Testing the theory of threshold concepts in a context of dental education. Preliminary analysis.

This paper reports on the pilot phase of a phenomenographic study which explores the relationship between teachers' and students' perceptions of the curriculum and theory of threshold concepts, which claims that there are concepts in all disciplines which must be understood, if learners are to progress to a more advanced level of understanding. It is suggested that threshold concepts may represent ways of thinking and practising within disciplines. In this study consideration is given to the troublesome aspects of knowledge as described by David Perkins (1999) and further developed by Meyer and Land (2003). Researcher's intention is to investigate if students experience any conceptual difficulties and what the nature of these might be. Students' and teachers' accounts of how they perceive the dental curriculum might help to verify if there is a relationship between the curriculum and the theory of threshold concepts. Analysis of the troublesome aspects of knowledge may lead to the identification of threshold concepts in the dental curriculum.