in England in 2016. As this represents only 9% of the overall doctoral student population the UK doctoral experience can still be characterised as much more non-directed than the US approach. Anonymous student feedback was gathered at the end of each workshop using a standard paper form. Students were asked to indicate consent for quotations to be reproduced elsewhere, including in reports. If this consent was not given the feedback was not recorded and the paper form destroyed. Students in the course sign a general release form indicating their work may be used anonymously.

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BEGINNING TO SEE THE CONNECTION BETWEEN EVERYTHING Engle, J., & Tinto, V. (2008). Moving beyond access College success for first generation, low income Students. The Pell Institute. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED504448.pdf Felten, P. (2016). On the threshold with students. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & M. T. Flanagan (Eds.), Threshold concepts in practice (pp. 3–9). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Haas, C., & Flowers, L. (1988). Rhetorical reading strategies and the construction of meaning. College Composition and Communication, 39(2), 167–183. doi:10.2307/358026 Hart-Davidson, B. (2015). Genres are enacted by writers and readers. In L. Adler-Kassner & E. Wardle (Eds.), Naming what we know (pp. 39–40). Logan: Utah State University Press. Johnson, E. M. (2013). ‘Previously I thought I was writing’: Reflections on doctoral writing spaces. In S. Frielick, N. Buissink-Smith, P. Wyse, J. Billot, J. Hallas, & E. Whitehead (Eds.), Research and development in higher education The place of learning and teaching (Vol. 36. pp. 233–242). Auckland: HERDSA. Kiley, M. (2009). Identifying threshold concepts and proposing strategies to support doctoral candidates. Innovations in Teaching and Learning International, 46(3), 293–304. doi:10.1080/14703290903069001 Kim, Y. K., & Sax, L. J. (2009). Student–faculty interaction in research universities: Differences by student gender, race, social class, and first-generation status. Research in Higher Education, 50(5), 437–459. doi:10.1007/s11162-009-9127-x McKay, J., & Devlin, M. (2014). ‘Uni has a different language … to the real world’: Demystifying academic culture and discourse for students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Higher Education Research & Development, 33(5), 949–961. doi:10.1080/07294360.2014.890570 Mellors-Bourne, R., Robinson, C., & Metcalfe, J. (2016). Provision of professional doctorates in English HE Institutions CRAC/University of Brighton. Retrieved from http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/rereports/ year/2016/profdoc/ Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (2003). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: Linkages to ways of thinking and practising. In C. Rust (Ed.), Improving student learning – Ten years on. Oxford: OCSLD. Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (2005). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (2): Epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning. Higher Education, 49, 373–388. doi:10.1007/s10734-004-6779-5 Murray, D. (2003). Teaching writing as a process, not product. In V. Villanueva (Ed.), Cross talk in comp theory (2nd ed., pp. 3–6). Urbana, IL: NCTE. (Reprinted from The Leaflet, November 1972, pp. 11–14.) Perkins, D. (2006). Constructivism and troublesome knowledge. In J. H. F. Meyer & R. Land (Eds.), Overcoming barriers to student understanding (pp. 33–47). London: Routledge. Ruecker, T. (2013). High-stakes testing and Latina/o students: Creating a hierarchy of college readiness. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 12(4), 303–320. doi:10.1177/1538192713493011 Scott, T. (2015). Writing enacts and creates identities and ideologies. In L. Adler-Kassner & E. Wardle (Eds.), Naming what we know (pp. 48–50). Logan: Utah State University Press. Stephens, N. M., Fryberg, S., Markus, H. R., Johnson, C. S., & Covarrubias, R. (2012). Unseen disadvantage: How American universities’ focus on independence undermines the academic performance of first-generation college students. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(6), 1178–1197. doi:10.1037/a0027143 Strauss, P., Goodfellow, R., & Puxley, M. (2009). A contextualised online writing support system: Creating the links between generic skills and the discipline. In R. J. Atkinson & C. McBeath (Eds.), Proceedings Ascilite (2009) Same places, different spaces. Auckland: The University of Auckland, Auckland University of Technology, and Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education. Retrieved from http://oro.open.ac.uk/27779/ Tagg, C. (2015). The multilingual university: What it is and how we might realise it. Researching Education and Language. Retrieved from http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/researching-education-andlanguage/?p=285 The Education Trust. (2013). Finding America’s missing AP and IB students. Washington, DC: The Education Trust. C. Theokas & R. Saaris. Thomas, L. (2002). Student retention in higher education: The role of institutional habitus. Journal of Education Policy, 17(4), 423–442. doi:10.1080/02680930210140257

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E. HAWKES & T. HAWKINS Timmermans, J. A. (2014). Identifying threshold concepts in the careers of educational developers. International Journal of Academic Development, 19(4), 305–317. doi:10.1080/1360144X.2014.895731 Trafford, V., & Lesham, S. (2009). Doctorateness as a threshold concept. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 46(3), 305–316. doi:10.1080/14703290903069027 Universities UK. (2016). Higher education facts and figures. Retrieved from ac.uk/facts-and-stats/dataand-analysis/Documents/facts-and-figures-2016.pdf U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2016). Chapter 3. In Digest of Education Statistics, 2014 (NCES 2016-006). Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/ d14/ch_3.asp Wingate, U. (2006). Doing away with ‘study skills’. Teaching in Higher Education, 11(4), 457–469. doi:10.1080/13562510600874268 Wingate, U., Andon, N., & Cogo, A. (2011). Embedding academic writing instruction into subject teaching: A case study. Active Learning in Higher Education, 12(1), 69–81. doi:10.1177/1469787410387814 Witkowsky, P., Mendez, S., Ogunbowo, O., Clayton, G., & Hernandez, N. (2016). Nontraditional student perceptions of collegiate inclusion. The Journal of Continuing Higher Education, 64(1), 30–41. doi:10.1080/07377363.2016.1130581

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24. UNDERSTANDING WRITING TRANSFER AS A THRESHOLD CONCEPT ACROSS THE DISCIPLINES

ABSTRACT

Teaching in higher education operates under the premise that what students learn in one course module will function as prior knowledge they can repurpose and apply in subsequent course modules. This chapter examines such transfer of learning as a threshold concept (Meyer & Land, 2005) for faculty and students, specifically examining the curricular and pedagogical implications of understanding writing transfer as troublesome and transformative (Adler-Kassner & Wardle, 2015; Moore, 2017). INTRODUCTION

Most higher education is designed with a foundational premise that students will transfer knowledge from course module to course module and from the curricular programme to their subsequent careers and lives as citizens. Some degree programmes have prerequisites for upper-level course modules under the assumption that students need to acquire prior knowledge from lower-level modules and repurpose that knowledge as the basis for continued learning in the field. Other programmes require students to take course modules in a specific sequence, arguing that students need prior knowledge from certain course modules before enrolling in others. Regardless of the curriculum design, teaching in higher education operates within the broad assumption that what one learns here can transfer over there. But what do we really know about transfer, in general, and what are the implications of this concept for learning, teaching, and curriculum/programme design in higher education? We argue that – despite being a foundational premise for much of higher education – transfer is a threshold concept for both faculty and students. Many students, as the research synthesised below demonstrates, fail to imagine that transfer is possible, seeing much of what they learn at university to be relevant only within the walls of a particular classroom. Recognising the possibility of transfer can cause students to fundamentally reimagine both the purposes of higher education and the role of a student as learner. In similar ways, understanding the centrality of transfer in learning acts like a portal for faculty, transforming the ways that they think about

