Over the last decade the notion of 'threshold concepts' has proved influential around the world as a powerful means of exploring and discussing the key points of transformation that students experience in their higher education courses and the 'troublesome knowledge' that these often present. Threshold concepts provoke in the learner a state of 'liminality' in which transformation takes place, requiring the integration of new understanding and the letting go of previous learning stances. Insights gained by learners as they cross thresholds can be exhilarating but might also be unsettling, requiring an uncomfortable shift in identity, or, paradoxically, a sense of loss. The liminal space can be a suspended state of partial understanding, or 'stuck place', in which understanding approximates to a kind of 'mimicry'. Threshold Concepts and Transformational Learning substantially increases the empirical evidence for threshold concepts across a large number of disciplinary contexts and from the higher education sectors of many countries. This new volume develops further theoretical perspectives and provides fresh pedagogical directions. It will be of interest to teachers, practitioners and managers in all disciplines as well as to educational researchers.

Editors' preface : threshold concepts and transformational learning / Ray Land, Jan H.F. Meyer and Caroline Baillie -- Changing our minds : the developmental potential of threshold concepts / Julie A. Timmermans -- Transcending disciplinary boundaries : a proposed theoretical foundation for threshold concepts / Leslie Schwartzman -- Threshold concepts : 'loaded' knowledge or critical education? / Aidan Ricketts -- Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (5) : dynamics of assessment / Ray Land and Jan H.F. Meyer -- Visualizing expertise : revealing the nature of a threshold concept in the development of an authentic pedagogy for clinical education / Ian M. Kinchin, Lyndon B. Cabot and David B. Hay -- Contexts for threshold concepts (I) : a conceptual structure for localizing candidates / Jerry Mead and Simon Gray -- Why is geologic time troublesome knowledge? / Kim A. Cheek -- A preliminary framework for isolating and teaching threshold concepts in philosophy / Monica R. Cowart -- Conceptual intersections : re-viewing academic numeracy in the tertiary education sector as a threshold concept / Rosanne Quinnell and Rachel Thompson -- Threshold concepts : challenging the way we think, teach and learn in biology / Pauline M. Ross [and others] -- The testable hypothesis as a threshold concept for biology students / Charlotte E. Taylor and Jan H.F. Meyer -- Assessing progression in students' economic understanding : the role of threshold concepts / Peter Davies and Jean Mangan -- Threshold concepts and attrition in first-year economics / Martin P. Shanahan, Gigi Foster and Jan H.F. Meyer -- Compounded thresholds in electrical engineering / Michael T. Flanagan, Phillip Taylor and Jan H.F. Meyer -- Threshold concepts in computer science : an ongoing empirical investigation / Lynda Thomas [and others] -- Identifying a potential threshold concept in nanoscience and technology : engaging theory in the service of practice / Eun-Jung Park and Greg Light -- Troublesome grammar knowledge and action-research-led assessment design : learning from liminality / Marina Orsini-Jones -- Engineering and social justice : negotiating the spectrum of liminality / Jens Kabo and Caroline Baillie -- What decoding the disciplines can offer threshold concepts / Leah Shopkow -- Identifying threshold concepts in the bank reconciliation section of an introductory accounting course : creating an ontological shift for students / Sidney Weil and Nicholas Mcguigan -- The threshold concept journey in design : from identification to application / Jane Osmond and Andrew Turner -- Modes of variation in pupils' apprehension of a threshold concept in economics / Ming Fai Pang and Jan H.F. Meyer -- Exploration of societal transitions in Estonia from the threshold concepts perspective of teaching and learning / Dagmar Kutsar and Anita Kärner -- Learning to be a researcher : the concepts and crossings / Margaret Kiley and Gina Wisker.