Threshold knowledge is a term in the study of higher education used to describe core concepts—or threshold concepts—which, once understood, transform perception of a given subject, phenomenon, or experience.

The term was introduced by Jan Meyer and Ray Land, Meyer and Land also discuss the related idea of troublesome knowledge, ideas that appear alien or counter-intuitive. The theory holds that:

These ideas have been explored by several subsequent researchers in a variety of disciplinary contexts including:

• International theory

• Science education

• Economics

• Healthcare education

• Miscellaneous

• Statistics

• Information literacy

• Writing studies

The theory has also been criticised.

The notion of threshold concept is related to the notion of bottleneck in the Decoding the Disciplines framework. It can be considered a special case of the latter.

See also

• Eureka effect

• Decoding the Disciplines

• Paradigm shift

• Tacit knowledge

• Propaedeutics

References

External links

• Threshold Concepts: Undergraduate Teaching, Postgraduate Training, Professional Development and School Education — A Short Introduction and a Bibliography from 2003 to 2018 maintained by Mick Flanagan from UCL

• ETL Project Occasional Report on threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge, by Meyer and Land (archived)