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004419971_024

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students, teaching, and curricula. Because many faculty are accustomed to focusing on student performance in discrete course modules, provided they can account for assessment and accountability regimes specific to their geographic location, they often view students’ unsuccessful transfer attempts as lack of knowledge about the module content rather than as attempted reapplications of prior knowledge; at the same time, faculty’s disciplinary lenses make it difficult for them to identify opportunities for students’ interdisciplinary transfer of prior knowledge (Moore, 2012). In short, transfer is troublesome and transformative for both students and faculty in higher education (King & Felten, 2012). After introducing transfer theories, we look specifically at emerging research on writing transfer – briefly, the transformation of prior writing knowledge for use in new writing contexts – and the characteristics that lead us to identify it as a threshold concept. Recognising writing transfer as a threshold concept has significant implications for how faculty across the disciplines teach and how all academic programmes organise curricula. Writing is both an essential capacity developed in higher education regardless of discipline (Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2007) and also an essential ‘mode of learning’ within and across disciplines (Emig, 1977, p. 122). Because of this dual role, insights into writing transfer should shape the teaching and the curriculum of diverse academic programmes, which is why we conclude by examining the broad implications for higher education of writing transfer as a threshold concept. A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO TRANSFER THEORIES

Transfer refers to using prior knowledge in a routinised way, and for many scholars, it functions as an umbrella term, encompassing an array of theories about the phenomenon of repurposing or transforming prior knowledge for use in a new context. Haskell writes, Transfer refers to how previous learning influences current and future learning, and how past or current learning is applied or adapted to similar or novel situations. Transfer, then, isn’t so much an instructional and learning technique as a way of thinking, perceiving, and processing information. (2001, p. 23) Perkins and Salomon (1988) add descriptive terms – near and far transfer, high road and low road transfer – to compare the contexts in which learners acquire knowledge and apply that prior knowledge and to describe the type of transformations prior knowledge must undergo for successful transfer. Near transfer occurs when the learning context and the target context are very similar, while far transfer occurs when the learning context and the target context are very dissimilar. In turn, low road transfer occurs when characteristics of the target context are so similar that they trigger extensively practised skills. In contrast, high road transfer requires mindful abstraction of prior knowledge to apply it to the new context.

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To build on these descriptive terms, other scholars have introduced additional transfer theories that attempt to better capture the complexity of these near/far and low/ high distinctions. Beach (2003), for example, describes knowledge generalisation as a transition across a social space and time. Transitions are consequential when they are ‘consciously reflected on, struggled with, and shift[s] the individual’s sense of self or social position. Thus, consequential transitions link identity with knowledge propagation’ (Beach, 2003, p. 42). This link between transfer and identity contributes to the troublesomeness of transfer that we will discuss below. Tuomi-Gröhn and Engeström (2003) extend the idea of transfer as a transition by describing learners as boundary-crossers who employ ‘boundary objects’, tools that develop at the intersections of discrete contexts or activity systems to facilitate interaction between and across these systems. A student who had studied demographics, for instance, might be able to transfer her analytical approaches to population data for very different purposes and in new contexts when she took a job with an advertising agency. Such boundary-crossing ‘involves encountering difference, entering into territory in which we are unfamiliar and, to some extent therefore, unqualified. In the face of such obstacles, boundary-crossing seems to require significant cognitive retooling’ (Tuomi-Gröhn & Engeström, 2003, p. 4). This description of the process learners undertake when they successfully transfer knowledge, transition, or cross context boundaries hints at the transformative nature of transfer. EMERGING RESEARCH ON WRITING TRANSFER

As a concrete example of transfer’s centrality to higher education and the characteristics that lead us to identify it as threshold concept, we turn now to writing transfer. Writing transfer refers, broadly, to a writer’s ability to repurpose or transform prior knowledge about writing for a new audience, purpose, and context. In the United States, most colleges and universities have curricular structures that assume students will be able to transfer writing knowledge from required first-year writing course modules to course modules both in general education programmes and their major fields of study. In turn, faculty often assume that students will transfer disciplinary writing knowledge from lower-level course modules in their majors to their capstone, or cumulative and integrative, course modules and projects, demonstrating an awareness of disciplinary expectations for genres (e.g., lab reports, literature reviews, comparative essays, historiographical essays, etc.), styles (e.g., active or passive voice, use of tense, etc.), integration of evidence, citations, and other components of writing knowledge. These assumptions about writing across the curriculum have prompted writing studies scholars to revisit writing transfer and to examine student and faculty perceptions of writing transfer, the types of writing knowledge students need to transfer to succeed in subsequent writing tasks, student dispositions that contribute

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to successful transfer, and curricular or contextual factors that might scaffold successful transfer. Emerging research suggests six key findings. Students Do Not Expect Their Writing Knowledge to Cross Contexts The participants in studies by McCarthy (1987), Bergmann and Zepernick (2007), and Driscoll (2011) all identified writing for first-year composition (FYC) as distinct from writing in the disciplines. On the surface, that is not an inappropriate conception of writing, since we want students to understand that writing should be responsive to ‘different audiences in different disciplines’ (Association of American of Colleges and Universities, 2007, p. 53). Unfortunately, the students in these studies did not identify the writing strategies learned and practised in first year composition as relevant and applicable to writing in the disciplines. As Bergmann and Zepernick write, the primary obstacle to such transfer is not that students are unable to recognise situations outside FYC in which those skills can be used, but that students do not look for situations because they believe that skills learned in FYC have no value in any other setting. (2007, p. 139) Faculty Don’t Expect Students’ FYC Writing Strategies to Transfer Either Although many faculty across the curriculum expect students to develop sufficient writing knowledge in one or two semesters of a dedicated writing course, often in students’ first year of study, Writing Intensive faculty (e.g., in the U.S. context, faculty who teach courses in their degree programmes that are designated to have significant writing requirements) in Nelms and Dively’s (2007) study expressed concern about lack of transfer from these types of course modules. The faculty participants also asserted that they did not have time to incorporate writing assignments and instruction into their course modules. Perhaps we should not be surprised, then, that participants in Wardle’s ‘Understanding Transfer’ (2007) study encountered few opportunities to use their writing knowledge in their first two years of college beyond first-year composition. When students do encounter opportunities to write in the disciplines, both Nelms and Dively’s (2007) and Nowacek’s (2011) studies suggest that differences in writing terminology between first-year composition and the disciplines can compromise students’ writing transfer attempts. Genre Knowledge Is Important but Not Sufficient on Its Own to Facilitate Writing Transfer Clark and Hernandez’s (2011) research suggests that understanding of genre makes students less anxious about writing. However learning genre conventions, and how those conventions vary across writing contexts, is a complex task. A lab report 344

