Information Literacy, Threshold Concepts and Disciplinarity

Information Literacy,

Threshold Concepts, and

Disciplinarity

Sheila Webber, Information School, University of Sheffield

Bill Johnston, University of Strathclyde ECIL, Prague, October 2016

Threshold Concepts

• Transformative concepts within disciplines

• Identified by experienced teachers in their discipline

• Enable learners to conceive the subject in a new way & experience possibilities for deeper disciplinary thinking and practice

• Mayer & Land (2005: 386) identify ways for educators to use TCs to facilitate “epistemological transitions, and ontological transformations”

• They note danger of structuring teaching mechanistically, which might encourage mimicry rather than understanding

Sheila Webber & Bill Johnston, 2016

Threshold

Concepts

Thinking &

Practising in the

disciplines

Variation Theory

Phenomenographic

Research

Part of wider landscape of pedagogical research

on disciplines’ teaching and learning

Approaches to

Learning Entwistle &

Tomlinson

(2007) Marton,

Hounsell

and

Entwistle

(1984) Meyer &

Land

(2003)

Teaching-

Learning

Environment Akerlind,

McKenzie,

Lupton, and

Trigwell

(2010)

Constructive

alignment

Biggs & Tang (4th ed.) (2011)


Key strands

Weaving the strands of

pedagogical research • “threshold concepts are used to

determine areas of the curriculum that require focused design attention;

• “phenomenographic action research is used to identify what it is about these concepts that students find difficult to understand and

• “variation theory is used to guide the design of teaching and learning activities to address these difficulties.” (Akerlind, McKenzie & Lupton 2014: 228)


TCs disconnected:

consequences & anomalies of

separation


• Sidestepping the question of disciplinarity: focus on

librarians teaching IL to learners of other disciplines

• No study of TCs in IL for people studying IL as a

discipline in its own right

• TCs fixed within the ACRL Framework project, not

acknowledging that IL is experienced differently in

different disciplines (though note that librarians are

exhorted to develop framework in own context)

• ACRL Framework has been criticised, but often seen

as issue with TCs, rather than issue of not

approaching TCs in way originally intended

Some anomalies


Consequences of transplantation

• Issues arising from appropriating TCs to a

situation constrained by the barriers which

librarians face in developing IL education

• Evidence that there is pressure to incorporate TCs

in reductive ways (e.g, Oakleaf, 2014)

• This can negate transformative possibilities and

lead to mimicry and surface learning


Reconnecting with the

pedagogical research

for the IL discipline Sheila Webber & Bill Johnston, 2016

Applied pedagogical research:

the case of IL

• Teaching IL to those learning IL as a discipline – currently, mainly trainee librarians

• Akerlind et al. 3-strand approach plausible and productive

• Constraints

– Problem of discipline-denial within the LIS community

– Epistemology of the discipline vs. body of knowledge of the profession


TCs in the discipline of IL • ACRL provides an experiment in the application of TC theory

to IL

• Also need to reflect on context from which pedagogic theories arise & and the context in which you are going to use them

• Given that librarians are central to teaching IL, it is important that trainee librarians engage with the complexity of the discipline of IL

• You discover the TCs by asking those who are teaching IL to people who are studying IL

• This has yet to be done: need investigation of IL as a discipline, to inform the next generation of librarians and educators


Sheila Webber

Information School

University of Sheffield

[email protected]

Twitter & SL: Sheila Yoshikawa

http://information-literacy.blogspot.com/

http://www.slideshare.net/sheilawebber/

Orcid ID 0000-0002-2280-9519

Pictures by Sheila Webber

taken in Second Life (a trademark

of Linden Lab)

Bill Johnston

Honorary Research Fellow

University of Strathclyde

[email protected]

• Åkerlind , G., McKenzie , J. and Lupton, M. (2014). The potential of combining phenomenography,

variation theory and threshold concepts to inform curriculum design in higher education. In J.

Huisman and M. Tight (eds.) Theory and method in Higher Education research II . (pp.227-247)

Bingley, England: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

• Åkerlind, G., McKenzie, J., Lupton, M., Trigwell, K. (2010) Threshold Concepts and Variation

Theory. http://thresholdvariation.edu.au/

• Biggs, J. and Tang, C. (2011). Teaching for quality learning at university. 4th ed. Milton Keynes,

England: Open University Press.

• Entwistle, N. and Tomlinson, P. (Eds.) (2007). Student learning and university teaching. (pp. 73-

90). Leicester, England: British Psychological Society.

• Marton, F., Hounsell, D. and Entwistle, N. (Eds.) (1984) The experience of learning. Edinburgh,

Scotland: Scottish Academic Press.

• Meyer, J. and Land, R. (2005). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (2):

epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning. Higher

Education, 49, 373–388

• Meyer, J. and Land, R. (2003). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: linkages to ways

of thinking and practicing within the disciplines. http://www.etl.tla.ed.ac.uk/docs/ETLreport4.pdf

• Oakleaf, M. (2014). A roadmap for assessing student learning using the new framework for

information literacy for higher education. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 40(5), 510-514.
