This paper describes a two-year research project designed to investigate and apply threshold concept theory in New Zealand tertiary setting. Through the investigation and application of threshold concept theory, the project aims to enhance student achievement and participation, and contribute to a deeper understanding of the development and dynamics of cognitive expertise. Two researchers and four university lecturers are using a collaborative action-research paradigm to examine threshold concepts in tertiary curriculum and pedagogy.
The project involves iterative refinement of teaching methods and curriculum in four disciplines: electronics engineering, doctoral writing, English, and management communication. This paper shows how lecturers and researchers can work together to identify threshold concepts in and across the four disciplines, and how one can learn to recognise undergraduate and doctoral students’ knowledge gaps, misconceptions, and places where they become stuck in their learning. We describe possible ways of examining changes in student understanding of threshold concepts, how they learn them, and their experiences with threshold concepts over time. The paper presents our explorations of lecturers’ emergent knowledge of threshold concepts and associated pedagogies, and how such pedagogies, distributed across lecturers, learners, and teaching method, can afford opportunities for learning. The paper outlines how we will endeavour to address the following:
Data sources, possible methods of data analysis, and emerging findings from the initial six months of the project will be discussed.