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written in high school chemistry, for instance, may share only a few characteristics with a lab report required in a university-level introductory chemistry lab, and neither likely resembles the lab reports that members of research labs use to track experiments and update lab colleagues. Part of learning about genres, therefore, is learning when they are different from prior genres the writer has used, an idea that Reiff and Bawarshi (2011) call ‘not-talk’. They suggest that one part of repurposing prior writing knowledge is recognising when a new task calls on writers to compose a genre that’s unlike a genre composed before. In other words, successful transfer requires writers to recognise when the new task is not a five-paragraph essay, not a literary analysis, not a lab report (or not the same kind of lab report), not a memo, and so forth. Beaufort (2007) cautions, though, that genre knowledge should be accompanied by knowledge about: writing processes, disciplinary subject matter, adapting writing for specific audiences and purposes, and disciplinary conventions for writing. Brent (2012) and Yancey, Robertson, and Taczak (2014) echo Beaufort’s claim that successful writing transfer requires more than genre knowledge. Brent studied students’ writing experiences in a co-operative education programme and suggests that students most successfully transfer writing knowledge when they both receive instruction in rhetorical strategies – ‘how to extract genre features from models, how to analyse an audience, and how to use genre knowledge to interpret information’ – and have opportunities to test and adapt those strategies in ‘a complex rhetorical environment in which they must rapidly adapt to competing rhetorical exigencies’ (2012, p. 590). Yancey, Robertson, and Taczak (2014) offer additional insight into what this rhetorical education might look like. Their comprehensive list of necessary writing knowledge includes key rhetorical terms like audience, genre, rhetorical situation, exigency, critical analysis, discourse community, and context. Further, their research suggests that students who develop their own theories of writing encompassing these terms and who have opportunities to reflect on their learning and writing throughout the composing processes for assignments are more likely to transfer their writing knowledge across contexts (Robertson & Taczak, 2017; Yancey, Robertson, & Taczak, 2014). Reflection and Meta-Awareness Activities Offer Bridging Structures for Students’ Writing Transfer Perkins and Salomon (1988) use the term ‘bridging’ to identify teaching activities that support high road transfer – transfer that requires ‘mindful abstraction’ of knowledge from one context to another. Nelms and Dively (2007) speculate that reflective activities built into transfer studies might facilitate transfer that otherwise would not have happened. Yet more and more, writing transfer scholars are seeking ways to integrate reflective activities into all writing across the curriculum. Wardle (2007, 2009) advocates investigating how writing curricula can promote opportunities for meta-awareness (e.g., reflection about writing strategies, reflection about how to 345

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learn about and adapt for different audiences’ expectations, etc.), and Nowacek (2011) refers to students as ‘agents of integration’ to emphasise the role of intentional, meta-awareness in facilitating high road transfer. Drawing from a 2011–2013 multiinstitutional study of writing transfer, Moore further identifies ‘asking students to engage in activities that foster the development of metacognitive awareness, and explicitly modelling transfer-focused thinking’ as essential components of teaching for transfer (2017, pp. 7–8). Curricular Contexts can Foster Writing Transfer Students in Bergmann and Zepernick’s (2007) study were more likely to accept disciplinary conventions in writing and to identify writing strategies as generalisable if they learned the strategies in Writing in the Disciplines (WID) course modules. Their work does not preclude a value-added effect from the first-year writing course modules common at U.S. universities, but their findings do suggest that students need to re-encounter rhetorical strategies and writing knowledge at multiple points across the university curriculum. Students likely derive the most benefit from this type of intentional writing across the curriculum design when faculty use common vocabulary and bridging strategies to help students identify that their prior knowledge is relevant to the new situation (Nelms & Dively, 2007). Dispositions Play a Key Role in Successful Writing Transfer Student and faculty perceptions about writing transfer, the identification of critical writing knowledge, and curricular structures that foster rhetorical strategies and meta-cognition all inform the likelihood of successful writing transfer. As Driscoll and Wells (2012) emphasise, though, the writer also has a key role in writing transfer. Dispositions – not knowledge, skills, and aptitude, but the ways writers access and use intellectual traits – can ‘determine students’ sensitivity toward and willingness to engage in transfer’ (Driscoll & Wells, 2012). Driscoll and Wells (2012) further caution that dispositions can have positive or negative impacts on writing transfer, and they can be context-specific or more generalised, but ‘value, self-efficacy, attribution, and self-regulation’ notably impact writers’ motivation to transfer and repurpose prior knowledge for new writing contexts. WRITING TRANSFER AS A THRESHOLD CONCEPT

Although central to learning to write across disciplines and contexts, writing transfer is a threshold concept for both students and faculty. The research cited above highlights writing transfer’s troublesomeness for students. Yet once students recognise that what they learned about writing in one context might be adaptable to another context, their conception of writing is transformed. Anson and Forsberg (1990) showcase this transformation among students in writing internships who 346

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moved from periods of expectation for writing in their new internship contexts to a period of frustration and finally to accommodation as they learned how to adapt their prior writing knowledge for the new context. Anson and Forsberg call this final stage ‘resolution – the integration of self and role as the writer becomes more comfortable within the context …. At this point, the writers seemed able to assess and internalise the gains they had made and to value them as growth and learning’ (1990, pp. 222– 223). In other words, once students successfully moved through the conflicts created by repurposing prior writing knowledge for their new writing contexts, the resolution transformed their sense of self and reflected their internalisation of writing transfer strategies. Writing transfer is similarly troublesome and transformative for faculty. Nelms and Dively (2007) demonstrate that, like their students, faculty do not anticipate that their students will be able to transfer writing knowledge from first-year writing to faculty’s course modules across the curriculum. As a result, they may not notice students’ transfer attempts or may misinterpret unsuccessful transfer attempts as lack of effort or lack of content knowledge, rather than as an attempt to adapt prior writing knowledge for the new writing context (Nowacek, 2011). The transformation that faculty experience when they come to terms with the concept of writing transfer is demonstrated by writing studies scholar Elizabeth Wardle’s scholarship trajectory. Wardle (2007, 2009) became disenchanted with first-year writing assignments that did not seem to scaffold students’ later repurposing of writing knowledge for new contexts. As a result, she shifted her focus to assignments with authentic purposes for writing that were more likely to facilitate the development of and practice with transferable writing knowledge (Wardle, 2009); for example, Wardle (2009) proposed teaching students how to analyse genres of writing rather than assigning first-year students writing assignments focused on producing inauthentic genres (like the five paragraph essay) that do not exist beyond the first-year writing classroom. Wardle then partnered with a colleague on a Writing about Writing curriculum that more explicitly teaches students the writing terms and concepts they need in order to analyse and respond effectively to new writing situations (Wardle & Downs, 2011, 2014). The second edition of Wardle and Downs’ (2014) textbook explicitly introduces students to threshold concepts of writing, further demonstrating Wardle’s commitment to preparing students with the concepts, language, and tools they need to analyse new writing contexts and to respond to them by repurposing their prior writing knowledge. BEYOND WRITING STUDIES: PEDAGOGICAL AND CURRICULAR IMPLICATIONS OF WRITING TRANSFER AS A THRESHOLD CONCEPT

What does this research mean for faculty outside of writing studies? As Perkins reminds us, ‘Transfer often comes hard’ (2008, p. 11). Any knowledge or capacity developed in one setting often lies fallow in other contexts. This is true in general of transfer, and it might be particularly true of writing for students in disciplines beyond 347

