Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (2): epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning

• Published in: Higher education Vol. 49; no. 3; pp. 373 - 388
• Main Author: Meyer, Jan H. F
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Kluwer Academic Publishers 01.04.2005; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Academic disciplines; Academic learning; Analysis; Cognitive Development; Cognitive Structures; College instruction; Concept Formation; Concepts; Conceptual frameworks; Discourses; Economics education; Education; Education, Higher; Educational Experience; Epistemology; Frame analysis; Funerary rituals; Identity; Intellectual Disciplines; Knowledge; Knowledge management; Land; Language; Learner engagement; Learning; Learning Experience; Lehre; Liminality; Mathematics education; Reflective practice; Reflective Teaching; Studentenschaft; Students; Studienverhalten; Teachers; Teaching; Teaching Methods; Thresholds; Transformation
• ISSN: 0018-1560; 1573-174X
• DOI: 10.1007/s10734-004-6779-5

The present study builds on earlier work by Meyer and Land (2003) which introduced the generative notion of threshold concepts within (and across) disciplines, in the sense of transforming the internal view of subject matter or part thereof. In this earlier work such concepts were further linked to forms of knowledge that are troublesome, after the work of Perkins (1999). It was argued that these twinned sets of ideas may define critical moments of irreversible conceptual transformation in the educational experiences of learners, and their teachers. The present study aims (a) to examine the extent to which such phenomena can be located within personal understandings of discipline-specific epistemological discourses, (b) to develop more extensively notions of liminality within learning that were raised in the first paper, and (c) to propose a conceptual framework within which teachers may advance their own reflective practice. (HRK / Abstract übernommen).