Threshold Concepts: Universal or Contextual? A Round Table Discussion

Iain Stalker and Rinkal Desai

In this session we invite colleagues interested in or involved with the teaching of business- and management-related concepts to students outside of the traditional Business School environments. In particular, we are keen to explore the universality of so-called “threshold concepts”: are these true thresholds to the subject per se and thus apply to ALL students learning a specific subject? Or are do these thresholds depend upon the door of entry into a subject?

We propose to open the session with a brief account of our experiences with threshold concepts in operations management and (micro)economics in the delivery of relevant programme/units/modules outside of traditional Business School environments. We have found that in some cases that concepts typically acknowledged threshold have been troublesome for students and once they have grasped this that their understanding of the subject is enriched and fundamentally changed; in other instances, we have found there to be no “threshold” to cross.

This discussions will seek to promote sharing of experiences and thinking in this area, with the ultimate aim of collaborating and establishing a formal project to investigate further to enhance both student learning and pedagogical understanding.

(We are unable to provide videos of roundtable discussions)