Welcome to the first issue for 2020 (and we regrettably say since 2018). We are now in our 14th year of publication and have at last upgraded our journal systems so we are able to run a supported journal by a hosting company and slightly jazz up our ‘look’. This is with great thanks to Sam Nolan (Durham University, UK) on the editorial board supporting this funds to make this happen. We are getting used to the upgrade in terms of background operations and like all new software it’s an improvement only when you know how to do all the things you used to be able to do and discover the new features as well.
Despite a clear interest in and demand for professional development opportunities, attendance is consistently poor for many development workshops. The aim of this project was to gain a better understanding of PGRs’ motivation for attending or not attending professional development workshops in order to explore potential areas for action which may improve future attendance rates. Initial evidence was gathered through a survey circulated to a large number of PGRs. Themes emerging form the survey were explored further through a pair of focus group interviews. PGRs are motivated to register for workshops seen as relating specifically to the process of completing a PhD such as viva preparation, thesis writing or research methodologies. Despite being relevant, the consequence of attending is sometimes seen as too high and other commitments such as PhD research, teaching responsibilities and other work, take priority at the last minute. This unpredictability is leading not only to low workshop attendance, but also high stress levels among PGRs. Based on these findings three key areas for action are proposed. Firstly, ensuring that specific benefits of participation are clear and relevant to individual participants. Secondly, ensuring our programmes are flexible enough to be accessible in light of the very unpredictable and diverse PGR contexts. This means diversifying our delivery modes to include on-line and remote access as well as asynchronous engagement opportunities. Finally, addressing the need for mental health support by recognizing and expanding how we can use our programmes to build resilient communities and peer support networks.
In 2014, ICAEW asked the University of Leeds (UoL) to co-develop an accounting and finance massive open online course (MOOC), ‘The Importance of Money in Business’. The target audience was pre-university and undergraduate students. This article explains the development process, structure and pedagogies, and analyses learner characteristics, behaviour and feedback using a range of data. It builds on prior literature and a research programme at UoL (Elston and Morris, 2015; Morris, Hotchkiss & Swinnerton, 2015; Swinnerton, Hotchkiss, Morris & Pickering, 2017a; Swinnerton, Hotchkiss & Morris, 2017b), which has developed and delivered more than 30 FutureLearn MOOCs across a range of subjects. The development process took 15 months to develop a four week course, and included a range of resources and activities including animated video, interactive exercises and quizzes. Over 18,000 people enrolled on two runs of the course. This article contributes to the literature by providing insights into the development and delivery of the course, its learners, their preferences and behaviours while taking the course, which will assist others embarking on MOOC or online learning development.
What do history teachers think about hermeneutics? It is one of their main tasks to teach the handling with facts, historical sources and historiography. In particular, considering prominent forms like alternative facts or fake news, facts seem to be a really problematic item – not only in history classes. How severe are they? Do they represent the truth? With this in mind, it is important to check in how far students becoming teachers attach importance to this item. During empirical studies at the University of Bielefeld in researching students´ competencies in history (narrative and hermeneutic competencies) – part of the main project BiProfessional – we have received some interesting findings about defining and dealing with facts. Since 2016 we have been testing students enrolled in the Master of Education, who were prepared and attended academically while they completed their practical training at school. By attending them, we could manage to get some hints about their educational level in said competencies. Students´ thoughts about facts is one item of the testing design. The paper will present aspects of design and instrument in main focusing facts and report about previous results and consequences, which also will be discussed in the context of teacher training and the academic education of students.
Welcome to the first issue for 2018 and our 13 th year of publication. We would like to thank all our authors for submitting such valuable papers for us all to enjoy and learn from. Also a huge thank you to the behind scenes work of the reviewers whose constructive and timely feedback on submissions enables PESTLHE to continue scholarly accounts of educational practices in higher education.
This study examined students’ experience of a gamified, mystery-driven problem based learning approach in a postgraduate strength and conditioning module. A series of mystery packages were delivered to the students over a 4 week period providing information that was potentially relevant to their problem scenario. Focus group interviews revealed that students believed the approach was interactive, developed new skills and was vocationally relevant. However, students felt confused by the approach, perceiving this to be negative, unaware that the confusing elements were designed to prompt deeper learning. This study suggests that this approach can add value to the postgraduate experience.
In previous work we proposed the idea of ‘threshold skills’ as a complement to threshold concepts. The definition of threshold concepts assumes that theoretical knowledge is paramount: gaining the understanding of particular concepts irreversibly transforms the learners. We noted, however, that mastering computing, like many disciplines, requires learning a combination of concepts and skills, and we suggested that this required further investigation. In this paper we examine the activity of designing software as a possible example of such a threshold skill. We looked at 35 software designs collected from students nearing graduation in computing courses, and see many of the characteristics of threshold skill and also of students being in liminal space. A close examination of the students’ designs leads to some useful implications for teaching this fundamental activity.
