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Journal of Transformative Education

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Theory as a Pedagogical DOI: 10.1177/1541344620963716
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Tool for Articulating

Transformational
Learning: An Initial
Exploration

Matthew Christopher Atherton1

and Yvonne Nalani Meulemans1

Abstract
As the landscape of higher education gets more complex, there is a need to increase
engagement and student reflection on their academic experiences. This research
explores whether a threshold concept framework (TCF) can be used in an inter-
disciplinary social science culminating course as a tool for students to consider the
transformative nature of their education and articulate the meaning of their edu-
cational experiences. Student reflective work was analyzed to see whether students
can (1) understand TCF, which is typically used to analyze student learning, rather
than as a reflective tool for students and (2) successfully apply TCF to their edu-
cational experiences. The authors conclude that using written reflections, students
could understand and apply TCF to articulate the transformational nature of their
education and consider the impact of their experiences as an undergraduate. These
results illuminate the potential of using TCF as a pedagogical tool within the class-
room and curriculum development.

1
California State University San Marcos, CA, USA

Corresponding Author:
Matthew Christopher, California State University San Marcos, San Marcos, CA 92096, USA.
Email: matherto@csusm.edu
2 Journal of Transformative Education XX(X)

Keywords
college teaching, threshold concepts, teaching innovations, transformative learning

As the landscape of undergraduate education has changed, educators are constantly

reevaluating how higher education serves students. The work of universities is
changing as schools navigate issues of budget, class size, online learning, and dis-
course about the meaning of a university degree (Tierney, 2011). Considering these
dynamic conditions, many universities have focused on maximizing the benefit of
college by increasing student engagement. Kuh et al. (2007) define student engage-
ment as “participation in educationally effective practices, both inside and outside
the classroom, which leads to a range of measurable outcomes” (p.43). These mean-
ingful experiences increase student engagement, which leads to higher levels of
student success both in and after college.
DuRose and Stebleton (2016) argue that while students have many of these
experiences throughout the course of their study, they are often unable to articulate
these experiences or the overall value of their college degree. Students struggle to
express how the knowledge they have learned is meaningful, relates to their lives, or
translates into tangible skills. DuRose and Stebleton (2016) suggest that colleges
should focus on facilitating these connections:

A primary objective should be to assist students to articulate their learning, to support

them in developing the language and communication skills to see linkages between the
various components of their learning throughout their under-graduate education; this
includes establishing connections between classroom learning, experiential education,
and student engagement opportunities. (p. 275)

Additionally, Coates (2005) argues that the benefits of engagement techniques

require that instructors facilitate student reflection so students can tie together what
they have learned and apply it to their lives. To address this issue, this article
examines the use of the threshold concepts framework (TCF; also called the thresh-
old concept theory) in a capstone course to help students understand the transfor-
mative nature of their education and articulate the meaning of their experience. A
capstone course is a class taken by students near the completion of their academic
degree. The capstone course is characterized as a culminating experience in which
students apply the knowledge and skills they have gained throughout their time in
that academic program. While traditionally TCF is used to understand the process by
which students learn and encounter troublesome knowledge, this article describes an
approach in which students are taught about TCF and then asked to apply TCF to
their college experience as a way to make meaning. This research project seeks
to answer whether TCF can be successfully introduced to students as a tool for them
to understand their learning experiences. More specifically, can TCF help students
understand the process of learning, identify the key knowledge within their field, and
Atherton and Meulemans 3

be a useful tool for lifelong learning? This article will discuss the theoretical appli-
cation of the theory, discuss the implementation within the course, and examine
student work to consider the value of TCF as a pedagogical tool and/or curriculum.
This article is an initial exploration in using TCF as a curriculum and pedagogical
approach within a capstone undergraduate course in order for them to engage in
aspects of transformational learning through written self-reflection focused on their
personal development and meaning-making of their educational experience. After a
theoretical foundation for this approach, the in-class implementation is described.
Selected student work is then provided with a brief analysis to address the ques-
tions of this initial exploration. Specifically, are there indications in students’ written
self-reflection that they have at least an emerging ability to appropriately use TCF to
describe personal and educational experiences? Equally important, are there indica-
tions that students can map specific characteristics of TCF in these identified
experiences?