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literature and communications. Students often come to higher education with largely tacit knowledge of writing and also with somewhat fixed mindsets about their own skills as writers (‘I am not a good writer’). The writing habits and beliefs students bring to our classrooms complicate the already difficult task of writing transfer, but Perkins assures us that ‘Transfer is not a lost cause. Transfer falters largely because typical learning experiences do not foster it’ (2008, p. 11). Further, leading scholars agree that faculty in writing studies and faculty across the disciplines can – and should – teach for writing transfer (Center for Engaged Learning, 2015). As Maimon (2018) argues as she recounts the success of the Writing Across the Curriculum movement in U.S. higher education, ‘Writing is a complex capacity integrally related to learning and thinking … more than merely transactional, more than something to be covered by the English department in a single course’ (p. 43). Commensurate with writing’s significance to learning (e.g., writing to learn, see The WAC Clearinghouse, 2018) and to daily life, including civic and workplace contexts, writing instruction and practice merits space in course modules throughout students’ programmes of study, fostering opportunities for students to grapple with writing transfer. In our teaching and in our academic programmes, then, we need to challenge and support students to work through the troublesome nature of writing transfer. Research suggests we can do that effectively in individual classes and throughout our curricula by: (1) Teaching to support writing transfer Writing transfer is troublesome for most students. Not only do they struggle to transfer writing capacities from one setting to another, but they often do not even recognise that they could and should make that transfer. To help students cross this threshold, supporting writing transfer should be a goal in our course modules and curricula. Research suggests that working throughout the curriculum toward this goal is essential because crossing the threshold requires students to become proficient not only in writing but also in appropriately transferring their writing knowledge and skills into diverse contexts. (2) Giving students frequent practice and feedback on progressively more complex writing tasks Because transfer is hard, students need to work at it, and they need expert guidance and constructive criticism on their evolving skill and understandings. They need to become capable of and confident at near transfer in their writing, developing proficiency with familiar genres and writing knowledge. At the same time, they need structured and scaffolded practice in tackling far transfer, using their writing knowledge in distinctly different contexts. This development as writers requires regular writing and feedback. It also requires a progression of writing tasks within classes and across a programme of study that become more challenging as students’ 348

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capacities and confidence grow. In a curriculum that enacted what we know about writing transfer, introductory course modules would focus on near and lowroad transfer, giving students the chance to build a solid writing foundation with relatively familiar disciplinary writing tasks. As students move into more advanced course modules, their writing assignments also should progress toward far and highroad transfer, requiring them to critically integrate their disciplinary learning to produce writing that is both conceptually and structurally more sophisticated. Yet that progression should not rely solely on the assignment of more complex writing tasks; it also requires opportunities for students to reflect back on what prior writing knowledge might be adaptable for the new writing context. (3) Being explicit with students that our writing assignments are designed to help them develop transferable knowledge and capacities Since one of the barriers to writing transfer is student recognition that they are learning something transferable, faculty can help students develop as writers by being more explicit about what they will learn in our classes. However, transfer is difficult, so simply telling students about writing transfer likely will not be sufficient on its own. Instead, students need to understand the connections between their current writing assignments and their future writing, either in their major or beyond the university. Making these connections visible requires not only giving clear, purposeful writing assignments, but also helping students see their work as building toward a larger goal such as the capacity to perform a certain kind of disciplinary analysis or to write in a specific genre. Portfolios might be a particularly effective tool in reaching these goals because ‘they allow learners to make connections among varied learning experiences and transfer knowledge and skills to new contexts and situations’ (Penny Light, Chen, & Ittelson, 2012, p. 69). They also open a space for students to reflect on how their newly gained writing knowledge might be applicable to future writing contexts. (4) Prompting students to be reflective and meta-cognitive about their own writing and about themselves as writers Research demonstrates the essential role of meta-cognition in students’ capacity to develop as writers (see, for example, Yancey, Robertson, & Taczak, 2014). Students need to learn to see themselves as writers who have the knowledge and expertise necessary to write effectively for different audiences and in diverse genres. Prompting students to cultivate reflective habits about their own writing is crucial in this development. Within course modules and across the curriculum, students should be asked not only to write but also to think about the kinds of writing they are doing and the writing processes they are using. In introductory course modules, reflective activities like these should be structured to help students make sense of what, how, and why they are writing. As students move more deeply into a discipline, their 349

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meta-cognitive assignments should link explicitly to disciplinary forms of writing and thinking. By the time they graduate, students should be able to do this sort of reflection unprompted, recognising this activity as a central part of any writing they might do. One approach to supporting this development is to encourage students to not simply outline their writing but to prepare ‘design plans’ that include explicit attention to audience, genre, and purpose along with the content and argument of a student’s paper (Hall, Danielewicz, & Ware, 2013). (5) Measuring student progress related to writing transfer, and adjusting our teaching to support students crossing this threshold Because writing transfer is complex, evaluation processes need to be nuanced. The most effective techniques for judging student proficiency analyse not only writing samples from individual course modules, but also student texts written for different audiences and in different genres for writing contexts across the curriculum. At the same time, because meta-cognitive awareness is a fundamental component of writing transfer, student reflections on their writing processes also provide an important perspective in any measurement scheme. Portfolios can be one effective tool for this approach to evaluation because they can incorporate multiple pieces of disciplinary writing along with guided reflection on the processes used to create that writing and the student’s perception of the quality of the writing and the writing knowledge acquired. Systematically adopting these five practices not only will help students cross the threshold of writing transfer, but also will support students to ‘integrate their learning across contexts and over time’ (Huber & Hutchings, 2004, p. 1). That integrative approach to learning is one of the fundamental purposes of education. As Huber and Hutchings argue: ‘Learning that helps develop integrative capacities is important because it builds habits of mind that prepare students to make informed judgments in the conduct of personal, professional, and civic life’ (2004, p. 1). To cultivate those capacities, both our teaching and our curricula should focus on transfer as a central student learning goal. Students often fail to recognise the possibility of transfer from what they learn at university to life beyond campus. At a time when higher education has been harshly critiqued for lacking impact and value (e.g., Belfiore, 2014; Carey, 2015), we need to reassert the centrality of our work to the flourishing of both individuals and societies. The emerging research on writing transfer can serve as a guide as we think critically about how to help students learn – and faculty from across the disciplines to teach and design curricula – in ways that help all our students cross thresholds to new understandings. REFERENCES Adler-Kassner, L., & Wardle, E. (Eds.). (2015). Naming what we know Threshold concepts of writing studies. Logan: Utah State University Press.