This paper sets out a methodology for enhancing student and curriculum engagement with Threshold Concepts (Meyer and Land 2003; 2006) and associated notions of liminality (Land, R., Rattray, J., Vivian, P., 2014) across a range of disciplinary fields. The methodology builds closely on application techniques developed in LEGO ® SERIOUS PLAY ® , the evolution of which is informed by systemic views of, for example, organizational and strategic leadership, and systems theories such as Complex Adaptive Systems (Oliver and Roos, 2000). In recent years, we, and others, have adapted this methodology for use in educational settings, particularly as a vehicle for metaphorical exploration of dimensions of learning associated with professional and personal development (James, 2013; Gauntlett, 2011). Illustrating such approaches through exploratory practice undertaken with students at the University of the Arts London, we describe how they can be used to explore further dimensions of student learning: the models built in LEGO ® offer mediating artefacts (Vygotsky, 1930/1978; Engestrom, 1999) for mapping the epistemological terrain of a discipline, for supporting student learning of threshold concepts, and in particular for creating representative constructions to help learners negotiate liminality. The paper continues with a conceptual analysis of these experiences; through evaluating the methodology and theoretical context described, the paper suggests an emerging rationale for locating the Threshold Concepts Framework within a whole systems view of disciplinarity, and for using LEGO ® -based activities to engage learners and practitioners with this view in potentially generative ways.
Until recently the PhD in Australia consisted mainly of individual study and research with a supervisor and optional attendance at university/faculty workshops. However, over the past five years universities have begun introducing forms of coursework, often with mandatory attendance by candidates and sometimes incorporating work from existing Professional Doctorates. With these developments in Australia there has been an opportunity to examine this more formal approach to learning to undertake research and the possible role of Threshold Concepts in the related curriculum and pedagogy. It was hypothesised that universities would focus their coursework on those areas which they considered significant and from there embed into the assessment the various Threshold Concepts identified in learning to be a researcher. To test the hypothesis three cases were used as examples from different Australian universities with different doctoral cohorts and different forms of coursework. Of the research-related areas of focus all three universities included the Threshold Concepts of research paradigm, framework, knowledge creation/originality, theory and writing. On the other hand, the Threshold Concepts of argument/thesis, analysis, creativity and ‘doctorateness’ were not readily evident in the case analysis. Of particular interest was the inclusion of mandatory courses in research integrity in all cases, although this has not yet been identified as a Threshold Concept. However, the evident focus on flexibility and personalising the learning programs, even where there were required courses, reflects the strong view of many supervisors in Australia that the PhD is an individualised learning program negotiated between candidate and supervisor.
In this enquiry I discuss and investigate potential threshold concepts in the postgraduate statistics curriculum for medics and scientists (non-statisticians). In doing so, I also reflect on the elements of statistics these students need to learn and how they learn. Threshold concepts are a useful framework for thinking about the content of a curriculum. Having made large changes to the Units that I teach, I wanted to assess whether these changes were justified and whether there was rationale for further modifications, for example; emphasising particular elements of the curriculum and/or deemphasising or dropping others. I used a questionnaire, administered to staff and students to try to identify potential threshold concepts. My hypothesis was that sampling variation (i.e. random/ sampling error, uncertainty) as coded by the sampling distribution is a threshold concept. The results, while preliminary, support this hypothesis and stimulated deeper thinking about the pedagogy of my teaching to these audiences.
Our study follows the work produced by pre-service teachers in six of our required history seminars to analyse how their ideas about good historians and good history teachers changed over the semester. These pre-service teachers need to pass through two portals in their thinking: one, to develop a less novice-like understanding of how history functions as a discipline and, two, to move away from seeing their role as purveyors of single-stranded narratives that students should memorize, so that as teachers they can engage in teaching historical thinking. Through both a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the 62 pre and post surveys, and their final papers (a lesson plan), we found that students’ performance in their lesson plans was more closely correlated with their ability to articulate what historians do than it was with their ability to articulate what history teachers do. Indeed, statistical correlation was high. These finding suggests that teaching history and knowing the ways of thinking of this discipline are inseparable in the shaping of an effective history teacher, and that pre-service teachers must pass through the disciplinary portal before they can teach historical thinking to anyone else.
Threshold concepts have been used to inform curriculum design in a number of disciplines including occupational therapy. Assessment is integral for effective learning within curricula, however, limited attention has focused on how assessment can be utilised to help students engage with threshold concepts. This mixed methods research explored students’ and academics’ experiences of engagement with threshold concepts through assessment tasks. Authentic assessment activities were designed to engage students with the threshold concepts embedded within three consecutive pre-clinical child and youth courses of undergraduate and graduate entry masters occupational therapy curricula. All students completing these courses (n=224) were invited to participate in on-line surveys and focus groups. Academic staff (n=4) involved with the courses participated in an individual or group interview. These were transcribed and content analysed to establish emerging themes. Results indicated that all assessment activities provided opportunities for students to engage with the five identified threshold concepts. Two key themes emerged. First, “Pulling it all together” related to how students viewed assessment activities as facilitating integration of knowledge, and development of identity as therapists. Second, “Moving from stuck places” reflected the supports that assisted them at different stages of their learning journey. Authentic assessment activities enabled students to engage with troublesome knowledge and demonstrate threshold crossing. Facilitators and barriers to student engagement with these activities were identified that can inform the development of assessment to support learning within a threshold concepts informed curriculum.
