Abstracts - Earli

I 1630 August 2007 14:30 - 16:30Room: 2.54 NovobátzkySymposiumSustaining postgraduate student learning: threshold concepts,conceptual thresholds and communitiesChair: Gina Wisker, University of brighton, United KingdomOrganiser: Gina Wisker, Univesity of Brighton, United KingdomDiscussant: Erik Meyer, university of Durham, United KingdomThis symposium focuses on ways we might support and sustain the development of postgraduatestudent learning, using theories of threshold concepts, conceptual thresholds and communities ofpractice. Margaret Kiley’s paper looks at learning leaps for postgraduates crossing conceptualthresholds, while Gina Wisker and Gillian Robinson take this process into the specific disciplinesand threshold concepts of art and literature. Vernon Trafford and Shosh Leshem explore howstages of the PhD process can support conceptual levels of research, and Miri Shacham andYehudit od-Cohen consider the role communities of practice play in such support. Each paperfocuses on issues of development of conceptual levels of research and understanding, and onbuilding and sustaining research communities which have an impact on their society.Conceptual thresholds for research candidatesMargaret Kiley, ANU, AustraliaWhat is it that supervisors of research candidates consider to be the particular conceptual issuesthat research candidates have difficulty coming to terms with and understanding? Do thoseconcepts differ by discipline in the same way as they do at the undergraduate level? This study hasinvolved research supervisors responding to the following questions: · Please briefly describe themain conceptual issue that you find your research candidates seem to struggle with most duringcandidature e.g. the idea of an original contribution to knowledge, a conceptual or theoreticalframework. · Please note any strategies that you have found effective in assisting your students tocome to terms with that issue. The responses have been analysed by discipline and by mainconcepts e.g. originality, theoretical framework. Furthermore the strategies that the supervisorsreported as being successful in addressing the conceptual understanding have been analysed andwill be reported in this presentation.How might we encourage postgraduate students of literature and art to cross conceptualthresholds and achieve threshold concepts in their research?Gillian Robinson, Anglia Ruskin University, United KingdomGina Wisker, University of Brighton, United KingdomFor research for PhD and beyond, students’ work needs to move beyond fact finding to conceptuallevels which problematise, questions fixed ‘truths’, enhance deep learning, and make acontribution to knowledge at a conceptual level. There are many ways in which we might supportstudents in crossing this threshold, making this leap, including research development programmes,supervision, feedback, the use of peer groups among others. This paper focuses in particular onstudents working in literature and art as specific examples of postgraduate research. The paper isunderpinned by Meyer, Land and Cousin’s work on notions of conceptual thresholds and– 514 –