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UNDERSTANDING WRITING TRANSFER AS A THRESHOLD CONCEPT Anson, C. M., & Forsberg, L. L. (1990). Moving beyond the academic community: Transitional stages in professional writing. Written Communication, 7(2), 200–231. doi:10.1177/0741088390007002002 Association of American Colleges and Universities. (2007). College learning for the new global century. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities. Beach, K. (2003). Consequential transitions: A developmental view of knowledge propagation through social organisations. In T. Tuomi-Gröhn & Y. Engeström (Eds.) Between school and work New perspectives on transfer and boundary-crossing (pp. 39–61). Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing. Beaufort, A. (2007). College writing and beyond A new framework for university writing instruction. Logan: Utah State University Press. Belfiore, E. (2014). ‘Impact’, ‘value’ and ‘bad economics’: Making sense of the problem of value in the arts and humanities. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 14, 95–110. doi:10.1177/ 1474022214531503 Bergmann, L. S., & Zepernick, J. (2007). Disciplinarity and transfer: Students’ perceptions of learning to write. Writing Program Administration, 31(1–2), 124–149. Brent, D. (2012). Crossing boundaries: Co-op students relearning to write. College Composition and Communication, 63(4), 558–592. Carey, K. (2015). The end of college Creating the future of learning and the university of everywhere. New York, NY: Riverhead Books. Center for Engaged Learning. (2015). Elon statement on writing transfer. Retrieved from http://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/elon-statement-on-writing-transfer/ Clark, I. L., & Hernandez, A. (2011). Genre awareness, academic argument, and transferability. The WAC Journal, 22. Retrieved from http://wac.colostate.edu/journal/vol22/clark.pdf Driscoll, D. L. (2011). Connected, disconnected, or uncertain: Student attitudes about future writing contexts and perceptions of transfer from first year writing to the disciplines. Across the Disciplines, 8(2). Retrieved from http://wac.colostate.edu/atd/articles/driscoll2011/index.cfm Driscoll, D., & Wells, J. (2012). Beyond knowledge and skills: Writing transfer and the role of student dispositions. Composition Forum, 26, n.p. Retrieved from http://compositionforum.com/issue/26/ beyond-knowledge-skills.php Emig, J. (1977). Writing as a mode of learning. College Composition and Communication, 28(2), 122–128. Hall, E. A., Danielewicz, J., & Ware, J. (2013). Design for writing: A metacognitive strategy for iterative drafting and revising. In M. Kaplan, N. Silver, D. Lavaque-Manty, & D. Meizlish (Eds.), Using reflection and metacognition to improve student learning Across the disciplines, across the academy. Sterling, VA: Stylus. Haskell, R. (2001). Transfer of learning Cognition, instruction, and reasoning. San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Huber, M., & Hutchings, P. (2004). Integrative learning Mapping the terrain. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities. King, C., & Felten, P. (2012). Threshold concepts in educational development. Journal of Faculty Development, 26(3), 5–7. Maimon, E. P. (2018). Leading academic change Vision, strategy, transformation. Sterling, VA: Stylus. McCarthy, L. P. (1987). A stranger in strange lands: A college student writing across the curriculum. Research in the Teaching of English, 21(3), 233–265. Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (2005). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: Epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning. Higher Education, 49(3), 363–388. Moore, J. L. (2012). Designing for transfer: A threshold concept. Journal of Faculty Development, 26(3), 19–24. Moore, J. L. (2017). Five essential principles about writing transfer. In J. L. Moore & R. Bass (Eds.), Understanding writing transfer Implications for transformative student learning in higher education (pp. 1–12). Sterling, VA: Stylus.

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J. L. MOORE & P. FELTEN Nelms, G., & Dively, R. L. (2007). Perceived roadblocks to transferring knowledge from first-year composition to writing-intensive major courses: A pilot study. WPA Writing Program Administration, 31(1–2), 214–240. Nowacek, R. S. (2011). Agents of integration Understanding transfer as a rhetorical act. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Penny Light, T., Chen, H. L., & Ittelson, J. C. (2012). Documenting learning with ePortfolios A guide for college instructors. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Perkins, D. (2008). Beyond understanding. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, & J. Smith (Eds.), Threshold concepts within the disciplines (pp. 3–19). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Perkins, D. N., & Salomon, G. (1988). Teaching for transfer. Educational Leadership, 46(1), 22–32. Reiff, M. J., & Bawarshi, A. (2011). Tracing discursive resources: How students use prior genre knowledge to negotiate new writing contexts in first-year composition. Written Communication, 28(3), 312–337. doi:10.1177/0741088311410183 Robertson, L., & Taczak, K. (2017). Teaching for transfer. In J. L. Moore & R. Bass (Eds.), Understanding writing transfer Implications for transformative student learning in higher education (pp. 93–102). Sterling, VA: Stylus. The WAC Clearinghouse. (2018). What is writing to learn? Retrieved from https://wac.colostate.edu/ intro/pop2d.cfm Tuomi-Gröhn, T., & Engeström, Y. (2003). Conceptualising transfer: From standard notions to developmental perspectives. In T. Tuomi-Gröhn & Y. Engeström (Eds.), Between school and work New perspectives on transfer and boundary-crossing (pp. 19–38). Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing. Wardle, E. (2007). Understanding “transfer” from FYC: Preliminary results from a longitudinal study. Writing Program Administration, 31(1–2), 65–85. Wardle, E. (2009). “Mutt genres” and the goal of FYC: Can we help students write the genres of the university? College Composition and Communication, 60(4), 765–789. Wardle, E., & Downs, D. (2011). Writing about writing A college reader. New York, NY: Bedford/ St. Martin’s. Wardle, E., & Downs, D. (2014). Writing about writing A college reader (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Bedford/St. Martin’s. Yancey, K. B., Robertson, L., & Taczak, K. (2014). Writing across contexts Transfer, composition, and sites of writing. Boulder, CO: Utah State University Press.

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25. EDGING TOWARDS THE THRESHOLD CONCEPT OF AUTONOMY IN LANGUAGE LEARNING AND TEACHING THROUGH A MOOC BLEND Becoming Autonomous Learners and Teachers

ABSTRACT

Autonomy has proven to be a troublesome concept for students enrolled on the MA in English Language Teaching at Coventry University (UK). In this study ‘expert students’ explore how a curricular MOOC blend can help to ‘scaffold’ this concept for their peers in collaboration with academic staff. This work presents a successful e-learning-supported ‘role-reversal’ model of student-driven threshold concept inquiry that could be applied to subjects other than language learning and teaching. INTRODUCTION

According to Davies (2006) learning is an act of identity formation. It could be argued that students who learn to become teachers and reflect on the nature of both becoming and being a teacher need to engage in a constant rethinking of their identity and beliefs. With particular reference to learning to become a language teacher, Kumaravadivelu (2012) states that language tutors must free themselves from the yoke of language teaching methods and language teaching textbooks and should aim to produce postmodern and postmethod context-specific pedagogic knowledge and practice. In order to do this, they should be supported in developing the knowledge, skills, attitude and authority necessary to become autonomous individuals. The topic of autonomy in language learning and teaching has been widely discussed in the field of applied linguistics (e.g., Benson, 2001, 2007; Benson, Chik, & Lim, 2003; Borg & Al-Busaidi, 2012; Dam, 1995; Little, 1995, 2007; Oxford, 2003; Ushioda, 1996) often with reference to how autonomy can be enhanced through technology (e.g., Reinders & White, 2016). Little (1991, p. 4, as cited in Ridley, 1997, p. 1) defines autonomy as a ‘capacity for detachment, critical reflection, decisionmaking, and independent action’. In keeping with Kumaravadivelu’s theorisation on autonomy (2012), Thorne argues that autonomy consists of ‘enhanced opportunities

