Engineering Threshold Concepts as an Approach to Curriculum Renewal
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2015
Introduction
In this chapter we introduce threshold concept theory and present the case for its use in curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment in engineering education, as an example of how we might consider using theory to develop practice. The process has been developed and tested in engineering at The University of Western Australia, with collaborators at the Universities of Oxford and Birmingham and The University of Queensland.
We begin with an introduction to threshold concept theory. We then step through the stages of curriculum design using threshold concepts. At each stage, the approach, critical issues that must be considered, and examples are discussed.
Threshold concept theory is a major new theory in higher education, first developed in the United Kingdom by Jan (Erik) Meyer, Ray Land, and others (Meyer & Land, 2003). The theory developed from a large research program in which it was noted that for many disciplines there are concepts, or ways of thinking, that are transformative, opening up new ways of thinking and understanding, yet troublesome for many students (Meyer & Land, 2003). These are “threshold concepts.”
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.