This paper considers the extent to which critical thinking might be conceived of as a threshold concept which unlocks threshold capabilities in learners. Utilising a problem-based learning approach to pedagogy the paper reports a small scale study which was designed to explore whether students in a Media Literacy class could be supported to develop their critical thinking capabilities. The paper argues that such capabilities represent a threshold transformation in learners, unlocking as they do a new way of engaging with media literacy. Using Baxter Magolda’s model of the development of critical thinking the study examines the extent to which students shift from a very egocentric view of the world to a more integrative and reflexive view of the world as their critical thinking capabilities become more sophisticated. The paper further argues that whilst critical thinking can be seen as a threshold concept it might also be viewed of as a threshold capability which is transferable across a number of domains - it transcends the discipline and might be considered to be a more complex threshold.
Larger and more diverse group of students are now entering university (Prichard, 2006). To accommodate this, free up staff for research and to save money, most HEIs now use sessional lecturers to teach (Bryson, 2013; Crimmins, 2016). Literature which considers this group of staff, who may have come from another career path, focusses on the need to develop them as pedagogues (for example, Sutherland and Gilbert, 2013; Byers and Tani, 2014) and this seems valid given the need to develop teaching excellence, however it is defined. It discusses the need to provide training opportunities that can be accessed at convenient times, and to provide mentors and support from full time staff. This paper argues that whilst there may be some sessional staff for whom this is needed, there is also a group of qualified, sessional lecturers who have chosen to be professional teachers. This group, should they be able to become fully involved in teaching focussed research, conducted collaboratively with full time academics, could develop teaching excellence and become valuable resources for their employers, committed to improving the student learning experience. It presents the case study of two such sessional staff, working as part of a small research group, to illustrate how communities of practice can help them develop an academic identity (Webb, Wong and Hubbell, 2013; Seemiller and Priest, 2015) and, in doing so, improve student learning, develop teaching excellence and increase staff motivation and engagement levels.
In the last 25 years Physics Education Research has identified a number of fundamental ideas and concepts which beginning students have particular difficulty with, and found methods of instruction that are more effective than traditional pedagogy in helping students to understand the material. Here we discuss two of these ideas and concepts by two case studies. Case study 1 regards Newton’s 1 st Law of motion, and case study 2 is about the uncertainty of physical measurements. The analysis is from the perspective of threshold concepts , troublesome knowledge , and liminality . For each case study we discuss the research-based pedagogy used in teaching the material. We then add another perspective on these issues from Piagetian taxonomy. We then discuss the results of interviews with students about concepts that they struggled with, and ways that they found helped them go through the threshold to gain a deeper understanding of those difficult ideas.
Understanding research, the uncertainty of the resultant data and research claims are widely held aims of HE science curricula. Expertise in scientific research involves, inter alia , an understanding of evidence. The underpinning knowledge-base of evidence can be specified – the concepts of evidence – and represented as a conceptual network of ideas an understanding of which underpins decisions made while conducting research and also forms the basis of evaluation of others’ research; the ‘thinking behind the doing’ of research expertise. Students’ responses to an undergraduate module that explicitly teaches the concepts of evidence so that students can conduct open-ended investigations and evaluate others’ research are reported. The implications of this conceptualisation of research expertise for curriculum specification, approaches to teaching and assessment and for Threshold Concept research are discussed.
Happy New Year to all our readers, authors and reviewers. We had an interesting year in 2016 with PESTLHE as we got ‘attacked’ by one of those nasty computer viruses and then someone stole our domain name (see pestlhe.org.uk) and it is now a creative arts and craft site. Good grief. I should let you know that whilst HE is undergoing many changes – knitting was not one of them. So welcome to our first issue of 2017 and we should thank all the authors of our papers for their patience as we navigated the journal around attacks and knitting. This year we have two special issue coming out – one on Threshold Concepts and one from the ELSTIS16 Conference. We will have two standard issues in April 2017 and November 2017.
This paper describes and analyses a year’s project undertaken by a small, multidisciplinary group of academic staff in a UK post -1992 university. The purpose of the group was to: take a scholarly and inquiring approach to learning and teaching; build staff confidence and expertise in teaching and leadership in teaching; and offer a model of a potential approach to institutional change in educational practice. The project involved colleagues with interest and expertise in teaching sharing ideas for practice together through dialogue. They also undertook an Appreciative Inquiry into effective professional learning in this field and shared the findings with colleagues and institutional leaders. Evaluation identified individuals’ professional learning over the year and their growth in confidence to share practice ideas beyond the local. Barriers to using this approach for university practice development included perceived issues of authority to act in an institutional context, and performative approaches to change in teaching. Colleagues identified that they needed to find ‘gaps’ in allocated time schedules and in perceptions of teaching development and leadership if they are to influence more than their own practice. It is suggested that universities need to build the expertise and leadership capacities of academic staff with knowledge and skills in teaching by bringing them together in multidisciplinary groups to share ideas and create new practice. Gaps in policies and systems need to be opened up to enable these colleagues to have time and opportunities to work together, network with others and enhance university educational practice.
