Developing threshold concepts in legal education

Helen Carr (University of Kent), Caroline Hunter (University of York), Ray Land (University of Strathclyde), Julian Webb (UKCLE) and Elaine Webster (University of Strathclyde) facilitated a workshop aimed at developing an interest in and further understanding of the potential nature and role of threshold concepts in legal education.

The team’s slides are embedded below.

As developed by Jan Meyer and Ray Land (2005), threshold concepts have increasingly been seen as a novel and important contribution to our understanding of teaching and learning. Threshold concepts came out of the idea that there are certain concepts that constitute what Perkins (1999) calls ‘troublesome knowledge’ – knowledge that is conceptually difficult, counter-intuitive, or ‘strange’. These often tacit concepts create places where students get ‘stuck’ in the curriculum.

This experience of ‘stuckness’, which may last for a significant period of time, constitutes a stage that Mayer & Land define as ‘liminality’, during which students may feel unsettled, challenged and confused by their experience. While in the liminal state students may try to mimic the language and behaviours that they perceive are expected of them, but without full understanding.

Threshold concepts are important because they also appear to be deeply transformative and integrative, often reaching beyond the cognitive domain to include dimensions of personal identity, emotions and values. Once students have crossed the threshold, there appears to be no going back.

Work on threshold concepts to date suggests that the identification and use of such concepts in learning and teaching may serve to:

• create new pedagogical adjustments and interventions that will assist students in crossing such conceptual thresholds more easily
• shift the focus in curriculum design away from traditional ‘core concepts’ that, in isolation, may actually be of limited educational value
• transform the understanding of the subject and/or discipline for both students and teachers

Since its inception, the idea of threshold concepts has generated significant levels of interest in many disciplines and across different countries. To date, however, little work has been undertaken on threshold concepts in legal education. This session aimed to raise awareness of threshold concepts and facilitate discussion of potential threshold concepts in law, as well as to identify whether there is a group of scholars interested in taking this work forward within legal education.

References and further reading:

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• Meyer J & Land R (2005) ‘Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (2): epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning’ Higher Education 49(3):373-388
• Perkins D (1999) ‘The many faces of constructivism’ Educational Leadership 57(3):6-11
• Webb J (2008) Threshold concepts: a new tool for learning law? Directions in Legal Education Autumn

About the presenters

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Helen Carr is a senior lecturer and Director of Learning and Teaching at Kent Law School and co-author of Skills for law students (OUP, 2009).
 
Caroline Hunter was appointed a professor of law at York Law School in October 2009. She has been the director of a number of major government and charitably funded research projects and is convenor of LERSNet, the Legal Empirical Research Support Network.
 
Ray Land is Professor of Higher Education and Director of the Centre for Academic Practice and Learning Enhancement at the University of Strathclyde. His research interests include the theory and practice of educational development, threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge, and theoretical aspects of digital learning.
 
Julian Webb is UKCLE Director and Professor of Legal Education in Warwick School of Law. Much of his recent research is on ethics and values in legal education, and he is currently working on the idea of legal values as threshold concepts.
 
Elaine Webster joined the Law School at the University of Strathclyde in January 2008. She teaches public law and human rights and is currently undertaking postgraduate courses in advanced academic studies.

Last Modified: 9 July 2010