Threshold concepts and unexpected transformations

Julie Rattray and Isaac Calduch

The Threshold Concepts Framework has been criticised as being too fluid because of the flexibility in the application of its characteristic features (O’Donnell, 2010; Rowbottom, 2007). The key exception to this fluidity is the transformative aspect, which has been characterised as non-negotiable (Baillie, Bowden & Meyer, 2013; Land, Meyer & Flanagan, 2016; Timmermans & Meyer, 2017).

Threshold transformations have been characterised as having a predetermined process, being the same, or very similar, for all learners – once the learner engages with a threshold concept and successfully negotiates the liminal space to master the threshold concept, concrete disciplinary ways of thinking and practicing emerge. In that sense, although preliminal variation and liminal dynamism (Land, Meyer & Flanagan, 2016; Meyer & Land, 2005, 2006; Meyer, Land & Baillie, 2010; Meyer, Land & Davies, 2008) are generally accepted, postliminal variation has been little explored.

Some learners may experience different transformations that bring about unexpected ways of viewing the discipline or understanding the threshold concept. Such alternative visions have the potential to cause a real change in disciplines, as it is not only the learner who is transformed, but also the threshold concept itself. In other words, if the transformations were always the same, knowledge (and the disciplines themselves) would not evolve. However, it has generally been considered that there is only one valid transformation, the one accepted by the community of practice. Issues of knowledge privilege, power and hierarchy are strongly related (Ricketts, 2010; Timmermans, 2010). In general, when learners experience an unexpected transformation, they are considered to be stuck in the liminal space, although in fact they may have been transformed. How can we differentiate between stuckness and unexpected transformations? To what extent should we allow or accept as valid certain unexpected conceptions about a threshold concept?