Review of Literature
Capstone Class
Capstone class or culminating experiences are recognized as a high-impact practice
that provides students an opportunity to apply their educational program to address a
problem, analyze a situation, and/or practice their field of study in a live (aka “real
world”) setting. A significant body of research shows that such experiences aid in
student learning outcome assessment, curriculum design, and students’ attitudes
towards their postgraduate experiences. In addition, capstone courses have been
correlated with positive impacts on employer’s attitudes as well as new employee
experiences. Lee and Loton (2015) and Lee and Loton (2019) are only a few of the
comprehensive analyses of the purposes, aims, and applications of capstone courses
in both undergraduate and graduate education.
One aspect of student experience that appears minimally represented in the
literature on culminating experiences is how students understand their personal
development during their undergraduate education. This goes beyond
“transitioning” students into the “real world” of their chosen field; indeed, students
exist in the “real world” even while enrolled in college. Beyond the completion of an
educational program or earning of a credential, how can instructors aid students in
considering their own personal growth that emanated from their experiences as an
undergraduate? Are there learning theories and pedagogical approaches that are
particularly amenable to this aspect of student development within the context of
a capstone course?
Martin and Strawser (2017) detail their work on transformative learning (TL) as a
pedagogical tool to understand how students’ views on ethics may have changed.
However, there appears to be little in the literature regarding capstone courses as a
4 Journal of Transformative Education XX(X)

venue for students’ reflection on their development while an undergraduate, which is

generally recognized as an overarching outcome for secondary education.
The aforementioned Martin and Strawser (2017) also provide investigation on the
impact of providing students opportunities to engage in reflective work in a capstone
course, using TL as the guiding pedagogical approach. In their study, students were
asked to reflect on how their college experiences impact the development of their
understanding of ethics. In this article, the authors build on Martin and Strawser’s
work. Instead of focusing on ethics, students are asked to reflect upon their under-
graduate academic experiences as a source for considering meaningful areas of
personal growth. This study made use of written, reflective essays as the venue for
students’ self-reflection.
Written self-reflection shows promise as a method to aid students’ metacognition
about their educational experience. Naming What We Know (Adler-Kassner & War-
dle, 2015) aims to describe the ways writing, in a university setting, is a means for
student development, not just learning to communicate in a particular way about a
particular subject/topic. Self-reflective writing is an opportunity to explore students’
personal responses to their experiences through their word choice, sentence struc-
ture, and simply the assignment of thinking about their experiences with the
“content” of their education as opposed to the “content” itself.

TL
TL is a theory of adult learning primarily articulated by Mezirow (1991, 2000),
which describes the experiences of learners whose educational experiences impact
their fundamental epistemes and values in such a way that it results in changes to
how they think and act in their day-to-day life. It can include the acquisition of skills
and knowledge, but it ultimately results in significant changes to learners’ world
views (Clark, 1993).
There is a significant body of theoretical and practical research on TL. In this
article, the broader aspects of the field are most salient for the setting and purpose in
question. In the setting of a capstone course, TL is used as:

. . . the process by which we transform our taken-for-granted frames of reference

(meaning perspectives, habits of mind, mind-sets) to make them more inclusive, dis-
criminative, open, emotionally capable of change, and reflective so that they may
generate beliefs and opinions that will prove more true or justified to guide action.
(Mezirow, 2000, p. 8)

This is further elaborated: “ . . . transforming a problematic frame of reference to

make it more dependable in our adult life by generating opinions and interpretations
that are more justified” (Mezirow, 2000, p. 20). Since the theory was initially
articulated by Mezirow in 1991, there has been much discussion about what exactly
is transformed in the learners; is it primarily cognitive and/or affective? A singular
Atherton and Meulemans 5

answer is challenging. Cranton and Taylor (2012) provide some aid in answering
this: “Transformative learning is based on the notion that we interpret our experi-
ences in our own way, and that how we see the world is a result of our perceptions of
our experience” (p. 5) and “Learning occurs when an alternative perspective calls
into question a previously held, perhaps uncritically assimilated perspective” (p. 8).
In recent years, debate has centered on making the theory’s parameters more
explicit so that, as we, the authors, aim to do in this piece, use TL more appropriately
in practice and research. Cranton (2016) provides one of the more holistic pieces
focused on TL, notably emphasizing the necessity of critical reflection of students in
the TL process. Hoggan (2016b), Hoggan et al. (2017), and Merriam and Baum-
garnter (2020) provide the most recent examples of scholars’ efforts to operationa-
lize TL in sufficiently detailed fashion in order for researchers to more clearly
investigate these learning experiences in students.
It is Hoggan’s (2016a) thorough definition, criteria, and typology of TL that aid
the authors in describing students’ reflective work as indicating TL experiences in
their undergraduate education. Hoggan’s definition that TL “ . . . refers to processes
that result in significant and irreversible changes in the way a person experiences,
conceptualizes, and interacts with the world” (p. 71) provides a succinct foundation.
As students’ work is more closely considered, we see further examples that students
have experienced TL that fulfills the “depth, breadth, and relative stability” (p. 71) of
the changes they describe. The student work selected for analysis by the authors
most clearly illustrate changes in worldview (e.g., changes in assumptions, beliefs,
values, expectations) and subsequent behavior changes “actions consistent in new
perspective” (p. 72).
Taken together, in the setting of a capstone course, it appears that TL could be a
fundamental, foundational aspect of the capstone course experience. How, then,
does an instructor guide students to engage in learning that appears to be highly
individualized, deeply complex, and actually intersects with the “knowledge con-
tent” of the academic program that the student has completed? In the next section,
TCF is defined and existing applications in higher education are briefly described.
Then, TCF is considered as a tool for students to engage in TL through written self-
reflection in the specific context of a capstone course to an undergraduate program.