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004419971_025

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for agency, identity formation, decision making, and taking control of your own learning’ (Little & Thorne, 2017, p. 27). As previously argued, blending a MOOC into existing curricula can enhance the development of teacher autonomy within a supportive social-collaborative e-leaning environment (Orsini-Jones, 2015; Orsini-Jones, Conde Gafaro, & Altamimi, 2017; Orsini-Jones et al., 2018). The appropriacy of the MOOC selected and its relevance to the course studied by the students involved in the curricular blend also play a role in scaffolding the threshold concept of autonomy (Orsini-Jones, 2015). The MOOC integrated into the curriculum for the study reported here was designed by the University of Southampton in collaboration with the British Council, it was designed as a ‘taster’ for an MA in ELT and many of its topics appeared to coincide with those on the module ‘Theories, Methods and Approaches of Language Learning and Teaching’ on the MA in ELTAL at CU. The initial blend trialled for the project in academic year 2014–2015 included covering the same topics in four ways: in face-to-face workshops at CU, on the MOOC with thousands of participants, on the institutional Virtual Learning Environment (Moodle) with peers on the (English Language Teaching) ELT course, and online in a tailor-made Moodle website with international learning partners through a virtual exchange. This enhanced blend afforded a unique opportunity for reflection and knowledge sharing in the troublesome areas of knowledge encountered by students on the MA in ELTAL that included a healthy discussion of their beliefs on language learning and teaching in general and on learner autonomy in particular. This chapter consists of the work carried out by two ‘expert students’ who replicated the 2015 study by Orsini-Jones for their MA dissertations (Altamimi, 2016; Conde, 2017). It explores further how the MOOC blend could support the crossing of the concept of autonomy for language teachers and includes their reflective review of their beliefs. BACKGROUND

This chapter reports on the third phase of a joint staff-student action research and threshold concept-informed project that consists in the evaluation of the integration of a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) into an existing postgraduate curriculum: the MA in English Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics (ELTAL) at Coventry University. The Futurelearn MOOC, Understanding Language: Learning and Teaching designed by the University of Southampton (UK) in collaboration with the British Council, was embedded into the syllabus of module Theories, Methods and Approaches of Language Learning and Teaching, which was already delivered in blended learning mode (face-to-face and Moodle). Data from the MOOC fora provided a unique opportunity to discuss the theme of autonomy in language learning and teaching that had previously been identified as a troublesome concept by the course leader (Orsini-Jones, 2015). The data, collected in compliance with the rigorous ethics governance procedures at Coventry University which comply with 354

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both UK (Data Protection Act) and European (General Data Protection Regulation) privacy laws and guarantee participants anonymity and the right to withdraw from the study at any point, were analysed through the lens of ‘expert students’, in a rolereversal model of threshold concept pedagogy previously developed at Coventry University (Orsini-Jones, 2014). The ‘expert students’ had experienced the MOOC themselves in previous integration phases and carried out subsequent action research phases for their MA dissertation. This chapter reflects their findings. The troublesome nature of the concept of autonomy for language teachers and for students in teacher education has been rather under-explored in the threshold concepts literature to date. This work builds on a previous study that had identified autonomy as a threshold concept for students on the MA in ELTAL at Coventry University (CU) (Orsini-Jones, 2015) and illustrates how contextual factors, intercultural issues and students’/teachers’ beliefs may affect the grasping of this troublesome concept. AUTONOMY, A TROUBLESOME CONCEPT

Benson (1997, as cited in Palfreyman, 2003) classifies learner autonomy into three perspectives: (1) a ‘technical perspective’ that focuses on the skills and strategies that learners should be able to carry out in order to succeed in unsupervised learning situations, (2) a ‘psychological perspective’ that considers the attitudes and cognitive abilities that allow learners to take responsibility for their own learning process, and (3) a ‘political perspective’ that empowers the students to take control over their own learning. Oxford (2003) argues that the theoretical framework of learner autonomy is based on inconsistencies and conflicting perspectives. Autonomy can sometimes be associated with an individualised language learning approach; Geng for example renames the concept as ‘individual autonomy’ (2010, p. 943) which ‘relies on an individual’s capacity to direct, manage, evaluate and redirect himself or herself’ (2010, p. 943). In the context of the study discussed here, autonomy is aligned with David Little’s perspective: he states that learner autonomy is developed through ‘focused interaction with teachers and other learners’ (2001, p. 31). A good summary of the conceptual ‘state of the art’ regarding autonomy for English Language Teachers is provided by Borg and Al-Busaidi (2012, p. 7), who conclude that: 1. Learner autonomy is established as a central concept in the field of foreign language learning; 2. There is a large literature on learner autonomy which, though, awards limited attention for foreign language teachers’ beliefs about this concept; and 3. Understanding such beliefs is central to the process of understanding and promoting changes in the extent to which teachers promote learner autonomy in their work. Despite the various views on how the concept of autonomy should be defined, there appears to be general agreement that autonomy requires not only a capacity for 355

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reflection, but also the acceptance of a shift in the roles of teachers and learners (Geng, 2010; Lacey, 2007; Little, 2016). Little posits that the teacher is still a guide and is responsible for deciding ‘whether and to what extent it is possible for the learners to determine their own learning objectives, select their own learning materials and contribute to the assessment of their learning progress’ (1995, p. 179). The multiple definitions of autonomy highlight how confusion can arise when students engaging in teacher education courses try to understand the concept in order to implement it in their practice. Some teachers (and some students) misunderstand the concept, are suspicious of it and believe learner autonomy to be a type of ‘laissez-faire policy’ that would be impossible to implement in their teaching context. Learner and teacher autonomy are challenging to students both on the epistemological level of the knowledge and language required to understand this concept and on the ontological one. Some see it as a threat to their beliefs, their ‘being’, as demonstrated by the quotation in the discussion section below by a student on the MA in English Language Teaching at CU who took part in the post-MOOC semi-structured interview in 2015. Their words, reported below, demonstrate how alien the concept of autonomy is to them. Their response was, ‘I don’t want to try autonomy, to try that stuff’. As suggested by Land, Cousin, Meyer, & Davies (2005) the language used possibly betrays a fear of facing the transformation implied by the threshold concept (TC), which ‘entails a letting go of earlier, comfortable positions and encountering less familiar and sometimes disconcerting new territory’ (Land et al., 2005, p. 55). The encounter with the concept of autonomy pushes many students on the MA in ELTAL into uncertain terrain, areas of knowledge with which they are unfamiliar. This also relates to intercultural matters. In the Confucian tradition, learners must not challenge the teacher, for example, and are used to a very teachercentred tradition where problem solving is not normally experienced (see OrsiniJones, Zou, Hu, & Li, 2017 on this point). The two most powerful barriers to the adoption of the concept of autonomy for the participants on the project appeared to be the power of teachers’ beliefs against the introduction of an autonomous approach in their practice as well as the perceived socio-cultural contextual difficulties that could be encountered when promoting autonomy. Autonomy is recognised as a powerful concept in language learning and teaching. It requires, as suggested by Ushioda, that teachers scaffold learning and enable students to ‘reflect upon and evaluate their own achievements and learning experience’ (1996, p. 57). This is often achieved through ‘task-based learning’ in linguistics (Ellis & Shintani, 2014; Orsini-Jones, 2010b) and through recording progress with diaries or (e-)portfolios. Because of the positive evidence relating to the successful implementation of an autonomous approach in language learning and teaching that is reported in the above-mentioned literature, students involved in English teacher education need to be supported in their development and understanding of autonomy, even if the concept poses both an epistemological and an ontological challenge to them. A concern is that their personal learning experience is likely to influence their teaching practice (Klapper, 2006). The influence of 356

