Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011 - rees2009

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) Página 909 de 957
New Methodology to Identify and Investigate Threshold Concepts
Purpose
The purpose of our application of the methodology was to identify and investigate
threshold concepts in the first and second year of any engineering course. The
methodology was tested to develop a new engineering curriculum. A key criterion was to
identify threshold concepts applicable across existing engineering units and disciplines.
This was expected to help create a more inter-disciplinary course and help students better
understand the overarching concepts and the relationships between concepts, and
experience the variations that enhance understanding as recommended by variation
theory. The methodology will be relevant to educators generally as part of an approach to
curriculum renewal.
Whether a concept is a threshold is determined by the students’ experiences. However, the
reasons a concept is threshold for a student could be related to features of the discipline,
the student, or the curriculum including any feature of the learning experience. The
methodology was developed to identify thresholds concepts, and also possible reasons
they might be seen as thresholds.
Development of the Methodology
The method was developed by considering potential sources of data and the best ways to
collect and analyse data. The method was discussed by the researchers at our university in
consultation with the Project Reference Group and international collaborators.
Meyer (personal communication) identified two non-negotiable features of threshold
concepts: all threshold concepts are transformative ontologically and epistemologically.
Threshold concepts are features of students’ experiences and can be layered such that the
core threshold concept is not always clear. Our methodology was therefore designed to
focus on students’ experiences and to iteratively investigate more deeply each threshold.
We identified engineering students and engineering teachers as having experience that
would help us to understand which concepts are threshold concepts.
The Method
Participants
Data were collected from engineering students, engineering academics, and first year
tutors. Details of protocols, questions and participant demographics are published
separately (Male & Baillie, 2011). Qualitative methods allowed the depth necessary to
investigate the core thresholds underlying troublesome concepts. Students, academics,
and tutors provided different perspectives. Academics understand the concepts they plan
to teach and why they are important for future parts of a course. They glean
understanding of students’ experiences from students’ questions and from assessments.
Students have experiences of concepts they found troublesome and that have felt
transformative, and by third and fourth year are able to identify first year concepts that
Proceedings of Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011
Madrid, 4 th - 7 th October 2011