Threshold Concepts
The theory of threshold concepts (Meyer & Land, 2003) posits that each discipline
has fundamental habits of mind, dispositions, and practices that are unique to the
discipline. Flanagan (2020), on his online collection of threshold concept literature,
provides a brief, introductory summary of several characteristics of threshold con-
cepts: transformative (changes the way one sees the discipline), integrative and/or
reconstitutive (connects many other concepts), troublesome (challenging for novices
to understand/not “common sense”), irreversible (typically unforgettable), bounded
(unique to the discipline), and discursive (generates language changes). Examples of
6 Journal of Transformative Education XX(X)

generally agreed upon threshold concepts for different fields are the following: The
study of history aims to consider competing narratives about particular events and
that psychology is the scientific study of human behavior. A growing body of
research focuses on identifying threshold concepts in particular fields since thresh-
old concepts can be challenging and stressful for students to learn and therefore can
become obstacles to their educational progress. The theory then is used as a tool by
instructors to gain insight into what aspects of undergraduate education students get
“stuck on” and identify how to aid students. Research using TCF often includes
student interviews and/or reflective work to identify where they got stuck and how
they moved through the experience. Instructors then use these data to consider
changes to the curriculum. Examples include Meyer and Land (2006) and Land et
al. (2008).
A recent comprehensive monograph on TL mentions threshold concepts as hav-
ing transformative characteristics yet dismisses threshold concepts as:

. . . transformative relating to new intellectual concepts rather than the type that trans-
form one’s identity. This is transforming one’s thinking rather than transforming one’s
being—indeed, a different “form” that transforms. These kinds of transformative
experiences may be integrative, but they are likely not what Mezirow would refer to
as “epochal.” (Tisdell, 2012, p. 26)

Tisdell’s (2012) critique is directly addressed in Hodge’s (2019) argument that

TCF has potential in as

. . . a way of analyzing transformation that can account for the convergence of learning
upon recognizable features of a body of knowledge . . . Threshold concepts theory
accounts for transformative learning for and by knowledge, where the process of
mastering formal knowledge triggers transformation and where the change relates back
to the knowledge in question. (p. 150)

Hodge (2019) elaborates that TL has historically been centered on adult learning
in settings beyond formalized curriculum and program, settings in which TCF has
been primarily investigated. Hodge puts forward a case that TCF aids in understand-
ing how knowledge acquisition contributes to TL experiences. Tisdell and Hodge
provide a scholarly correspondence that supports the conceptual and applicable
connection between TL and TCF. In the setting and student work provided herein,
TCF is used as a tool for students’ own reflection on TL they encountered in their
undergraduate education.
While it is indeed accurate to state that threshold concepts are most often focused
on understanding students’ progress through particular fields of study, some TCF
research does focus on student experiences beyond discipline-specific skills and
knowledge. This TCF research focuses on how students experiencing threshold
concepts often experience a wide variety of affective, emotional, and cognitive
responses, in part because these field-specific frames of reference interrogate
Atherton and Meulemans 7

identities, values, beliefs, and practices that students may have long held. Students’
demonstration of apathy, anger, grief, and confusion when working towards under-
standing threshold concepts can instead be viewed as important markers of students’
engagement and not problems for instructors to “solve.” Instructors instead are
called on to consider the impact on learning progress (or lack thereof) and how to
aid students through these challenging experiences through pedagogical changes
(Meyer & Land, 2006; Perkins, 2006).
Meyer et al.’s (2010) Threshold Concepts and Transformative Learning illus-
trates examples of applying TCF to explore TL, yet only mentions Mezirow’s theory
three times. In the editor’s preface, there are clear parallels: “[TCF] represents a
transformed way of understanding, or interpreting, or viewing something, without
which the learner cannot progress, and results in a reformulation of the learners’
frame of meaning” (p. ix; author’s emphasis). In the same way, Mezirow theorizes
that TL changes a person’s frames of reference and TCF focuses on developing/
changing a person’s frame of reference in a particular field. Further, Timmermans
and Meyer’s (2017) proposed framework for educational developers explicitly notes
that threshold concepts indeed focus on TL.