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previous experiences on their belief formation includes their own previous teachers, the context in which they learnt the language, how frequently they were exposed to the language in their context, the type of materials used to facilitate and support their learning, and the pedagogical practices implemented by their teachers. This is not to suggest that all teaching based on personally experienced models is bad or ineffective; students engaging in teacher education might have had positive role models who have influenced their beliefs and perceptions in a positive way. However, arbitrary and random transfer might yield problematic results when teachers adopt methods and practices unsuited to a certain group of learners or contexts, as argued by Klapper (2006). Embracing an autonomous approach empowers teachers to become active social agents, in control of the language learning and teaching processes with which they are involved (Kumaravadivelu, 2012). Students engaging in teacher education need to be made aware of their own beliefs and perceptions in order to explicitly develop their own pedagogical beliefs and assumptions and develop professionally as a result. It could be that the concept of autonomy is so troublesome because it requires teachers and students engaged in teacher education to critically review their practice (or perception of good practice) and belief systems on a continuous basis. Autonomy definitely appears to challenge the belief system of many students (who are either teachers or teachers-to-be) on the MA ELTAL at CU. It is not necessarily that autonomy is an intellectually difficult concept. Even the best learners are challenged by it. The resistance to the concept is well illustrated in the article ‘Autonomy; never, never, never’ (Lacey, 2007) that documents the troublesome journey of an established English teacher from autonomy sceptic to autonomy convert after he attended workshops by the Danish expert on autonomy, Leni Dam, and implemented an autonomous approach in his classrooms. He fully resisted letting go of his teachercentred method to begin with; his conversion started when he observed the increased fluency and proficiency of his students who had been given the freedom to choose their own topics to discuss and take control of their own learning, albeit under his ‘scaffolding’ eye. A MOOC BLEND TO SUPPORT THE CROSSING OF THE THRESHOLD CONCEPT OF AUTONOMY

The identification of autonomy as a TC gave rise to a new question: could the MOOC-blend support the crossing of the threshold concept of autonomy in language learning and teaching? There is evidence in the literature (Cappellini, Lewis, & Rivens Mompean, 2017) that embedding informal Open Educational Resources (OERs) – like MOOCs – into the formal curriculum can support the scaffolding of learner and teacher autonomy. A distinguishing feature of the study reported here is therefore that it explores further how the ‘conversion to autonomy’ can be supported through the blending of a MOOC into an existing curriculum aimed at teaching both theory and practice 357

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of English Language Teaching. This study also aims to address the marginalisation of technology in the professional development of English teachers. Most key texts on ELT do not appear to address the online dimension, its affordances, and how transformative effective engagement with technology through social-collaborative environments can prove to be for teachers’ agency. This work aims to illustrate that teachers’ cognition about blended and online learning triggered by active learning with a MOOC blend can empower ELT students, help them develop critical digital literacies and understand the concept of autonomy in language learning and teaching. A holistic approach to the integration of technology in teacher education is proposed here, to encourage metacognitive reflection on what it means to be an autonomous learner and autonomous teacher while engaging in reflective practice in a variety of ways: 1. individually, while doing the steps on the FutureLearn MOOC selected (Understanding Language: Learning and Teaching); 2. collaboratively, in weekly face-to-face meetings in class with peers from their home institution; 3. collaboratively, in online asynchronous discussion fora on the Virtual Learning Environment MOODLE and via Skype synchronous exchanges through the Online International Learning (OIL) project with students and staff from the partner universities participating in the project; and 4. collaboratively, with the rest of the participants from all over the world on the MOOC fora. THE FIRST PHASE – INITIAL MOOC BLEND AT CU

The MOOC blend was trialled in academic year 2014–2015 (Orsini-Jones, PibworthDolinski, Cribb, Brick, Gazeley-Eke, Leinster, & Lloyd, 2015) to ascertain whether or not a metareflection (as defined by Efklides, 2006) on theory and practice carried out in a novel way would facilitate a change in beliefs relating to language learning and teaching. Discussing the themes covered on the MA in ELT course on the MOOC as well as in class was meant to deliberately take students out of their comfort zone. It was meant to challenge them to discuss how the blend was affecting their perception of teaching and learning while they were engaging with it, both in action while engaging in class and on the MOOC, and on action (Schön, 1983) while recording reflections in the relevant Moodle discussions and in seminars. It was hoped that this new blended learning approach would support them in their journey towards the crossing of the threshold concept of learner autonomy. It was hoped that the MOOC blend would offer the MA students a unique and global learning opportunity with an amplified conversational framework, as the FutureLearn MOOC model is underpinned by Laurillard’s education technology dialogic framework (2013), illustrated in Figure 25.1. The FutureLearn MOOC Understanding Language: Learning and Teaching was therefore integrated into the module Theories and Methods of Language Learning 358

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Figure 25.1. Conversational Model of Online Learning (Laurillard, 1993, 2013; revisited by Sharples, 2016

and Teaching that carries 15 of the 180 credits on the MA in English Language Teaching. Its aim is: […] to give students an in-depth understanding of the theories of second language acquisition and illustrate their links to approaches and methods of language teaching which they inform. The theories examined will look at second language acquisition and learning from linguistic, psychological and sociological perspectives. (Module Information Directory, 2015) The module’s learning outcomes are that, on completion, students should be able to: 1. critically appraise the major theories of second language acquisition (SLA); 2. discuss the relevance of SLA theories to the development of teaching approaches and methodology; 3. discuss and appraise the implications of sociocultural theories for the development of second language learning and teaching approaches and methodology; and 4. analyse the suitability of needs of specific English language learners in specific English language learning contexts and discuss the teaching and learning approaches most appropriate to their situation. The main topics covered by the weekly units of the MOOC were the following, and many sections coincided with existing topics on the MA module (Orsini-Jones, 2015): 359

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‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

Week 1: Learning Language: Theory Week 2: Language Teaching in the Classroom Week 3: Technology in Language Learning and Teaching: A New Environment Week 4: Language in Use: Global English

The outcomes of the module are summatively assessed as follows: one essay (at home, 50% of the module mark) and a seen in-class assignment containing two essay questions (the students receive the questions a fortnight in advance of the inclass test date), also 50% of the final mark, 25% for each essay question, composed of two sections. For example, the question relevant to the MOOC in the in-class test in 2016–2017 was the following and carried 25% of the final mark of the module (with Part A carrying 20 marks and Part B 30): Part A In the course of module M01DEL we have discussed the concept of ‘learner autonomy’ and read the article by Lacey: ‘Autonomy, never, never, never’ (2007). Summarise the article and discuss how and why Lacey adopted Dam’s views after his initial resistance. (20 marks) Part B During the course of this module, you enrolled on the Southampton University/ British Council FutureLearn MOOC Understanding Language: Learning and Teaching. Reflect on how the experience of taking part in the MOOC supported your ‘learning journey’ as a teacher of English and discuss: 1. How it reflected the principles relating to learner autonomy; 2. How it changed your perception of online learning. Finally, reflect on which of the 4 units in the MOOC we studied together you found most useful and why. (30 marks) Before the integration of the MOOC into its syllabus, the module was delivered by a blend that included face-to-face contact (33 hours) and online support provided through activities available in a dedicated Moodle website. There, students could access information on lectures, view relevant videos, engage in interactive tasks and quizzes, and discuss the material covered in class in online discussion fora before, during, and after the face-to-face sessions. After the MOOC was introduced, the blend was enhanced by the opportunity not only to access extra online materials and ‘expert voices’ different from those of staff at CU, but also to engage with a much wider ‘community of practice’ (Wenger, 1998), as there were over 40,000 participants registered on the MOOC from all over the world (Borthwick, personal communication, 2018). At the end of each unit, the MOOC included a section called ‘Reflection’ where participants were expected to share the positive aspects of the week and to discuss with their online peers their 360

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thoughts about how they could take the lessons forward into the field of language learning and teaching. The students on the MA were also asked to do the same on the discussion fora in Moodle (as well as on the MOOC if they wanted to). A ‘MOOC orienteering session’ was delivered in a PC computer laboratory as soon as the MOOC started, and it was serendipitous that the relevant face-to-face class was scheduled on a Monday, which is when the MOOC became live. Before the MOOC started, a face-to-face seminar was entirely dedicated to autonomy in language learning and teaching, and students were invited to discuss the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4.

