What are Threshold Concepts?
First proposed by educational researchers Jan Meyer and Ray Land (Meyer & Land 2003, 2005, 2006), threshold concepts can be understood as a pedagogical framework that brings into view the areas of conceptual difficulty in a field: the points of entry that must be understood for students to move to higher levels of understanding. One crucial characteristic of a threshold concept is that once learned, the learner is transformed. Transformative thinking transcends what one might call foundational concepts and rather refers to a type of knowledge, a conceptual gateway so to speak, that leads to new ways of understanding or interpreting core notions of a discipline. For example, it has been proposed that threshold concepts in economics would include opportunity cost and cumulative causation. In computer science, they might include object-oriented programming and recursion, and in mathematics, limits.
Threshold concepts are traditionally described as transformative, probably irreversible, integrative, bounded in that they differentiate ways of seeing, and troublesome because they require intellectual struggle or tenacity (Perkins 1999). In the last 20 years, there has been evolving scholarship about the nature of threshold concepts - from building blocks to networks and from discipline-specific to more general, but all scholarship converges on the idea that threshold concepts are crucial for further learning and full participation within a discipline.
Learn more about Threshold Concepts through the following sources:
A comprehensive overview of Threshold Concepts: http://www.ee.ucl.ac.uk/~mflanaga/thresholds.html
Search for Threshold Concepts by subject: https://www.ee.ucl.ac.uk/~mflanaga/thresholds_subjects.html
- Blaauw-Hara, M., Ibrahim, S., Gerstle, D., Eaton, C, & Seeley, S. (2025). Thinking past the doorway: Threshold concept metaphors for diverse learners in disparate disciplines. Currents in Teaching and Learning, 16(2), 6-21. https://webcdn.worcester.edu/currents-in-teaching-and-learning/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2025/01/Thinking-Past-the-Portal.pdf
- Cousin, G. (2006). An introduction to threshold concepts. Planet, 17(1), 4 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.11120/plan.2006.00170004
- Cousin, G. (2008). Threshold concepts: Old wine in new bottles or a new form of transactional curriculum inquiry? In R. Land, J.H.F. Meyer, & J. Smith (Eds.), Threshold concepts in the disciplines (pp. 261-272). Sense Publishers.
- Giordano, J.B., Hassel, H., Heinert, J., & Phillips, C. (2023). Reaching all writers: A pedagogical guide for evolving college writing classrooms. Utah State UP.
- Land, R., Rattray, J., Vivian, P. (2014). Learning in the liminal space: A semiotic approach to threshold concepts. Higher Education, 67, 199-217. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-013-9705-x
- McLean, J. (2009). Triggering engagement in SoTL through threshold concepts. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning, 3(2), Article 24. https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2009.030224
- Meyer, J., & Land, R. (2003). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: Linkages to ways of thinking and practising within the disciplines. Enhancing teaching-learning environments in undergraduate courses project, 4, 1-12.
- Meyer, J.H.F., & Land, R. (2006). Overcoming barriers to student understanding: Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge. Routledge.
- Timmermans, J. (2010). Changing our minds: The developmental potential of threshold concepts. In J.H.F. Meyer, R. Land, & C. Baillie (Eds.), Threshold Concepts and Transformational Learning (pp. 1-19). Brill.
- Timmermans, J.A., & Meyer, J.H.F. (2019). A framework for working with university teachers to create and embed “Integrated Threshold Concept Knowledge” (ITCK) in their practice. International Journal for Academic Development, 24(4), 354-368.
- Wismath, S., Orr, D., & MacKay, B. (2015). Threshold concepts in the development of problem-solving skills. Teaching & Learning Inquiry, 3(1), 63-73.
Decoding the Disciplines is a related framework holding much relevance to Threshold Concepts. This website offers a great introduction: https://decoding.webflow.io/