Threshold Concepts as Pedagogical Tool in TL

Given the observed parallels between TL and TCF, this article is an initial explora-
tion of TCF as a pedagogical tool to support students’ TL in a capstone course, with
written self-reflection as the means through which instructors can “view” student
learning. Instead of the faculty using TCF, the authors have students learn and apply
TCF to their own experiences.
The authors have not found in the literature any instance in which TCF is taught
to students and then applied by them in order to understand their educational experi-
ences. While it certainly makes sense for instructors to use TCF as a tool in their
teaching, perhaps students can use it as a tool to gain insight into their learning and
personal transformation. A major aspect of TCF is that learning to “do” a discipline
and think like an expert is very difficult, not only in terms of the actual skills and
knowledge to be acquired but in the way it can dismantle students’ lifetime of
values, beliefs, and practices. TCF could make explicit to students that their strug-
gles are not a matter of studying harder or better but are a normal and welcomed
aspect of learning. Equally important, with instructors’ awareness of the challenges
before students beyond the field’s content, instructors and students can work more
productively together to address these issues.
For example, “liminality” or “the liminal state” is the language used in TCF to
describe the state in which students have not grasped the concept, are aware that they
do not grasp the concept, and do not yet know what to do in order to progress in their
learning. Furthermore, moving through a liminal state is not a linear experience, but
instead one could make progress, be confused or regress in their understanding, and
then make progress again; which is described as “oscillation” in the liminal state.
8 Journal of Transformative Education XX(X)

This can be demonstrated by students’ use of more technical/expert language but not
in successfully making use of that language. Liminality can be particularly exacer-
bated by students who may struggle with identifying as belonging in the discipline or
even higher education, such as those students from historically under-represented
groups (Meyer & Land, 2006). A student who learns that being in a liminal, fru-
strated state is a signal of learning, and then can work with an instructor who
acknowledges this, may be more willing to engage in challenging material. Equally
enticing is having students reflect on their educational experiences, applying limin-
ality and other aspects of TCF in order to identify their personal transformative
experiences, not only into being an expert in a field but also to their approach in
the world around them.
Finally, capstone courses are often seen as a venue for students to generalize their
education into an employment context. Self-reflective writing is a straightforward
way to have students do this, and TCF could also provide a framework for students to
do so. For example, one of the aims of TCF is to illustrate how learners can problem
solve in the face of cognitively and affectively challenging situations. Asking stu-
dents to apply the framework to such situations that may be of interest to employers
could provide valuable preparation for students as they “translate” their educational
experience after graduation.
In the next section, the authors describe a pilot program in which TCF is taught to
students in a capstone course and use written self-reflection to describe concepts
they encountered in their undergraduate education that contributed to their devel-
opment and/or identification of new or changed frames of reference, habits of mind,
and/or points of view. Students were asked to identify places in their curriculum
where they got stuck, how they moved through the experience, and characteristics of
this experience that could be mapped to TCF.

Capstone Class Setting

The capstone course setting used for this investigation is within an interdisciplinary
social science program that is offered at a public, regional, master’s-level university.
The academic program requires students to take courses from a variety of social
science fields. Students are allowed to choose a major and two secondary fields of
study, with an emphasis on utilizing an interdisciplinary approach to achieve greater
understanding of social issues. In a distributed program, students only take a handful
of courses within the interdisciplinary program itself; the majority of the courses are
taken in the programs themselves. Therefore, students within the program often take
a circuitous route to completing their degree. The capstone instructor had observed
over multiple semesters that students struggled to articulate what they learned from
the program’s curriculum. In addition, there was anecdotal indication that students
were not able to identify what they learned from the program that may be noteworthy
to employers. The major is intended to be a completion program; perhaps there was a
need to provide students an opportunity to identify for themselves and possible
Atherton and Meulemans 9

employers what skills, abilities, and knowledge they developed as a result of this
program. Such programs may not (by design) have the same clarity of scope and
content as, for example, programs in the sciences or professional programs.