How can we define learner autonomy? How can we create an environment that promotes learner autonomy? Are there any problems with the concept of learner autonomy? What might be some positive outcomes of promoting learner autonomy within the classroom?

The students first discussed in groups, then presented their collaborative reflections in formative group presentations, and finally posted each group’s thoughts into the asynchronous discussion on learner autonomy in Moodle. The research questions investigated in the first cycle of the MOOC blend project (see Orsini-Jones et al., 2015; Orsini-Jones, 2015) were the following: ‡ What factors shape the participating students’ beliefs regarding English language learning and teaching? ‡ What constitutes troublesome knowledge in English language learning and teaching according to these teachers or students studying to become teachers? The overarching methodology adopted to answer the questions set was actionresearch-informed threshold concept pedagogy. Both the students and the staff who took part in the 2015 project became more aware of how their educational contexts affected their beliefs. They also reported that engaging with the MOOC had helped them with exploring their understanding of the challenging concept of autonomy and realise how fundamental scaffolding is to it. All participants reported that they had been taken ‘out of their comfort zone’, which enabled them to review their beliefs on language learning and teaching (Orsini-Jones, 2015, p. 22). THE NEW ‘MOOC-BLEND’ CYCLES DRIVEN BY ‘EXPERT STUDENTS’

The Principal Investigators (PIs) for the two phases of the project carried out in 2015– 2016 and 2016–2017 were MA students who had themselves experienced the prior MOOC blend cycle on their course (Altamimi, 2016; Conde, 2017). They decided to replicate the previous action research phases, editing them in view of the previous results obtained. They both based their MA dissertations on new cycles of the project initiated by themselves. They utilised two main data gathering approaches: online surveys and semi-structured interviews.

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PARTICIPANTS

The first study (Altamimi, 2016) was a small scale one involving twelve selfselected students out of the eighteen who were enrolled on the MA in English Language Teaching in the 2015 September cohort. Table 25.1 provides details on the participants’ mode of study (full time or part-time), nationality, first language, level of proficiency in English according to the Common European Framework of Reference (where B2 is Higher Intermediate and C1 is advanced), their teaching experience in years and the area of English language taught. Only one out of the 12 participants had known what a MOOC was before the start of the blended learning project. They all completed both a pre-MOOC and a post-MOOC survey, and seven of the twelve participated in the semi-structured interviews. All students posted their reflections on the MOOC blend and learner autonomy in the asynchronous Moodle discussion on the relevant module. The second study, ‘B-MELTT’ (Blending MOOCs for English Language Teacher Training), funded by a British Council English Language Teaching Research Award in July 2016, was on a much larger scale and involved 121 participants from five different Higher Education Institutions (HEIs): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Coventry University (CU), UK; Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU), China; Sichuan International Studies University (SISU); China; East China University of Science and Technology (ECUST), China; and The University of Applied Sciences in Utrecht (HU), The Netherlands.

Table 25.2 provides a summary of the participants’ degree course (some were undergraduate and some postgraduate), mode of study (part-time or full-time), age, gender, nationality, level of proficiency in English and years of experience as teachers of English. One hundred twenty-one participants completed the pre-MOOC survey. Of these, thirty one stated that they had registered for a MOOC before. Seventy-four participants completed the post-MOOC survey and twenty seven participated in the semi-structured interviews carried out both face-to-face and via Skype. Forty-five posted regularly in the discussion fora in Moodle. DISCUSSION AND PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

The pre- and post MOOC survey results and the semi-structured interview transcripts from both studies (Altamimi, 2016; Conde, 2017) confirmed that autonomy is a troublesome concept, but interestingly, it appeared to be less troublesome for the Dutch students involved in the 2016–2017 study than for the other students from both studies. British and non-British participants (apart from the Dutch students) mentioned different reasons behind their resistance to the implementation of autonomy in their teaching practice. The following emerged from both studies: 362

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Table 25.1. Participants 2015–2016 (from Altamimi, 2016 Part . 1

Mode of study

Nationality

L1

Ge.

Level of English

Teaching experience

Years

FT

British

Eng.

F

C2

Yes

>1

ESP Writing

Subjecta

2

FT

British

Eng.

F

C2

Yes

>1

3

FT

Norwegian

Eng.

F

C2

No

0

4

PT

British

Eng.

F

C2

Yes

5

5

FT

British

Eng.

F

C2

Yes

>1

GE

6

FT

Taiwanese

Chin.

M

B2

Yes

>1

ESOL

7

FT

Chinese

Chin.

F

B2

No

0

8

FT

Chinese

Chin.

F

B2

No

0

9

FT

Chinese

Chin.

F

B2

No

0

10

FT

Chinese

Chin.

F

C1

No

0

11

FT

Nigerian

Yor.

F

C1

Yes

1

12

FT

Indonesian

Bah.

F

C1

No

0

ESOL

Lit.

ESP = English for Specific Purposes; ESOL = English for Speakers of Other Languages; GE = General English; Lit. = Literature; C2 = Higher Advanced Proficiency in English, Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR); C1 = Advanced level CEFR; B2 = Intermediate CEFR a

‡ The teaching context within which participants operate and their tacit knowledge appeared to be influencing factors for the purpose of grasping the threshold concept of autonomy; ‡ Following on from the above, it would appear that not all troublesome knowledge has a universal nature. ‘Alien’ knowledge for students from different teaching contexts can vary. For example, grammar appears to be troublesome for British students, as previously discussed (Orsini-Jones, 2008, 2010a), but not for Chinese ones; ‡ The MOOC integration ‘brought to light’ that this novel blend can support active reflection on the TC of autonomy and on other troublesome areas, but that strongly held beliefs can impair the adoption of innovative practice; and ‡ The declarations of ‘changed beliefs’ and/or of understanding of the TC by some of the participants were not reflected in their answers once these were triangulated, and in their teaching practice on a related module (Teaching English in Higher Education), betraying liminality and mimicry. With reference to the last point above, some students who stated that they had now grasped what autonomy meant in the online Post-MOOC survey, still appeared to associate the concept with independent individual learning in the interviews (working on one’s own), rather than associating it with the social-collaborative definition by Little (2001) previously discussed here. Also, when the CU students designed and 363

M. ORSINI-JONES ET AL.

Table 25.2. Participants 2016–2017 (from Conde, 2017) Institution Degree

Mode of study FT

Age

Gender

PT >41 1