Notes from Presentation Portion #

  • The theory of threshold concepts comes from a study conducted by Professors of Education Jan (Erik) Meyer and Ray Land, then both based at Durham University in the UK. They studied how undergraduate economics students grew into that discipline’s ways of understanding, observing that there were not only concepts that economists held to be “core” to their discipline, but also that these concepts held similar features.
  • As the slide shows, Meyer and Land assert that threshold concepts

    [represent] a transformed way of understanding, or interpreting, or viewing something without which the learner cannot progress

  • More specifically, they assert that threshold concepts are likely to be:
    • transformative, in that they alter the way a learner thinks of a subject;
    • troublesome, in that they challenge previously held ideas and can be difficult to learn;
    • irreversible, in that they are difficult to unlearn;
    • integrative, in that they tend to draw together hitherto apparently unrelated features of a discipline;
    • bounded, in that they might only apply to a particular discipline or portions thereof.

  • To an extent, Meyer and Land frame these concepts more as models or metaphors than explicit features, since they often use equivocating language such as “possibly, perhaps, might, or seem.” One way of using this notion of “theshold concepts” would be to deploy them as a tool to encourage reflection on any discipline’s practice and its central knowledge. Talking about threshold concepts in this way could help steer any discipline toward praxis. Right now we’re having that sort of moment in librarianship, although this attempt to encourage praxis of course comes without guarantees.

  • Here are the six concepts the ACRL Framework lists as thresholds for information literacy (alphabetically):
    1. Authority Is Constructed and Contextual
    2. Information Creation as a Process
    3. Information Has Value
    4. Research as Inquiry
    5. Scholarship as Conversation
    6. Searching as Strategic Exploration

  • These are not regarded as occuring in any necessary progression; they all are presented as concepts in themselves. Since the phrases alone aren’t quite adequate, I’ll read the explanatory blurbs ACRL provides:

  • “Authority is constructed and contextual”

    Information resources reflect their creators’ expertise and credibility, and are evaluated based on the information need and the context in which the information will be used. Authority is constructed in that various communities may recognize different types of authority. It is contextual in that the information need may help to determine the level of authority required.

  • “Information Creation as a Process”

    Information in any format is produced to convey a message and is shared via a selected delivery method. The iterative processes of researching, creating, revising, and disseminating information vary, and the resulting product reflects these differences.

  • “Information Has Value”

    Information possesses several dimensions of value, including as a commodity, as a means of education, as a means to influence, and as a means of negotiating and understanding the world. Legal and socioeconomic interests influence information production and dissemination.

  • “Research as Inquiry”

    Research is iterative and depends upon asking increasingly complex or new questions whose answers in turn develop additional questions or lines of inquiry in any field.

“Scholarship as Conversation”

Communities of scholars, researchers, or professionals engage in sustained discourse with new insights and discoveries occurring over time as a result of varied perspectives and interpretations.

“Searching as Strategic Exploration”

Searching for information is often nonlinear and iterative, requiring the evaluation of a range of information sources and the mental flexibility to pursue alternate avenues as new understanding develops.

  • We librarians who want to encourage a more critical approach to information literacy are trying to figure out whether these threshold concepts can be a vehicle to help get us to a place that learners and educators regard information more critically. So both within librarianship and here with you at this conference, we’re wondering whether this seems to be a productive way to have a shared dialogue about this with learners and educators.

  • The ACRL team tends to write more assuredly about threshold concepts than do Meyer and Land, and a number of other librarians have critiqued them.

Notes from Discussion Portion #

  • Elizabeth Sarjeant: Whose voices => how/when/being accustomed to using 1st person in own papers, difference btw textbook-based learning & different modes of instruction
  • Chris Alen Sula: teaches data, worries about how data treated as objective, also how data visualization steers a narrative, i.e. almost propagandistic past uses; what does the representation of this information do to inflect it in various ways? “Iron Ring around Germany” 1933 argument for rearmament, uses historical sources to distance & discuss more easily
  • Jessica: Representation might be a cultural studies threshold concept
  • Liz: Ideology for communication studies
  • Yvette: Intersectionality, how they relate to systems
  • Chris: Humanities/philosophies background, humanities rarely discusses its own methodology as explicitly as in other disciplines
  • Jessica: Meyer & Land identify “deconstruction” for English discipline
    C- hris: Data and bias, what assumptions are built into how something collected, manipulated, interpreted, etc.
  • Yvette: Having a student be reflective about their process could be an assignment in and of itself. Also evaluate their process, talk about politics, etc. perhaps. Talk about limitations as well. She recommends Anne Balsamos, New Media School, FemTechNet cofounder, Designing Cultures & digital literacy. Information & digital literacy.
  • Chris: Includes “Future Directions,” which is code for “limitations,” what did you not have time, not having to say “I did this wrong.” Now he wants to ask what they know about the datasets that they’re asked to bring in, how they handle it. Historiography might be a model, eg how do they scaffold that into earlier, 7-12 education level instruction?
  • Yvette: “Generalist is only as good as the specialist they are working with” Constrained & unconstrained skills in early literacy, like alphabet or sounds, unconstrained is different, with more variable learning aspects (like technology updates & changes)