Implementation/Pedagogical Evolution
This project took place in a capstone course for interdisciplinary social science
programs where the majority of substantive courses are distributed among other
departments. Two courses have a designation for the program and are offered by
the department, including the capstone course. The capstone course is designed for
the students’ final semester before graduation. This course was chosen because the
distributed and interdisciplinary nature of the degree allows for dynamic knowledge;
these same aspects can also contribute to students being able to make meaning of
what they have learned. While students are often intentional about the classes and
concentration they choose, there is a danger that it may appear random or chaotic to
those outside of higher education. Applying TCF directly to their experiences could
provide them with a framework to understand those dynamic experiences and be
able to explain how those pieces of their education fit together.
During the course, students would complete a reading or task and then answer
questions in an online journal prior to class. The students’ journal entries were only
viewed by the instructor and were graded on a pass/no pass basis. The goal of these
assignments was to get students to engage with the material and then reflect on the
ideas before class. Students were told that their grade was based on effort and not
accuracy. This practice was used because TCF can be abstract and difficult to learn.
Therefore, students were not punished for answers that were off target. Students
were even encouraged to express uncertainty or confusion, as long as they attempt to
answer the question supported by the reading. This encouragement had a secondary
purpose of providing an actual example for students of making use of one’s liminal
state in order to make progress in their learning. During class meetings, students
would engage with the material through a combination of lectures, discussion of
their journal answers, and in-class activities.
Students were asked about some of the concepts associated with TCF in the
context of their own lives. For example, students were asked to identify the TCF
concept of an “underlying game” in an aspect of their life that did not have to be
related to academics. To begin, students were asked to read Cousin’s (2006) article
Introduction to Threshold Concepts. This reading was reinforced by lecture and
reflective journal assignments that included framing the concept in their own words.
For some concepts, students were asked to write about topics from earlier journal
questions in light of what they learned in classroom lectures and activities.
The course then aimed to have students apply the framework to three aspects of
their college experience. First, students were asked to access their academic tran-
script to identify classes where they struggled with a specific concept and reflect on
them in their journal. Second, students were asked to identify a key concept in their
10 Journal of Transformative Education XX(X)

area of concentration and reflect on how this affected the way they understood future
concepts or issues in other classes. Finally, students were instructed to pick a reading
that made a major impact on their thinking, understanding of the field, or their
overall academic success. After reflecting on the readings in their journals, students
brought the readings to class where they shared the meaning of the reading with
another student in structured discussions. There was a final class session to tie
together the various lessons and activities and clarify any topics where the students
were unclear.

Findings
The authors sought evidence for two questions within students’ written self-
reflection: Could students apply, in at least an emerging fashion, TCF to personal
and/or educational experiences? and Could students map TCF characteristics to
these experiences? Given the scope of this initial exploration, evidence of students’
understanding of TCF and application to experiences would serve as an indicator
that this practice has the potential of providing an opportunity for transformational
learning. In order to assist in the exploratory analysis of students’ work, this research
made use of Hoggan’s (2016b) typology of TL.
To not overwhelm students with the nuance and complexity of TCF, students
were asked to reflect on some of the characteristics of the theory as a way to
introduce some of the core ideas. Prior to the first lecture on TCF, students were
asked to write in their journals about the concept of the underlying game. Students
examined aspects of their lives where they could identify a key system that helped
them learn a concept or perform a task. On this first attempt, some students were able
to apply the underlying game to concepts in their lives:

You are bound to make mistakes, but that’s okay. It’s okay to make mistakes because it
allows you to learn from them. No one is born knowing how to be a parent for future
reference. One learns to be a parent, as they become a parent. Everyone is different, and
so we all learn in our own ways, and when we do, it is eye-opening and rewarding.

However, most students interpreted the concept of underlying game literally and
tied it to specific actions or steps they undertake to complete a task rather than as a
concept that ties together understanding the subject they were addressing. After the
first full day focused on TCF, students were asked to revisit the concept of under-
lying game in their journals. These answers showed a deeper understanding of the
concept. Some students described the concept in terms of their own lives:

Now that I fully understand what the underlying game means, I can see that it may not
pertain to what the steps we take to reach a certain goal but rather what the “game” is to
get there. For my personal example, I used training my new puppy. The threshold to
training the new puppy could be that everything must be done with patience, otherwise
I may not get the desired results.
Atherton and Meulemans 11

Other students incorporated specific elements of TCF into their description of the
underlying game. This student incorporated the irreversible nature of TCF and the
overall transformative nature of their experience:

In order for me to get better grades, I had to go above and beyond studying and making
the time to do work outside of class. The underlying game was to stay focused and
determined. As I grasped that concept, later on throughout the semester I was able to
apply it to all of my courses. And as the article explained, the concept was irreversible.
I was not able to forget what to do because I made it a daily routine. In my opinion,
there is an underlying game in everything that we do. Rather than doing the task, we
have to fully understand the task because if we just do it without thinking, then we
aren’t able to grasp the whole concept.

