Unlocking Engineering Threshold Concepts Through Stakeholder Engagement

A threshold concept is a core idea that is conceptually challenging for students, but once grasped, has the potential to radically transforms students’ perception of the subject. Given threshold concept’s central role to student learning, it is key that they are identified and constructively aligned within the engineering curricula. In this paper, we propose an approach to facilitate the identification of threshold concepts in undergraduate engineering courses. The approach is based on the framework of transactional curriculum inquiry where educators work with a group of stakeholders (students, curriculum designers, industry practitioners) to identify threshold concepts. The process is facilitated by a participatory simulation developed using agent-based modeling. We perform two experiments in a senior automation and controls course to identify threshold concepts. Our results show that this approach can be used to identify threshold concepts and that these concepts do have a significant link to student success in the course’s subject area.