1177-threshold-concepts-and-transformational-learning

LAND ET ALbrief to be successfully achieved ‘the complete set of problem bubbles associatedwith the task must be solved; but many, many bubbles not directly related to thetask will be entered between starting and finishing the task’.In order to achieve the confidence to challenge, however, an interveninglearning threshold was identified by the authors, namely the need to developa tolerance of being in a period of uncertainty. Significantly, the authors observe,it is only after mastering toleration of this period of uncertainty that the studentsgain the ‘confidence to challenge’ and are then ready, or able, to tackle their designbriefs which characteristically include the ‘wicked problems’ discussed earlier.This mastering of the toleration of uncertainty also clearly possesses an ontologicaldimension and entails a shift in subjectivity. The ‘holding environment’, or supportstructures that seemed to enable this shift are identified by the authors as includingthe ‘inculcating skills, capabilities and coping strategies delivered via an apprenticelikeimmersive method of teaching underpinned by an atelier, or studio-based,environment’. The staff respondents also identified important transition points, keymoments during the course that moved the students on through the liminal state,and which included ‘first year assessments, the use of clay in the second year,exposure to the professional community of practice during the third year, coupledwith the ability to work in groups and the development of empathy’.In an interesting migration of threshold theory to the secondary sector ofeducation Ming Fai Pang and Jan Meyer (Chapter 22) investigated dimensions ofsub- and preliminal variation in secondary school pupils’ initial apprehension,via a range of ‘proxies’, of the threshold concept of ‘opportunity cost’. In this casethe proxies were short scenarios designed to reveal variation in pupils’ understandingof ‘opportunity cost’. The following is an example:Ben woke up at eleven and he planned to study for his exam in the afternoon.At noon, the phone rang. His girlfriend asked him to go to a movie. Hedecided to spend 4 hours in the afternoon with her. a. What choice did Benmake? Why did Ben have to make choice? What was the cost for Ben to go tosee the movie? b. If the movie was boring, would it have increases his cost ofgoing to the movie? Why or why not?Forty Secondary 3 pupils of in Hong Kong took part in the study. They werefollowing the ‘New Senior Secondary (NSS) Curriculum – Proposed EconomicsSubject Framework for Secondary 4–6 pupils in Hong Kong’, aimed at developingpupils’ interest in exploring human behaviour and social issues through a goodmastery of fundamental economic themes such as ‘economic decisions involvingchoices among alternatives’ and the ‘concept of cost in Economics’. The pupilswere of both sexes, had not previously taken economics as a school subject andcame from schools of different levels of academic attainment and in differentphysical locations in the city. Interviews were held in Cantonese.The inquiry drew on Marton and Booth’s (1997) ‘variation theory’ which positsthat ‘pupils’ variation in the understanding of a disciplinary concept or practice, oralternative conceptions of the concept, hinges on those critical features of theconcept or practice that pupils are able to discern and focus on simultaneously’.xxxiv