Similarly, students were asked to reflect upon a time in their life where they
struggled to understand something and then had a breakthrough. While students
were encouraged to think of an example related to academics, they had the freedom
to apply it to any aspect of their lives. Many of these initial reflections about the
breakthrough and how it tied to a broader understanding of concepts were vague.
Some students discussed how they had a breakthrough in a class without providing
much detail or reflection on the nature of their newfound understanding. However,
after one of the initial classroom lectures on TCF, students were asked to revisit their
previous answer considering what they had learned. Much like the previous exam-
ple, the follow-up answers showed a deeper understanding of how the concepts of
struggle and breakthroughs tie to specific aspects of TCF such as the liminal state:

People, like myself, are not always going to understand everything when told or
explained to them once. It might take a lot of trial and error of explaining certain topics
to get something, and even after trying a bunch, a person might never reach that state
because it’s something that’s not for them. Learning and hearing from a professor that
it’s okay to struggle with understanding some things is comforting because it makes me
feel like I’m not alone and whatever I’m going through is normal. It makes me stress
and worry less, which helps me cope to trying to keep pushing forward to understand-
ing. Overall, it changed the way I will deal with similar situations in the future because
I know it’s something normal that people experience and its okay to feel that way.
Understanding the liminal state is the part of threshold concepts that is helpful to me in
making sense of frustrating experiences.

These excerpts appear to show what Hoggan (2016a, p. 66) labels as “new
awareness/understandings” related to their approach to maintain engagement in the
face of challenging experiences/learning. It could also be argued that these excerpts
illustrate “empowerment responsibility” that would aid them in . . . greater mastery
over themselves or feeling enabled to engage consciously in the world.”
Other excerpts show that students could fold in other elements of TCF as they
thought about key elements:
12 Journal of Transformative Education XX(X)

I remember being frustrated in my social psychology class because it was difficult for
me to understand the power of the situation and it’s [sic] effects on conformity and
obedience. It’s remarkably easy to lose yourself in a crowd or in the presence of an
assumed authority figure. We all want to believe that we would be the type of person
who rebels and don’t conform, but that’s not what the research shows. I didn’t have a
hard time understanding the concepts of conformity and obedience, but it took me a
while to accept the fact that I probably would have acted the same in some of the
situations that researchers put participants in. In that way, it was very troublesome but
very transformative.

Without being specifically prompted, the prior example showed how the students
were starting to view their breakthroughs in terms of the TCF by incorporating terms
such as “troublesome” and “transformative.” Here, there appears to be indications of
developing self-in-relation and self-knowledge (Hoggan, 2016a, p. 66). Even though
they may not have been completely accurate, it showed that students were already
understanding and applying the concepts at this early stage.
After discussing key aspects of TCF, the course presented the theory formally to
students via readings, lectures, and in-class activities. After covering this material,
students were asked to define the concept in their own words. To build on meta-
cognition, students were asked to write their definition as if they were explaining it
to a family member or friend. While some students initially struggled, they could put
it into words that made sense to them:

This question was a little more difficult to me to answer; I’m not quite sure I am
correctly understanding what threshold concepts are. But I would explain threshold
concepts as the big picture or the core knowledge you need to know about a certain
topic. I think a threshold concept is the important “stuff” within a subject. Threshold
concepts don’t focus so much on busy work or the smaller details; the focus is more on
the big concepts.

Other students built upon their personal examples as a way to define the theory:

The article described as a threshold concept is an idea you must know that is essential
for excelling at a given topic and that often in classes, we are given “filler” which may
be of some use but is not essential for succeeding. Using my previous golf example, I
believe the “filler” would be just general repeated practice; it will definitely improve
your skills and knowledge, but it is missing something that would bring all of the
information and talent together. This is where the threshold concept comes in. If you
can develop a strong mental game and limit the effects of nerves and pressure or even
use them to your advantage, all of your talents will come together and you will be able
to perform above and beyond your potential.

While many students used personal contexts, some students could define it in the
context of learning in the academic setting: “Threshold concepts are concepts that
are integral and central to a certain subject or thing. These are the ‘main points’ that
Atherton and Meulemans 13

will provide a full understanding of something without having to unload lots of

information.” Similarly, another student stated:

A threshold concept to me is the attempt to teach, where the student is actually learning
and is retaining the most important information and actually understands that infor-
mation as well. As the reading stated, a threshold concept is meant to teach the key
jewels of what is being taught, instead of forcing too much information on a student.

