Towards the co-identification of threshold concepts in academic reading

Abstract

This paper seeks to identify threshold concepts in academic reading. It builds on existing research on the subject by working in collaboration with three groups of academic readers (1: academic staff and subject lecturers; 2: learning developers and librarians; 3: students) to co-identify a list of potential threshold concepts of academic reading. The Delphi Method was used to build a consensus between the different groups. Throughout the study, participants were invited to suggest and discuss threshold concepts across three rounds of asynchronous online surveys, which resulted in the identification of eight threshold concepts. It is hoped that these threshold concepts will enable and empower the teaching and learning of academic reading in a more transparent and explicit way.