Once TCF was introduced, students were asked to apply it to their academic
experience. Students reviewed their academic transcript and were asked to choose
a course that introduced them to knowledge or skills that allowed them to better
understand future knowledge within the field of study and in general. Some of the
students could directly link key concepts they learned to the ability to understand
information in classes that followed:

Understanding the intersectionality of race, class, and gender, the three fundamental
and core ideas of sociology really helped me understand the basis of sociology and
future concepts among my major. Intersectionality became one of my favorite words
because each of those core concepts relates to one another and affects one another.
Once I understood the concept of intersectionality, it made it easier to understand why
certain events happened in history from a sociological lens, as well as understanding
certain topics in psych from the same lens as well.

Another student:

Growing up you are taught to accept what is being taught as what is the truth. I now see
it in a different way. History is typically taught from the side of the victors. We can
never know exactly what happened in the past because even those who lived through it
have their own point of view. Rather, we should find multiple primary sources and
secondary sources and piece together what actually happened and, even then, it is not
100%.

Other students discussed how these key concepts in the courses helped them with
broader future knowledge that was not tied to a specific future course:

Methods of sociology such as the social constructs and just ideologies of society have
helped me understand behaviors; it didn’t excel me in courses, but it made me more
aware of my environment and how to succeed in a social aspect/what to avoid.

Additionally, some students tied the important knowledge they gained to broader
ways to understand knowledge, such as empathy:

One of the major concepts that I learned . . . is how gender is a sociological construct. It
is something that opened my eyes, and once I understood how social constructs operate,
I was able to identify them in my everyday life. After understanding the meaning of
14 Journal of Transformative Education XX(X)

gender, I was able to understand the struggle that LGBTQ people go through, living in a
society that does not believe that their identities are natural.

These three excerpts appear to illustrate the beginning of worldview changes—

particularly of ways of interpreting experiences—in this case, interpreting past
educational insights in new ways (Hoggan, 2016a, p. 65).
Finally, some students tied the key knowledge they gained to specific skills that
helped them in their academic career. These skills have less to do with a break-
through of specific information or knowledge, but skills associated with academic
success:

I think that over the course of my college career, I have learned perseverance [sic],
which has helped me in all of my courses. I know that there is a point to taking courses
that I might not be passionate about because they are still going to teach me valuable
information that might relate to something else. I can’t even count the amount of times
that I learned something that I thought was pointless, only to have it come up in
conversation later on.

Students were also asked about how they could apply TCF to a specific reading
from their academic career. Students identified readings that were impactful in terms
of the knowledge presented but also assisted in understanding information in future
classes within their field. Students could link the ideas to future courses:

This reading further helped me understand how the way we “do gender” is socio-
logically constructed. We grow up learning the way men and women are expected to
behave and dress in public, but there is nothing natural about the way we behave
according to our gender. These are all constructed by society and emphasized by the
values we learn. I was able to identify these concepts in other courses that dealt with
gender inequality and women’s studies courses.

Other students made connections to the way they understood the concepts in their
personal life:

The idea of masculinity and how we expect it to be played out in society was a concept I
had never considered before, but after reading this article, I began to look at mascu-
linity differently. And personally, growing up with two brothers, this article helped me
take into account their position and how they are preserved in society. Overall, I think
this article encouraged me to look outside myself and my own issues and consider the
views of others.

Finally, some students could connect the academic knowledge within their cho-
sen readings to goals beyond college:

My understanding of this reading helped with my academic career by me figuring out

exactly what I wanted to do. This helped me realize that I will enjoy being a social
Atherton and Meulemans 15

worker by helping adults or adolescents in finding opportunities that will benefit them.
This reading gave me a bigger idea of what exactly I would like to do.

Taken as a whole, these selected written self-reflections also provide indication

that students do have a nascent understanding of the core tenets of TCF. It appears
they have successfully applied what they learned about TCF to articulate the trans-
formative impact of their personal and/or educational experiences. While certainly
closer analysis of students’ writing could reveal more about the nature and scope of
the transformative experiences, a central conclusion is that TCF holds potential as a
pedagogical tool for students to elucidate for themselves what their education has
impacted and changed them.

Discussion
The findings show that TCF was successful in facilitating self-reflection that allows
students to make sense and find meaning in their academic experiences. This section
will briefly consider whether this experience was transformative in nature and
whether that experience was the result of applying TCF.
Hoggan (2016a) argues that while there is a danger of TL being applied too
broadly, he does provide a typology that can capture the robust type of learning that
has a significant impact on the way students view the world. In this study, the use of
TCF as a tool to have students systematically and deeply reflect upon their academic
experience fits into Hoggan’s (2016a) typology in terms of transforming students’
world views through the ways they interpret their experience. Students reflected and
interpreted their experiences in higher education as a way to facilitate a cohesive
understanding of an academic program, which due to its freedom and breadth, could
result in a student gaining knowledge/skills that seem disparate. Additionally, stu-
dents gained a greater understanding of epistemology. Students used TCF to see how
theories and key concepts in their disciplines affected their educational worldview.
The self-reflection allowed students to see that these concepts were not just inde-
pendent pieces of knowledge, rather they were lenses to understand coursework and
concepts they encountered later in their educational experience. Both the reflective
interpretation of their overall experience and epistemology fit within the typology
provided by Hoggan (2016a) and the overall definition of TL.
The majority of students in the course were in the final semester/term of their
undergraduate education when they learned TCF and were asked to look back upon
their experiences; TCF was the intervention that did not cause the transformative
experiences but the intervention that allowed students to articulate it for themselves.
Hoggan (2016a, p. 71) argues that the depth, breadth, and relative stability of
students’ learning are also necessary in order to possibly label the experience as
TL. In this way, the timing and manner of the reflection also provide evidence that
students have experienced TL in this academic program of study. Students are
describing and reflecting upon experiences that are, if not months, then years in the
16 Journal of Transformative Education XX(X)

past, indicating that this transformation has some significant degree of what Hoggan
defines as “stability.” Furthermore, instead of instructors making that determination
for students, TCF is leveraged by students to engage in critical self-reflection about
how they have changed as a result of their educational experiences. In this way, TCF,
as a pedagogical tool, can be seen as supporting the student-centered foundations of
transformative education. Finally, some might argue that the material covered in
their coursework is more responsible for any transformational outcome than the
TCF-guided self-reflections. However, given the distributed nature of the program,
it is not a given that students would connect knowledge from their various courses to
concepts such as epistemology without an intentional framework or activity.

Conclusion
As noted earlier in this article, TCF has been almost entirely used by instructors to
consider places in students’ curriculum and educational experiences in which they
got “stuck” and struggled to make progress. This article describes a novel approach,
not yet described in the literature, in which TCF is used as a part of the course’s
curriculum to facilitate TL. These findings are also notable in part because there
does not appear to be a similar example in the literature of actually using TCF as part
of the curriculum itself. TCF has been a tool for faculty in multiple fields to under-
stand and facilitate students’ development from novices to experts. The use of TCF
as a teaching tool appears to be entirely novel. That it may facilitate the often
abstract, notorious realm of TL holds particular interest.
This is an initial exploration of the value of TCF as a pedagogical tool for students
to identify and articulate the impact of possible TL experiences in an undergraduate
experience. This research is thus limited by the authors’ emerging application of TL;
those with more developed understanding of TL could provide necessary insight to
advance the use of TCF in facilitating TL. Conversely, this research provides the
first known example of TCF used as a pedagogical tool. Researchers have used TCF
to analyze student experiences and analyze disciplinary skills, knowledge, and
habits of mind. Yet there appears to be no research into TCF as a tool for students
in their own learning endeavors. So, this work is valuable in that it is novel but that is
simultaneously a rationale to interpret and value the findings with careful
consideration.
Future research can build upon the initial success of this implementation of TCF
by expanding the exploration of how it can facilitate TL. More specifically, future
research could focus on how knowledge gained by students affects students beyond
discussion of their past academic experiences, building on Hoggan’s (2016b) dis-
cussion about TL encompassing broader connections to their lives and the others in
the world. This might include having students reflect on how the concepts of irre-
versible knowledge discussed in TCF and TL affected the ways they have
approached their actions and plans for the future.
Atherton and Meulemans 17

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of
this article.

ORCID iD
Matthew Christopher Atherton https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6187-1390

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Atherton and Meulemans 19

Author Biographies
Matthew C. Atherton is an Associate Professor in Sociology and Social Sciences as well as
the Faculty Center Associate Director for Teaching and Learning at California State Univer-
sity at San Marcos. His job helping develop workshops around pedagogy and assisting other
instructors with their teaching inspires how he designs courses and serves students. His
research centers around pedagogical innovations and student outcomes in higher education.

Yvonne Nalani Meulemans is the Head of Teaching and Learning at the University Library
at California State University at San Marcos. In this role, she leads a team of library faculty
and staff that partners with the campus community to encourage and support research and
inquiry. Her research focuses on pedagogical approaches to developing information literacy
and using the threshold concepts framework in undergraduate education.