ABSTRACT. Learning is both an emotional and effortful experience. It requires us to invest time and effort in each learning task as we work towards accomplishing it. This effort involves not only our cognitive capabilities but it frequently involves are affective or emotional selves. The troublesome nature of threshold concepts potentially makes their mastery particularly effortful as learners grapple with the new and often alien knowledge to be learned. This troublesomeness coupled with the transformative nature of threshold concepts results in a learning experience that is both powerful and highly emotive. It is easy to think of the emotional or affective side of threshold mastery as relating to the effort it takes to master the concept and to cope with the experience of being in a liminal state. But this is not the only affective element we should be paying attention to. The thresholds themselves, i.e. the knowledge to be mastered can provoke an emotional response that further complicates engagement with them. After all, we talk of thresholds as bringing about an ontological shift in our being, a change to the very way we view the world and so the nature and the content of the knowledge itself can be emotive. Knowledge that challenges existing beliefs or cultural identities might evoke in learners a strong emotional response or, even act as an emotional barrier. . I am thinking particularly about the nature of the knowledge we teach and where it is derived from. Drawing on Meyer & Land’s (2006) warning that “threshold concepts might be interpreted as part of a ‘totalising’ or colonising view of the curriculum.” (p16) I will consider the importance of being mindful of not perpetuating a set of thresholds that exclude groups of learners from mastery because of the privileging of certain forms of knowledge.

ABSTRACT. The liminal traverse, and the transformation it engenders in the learner, are central to the threshold concepts view of learning; yet (because it is essentially subjective and not directly observable) this remains an aspect of the framework about which we (still) know the least (Rattray, 2016). In this paper, we seek to advance insights into the nature of the transformations that disciplinary learning might bring about – or require – and the processes through which these may occur. We explore aspects of transformation emanating from the representations of students who participated in a learning programme in economics at a South African university, the design of which was influenced by a threshold concepts orientation. Through the application of Interactive Qualitative Analysis (Northcutt & McCoy, 2004), the students were deeply involved in exploring their own learning, generating data in focus groups, individual interviews, and written reflections. These sources produced rich descriptions, in the students’ voices, of the experiences and processes of their learning in economics. Students’ representations suggest interlocking aspects of transformation that entailed cognitive, metacognitive and identity shifts as they moved through a liminal learning process. Participating in active, peer discussion-based learning led to transformed conceptions of learning, and of their own role as capable learners. These could be seen as metacognitive thresholds that students had to cross before embarking on successful disciplinary learning. Disciplinary learning in turn brought a transformed worldview, through the development of an economic gaze. Ultimately, some students experienced a transformed sense of self among their peers, in the discipline, and in the world. The students’ engagement in data generation and analysis, and the rendering of findings in their voices, offers insights ‘from the inside’ into the dimensions of students’ transformations, and how each was effected through their learning of economics in the programme.

ABSTRACT. Background Threshold Concepts (TCs) represent transformative events during which learners traverse a metaphorical gateway and gain new insights (Meyer & Land, 2003). TCs have been of increased interest to medical educationalists over the last few years. This paper, building on Hokstad and Gundrosen (2016), seeks to identify TCs in medical student simulation teaching.

Methods 11 penultimate and final year medical students participated in a semi-structured interview following a simulation teaching session. Data were audio recorded, transcribed and analysed using open, inductive coding following the model of interpretative phenomenological analysis (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009) to identify emergent themes related to TCs in simulation.

Results 7 key themes were identified including three novel TCs: the challenge of escalating to seniors; the importance of effective delegation and communication with nurses; and the practical application of resources in ‘real-time’. Other themes, identified previously, included: ‘becoming a professional’ (Neve et al, 2016) and ‘transforming learning into reality’ (Wright et al, 2016).

Discussion and Conclusions Medicine is a profoundly practical vocation. Lecture and book-based models of learning may not enable students to fully prepare to ‘step into’ the role of the doctor during their education. Simulation-based teaching provides a safe environment for students to take on this role, and here, we have shown it has revealed gaps or rather, opportunities for development, in their practice. Simulation teaching allows previously unseen or unknown challenges in ‘real-world’ medicine, to be revealed. We have identified three new TCs from the perspective of medical simulation teaching: Escalating to seniors, communication with nurses and utilisation of resources in ‘real-time’. Identifying these emergent TCs in simulation teaching provides us with new ideas to develop curricula, adopt and encourage newer, more practical teaching methods and support medical students as they prepare for practice.

ABSTRACT. The concept of liminality has earned renewed interest within a wide range of academic disciplines the last twenty years, fuelled by the centenary anniversary of ‘Rite de Passage’, van Gennep’s classic, gaining a renewed interest and expanding to education, economy and political studies (van Gennep 1909/1960, Meyer and Land 2005, Horvath et al (2015).

This presentation provides perspectives on the ambiguous faces of liminality in an educational context. We discuss how to navigate in this simultaneously enchanted and dangerous waters and introduce the theme of “thinking with liminality” as a pedagogic approach.

To frame these aspects of liminality, we start with examples of how liminality has been expressed and perceived in our own research across disciplines, including architecture, medical education (medical simulation and PBL) and economy. From this point of entry, we suggest how ´thinking with liminality´ may expand our methodological repertoire.

Whereas research applying the TC framework has focused on the learner experience and curricula design, we focus on two other aspects of the liminal; the epistemological implications and the role of the teacher. First, we discuss the role of teacher as ´master of ceremony´ and ´keymaker´, to provide educational leadership (Zyniger & May 2004, Biesta 2017). Secondly, we discuss the epistemological implications of limininality, and suggest that liminality should be perceived as an affordance (J. Gibson 1979, Gibbons et al 1994).

To position ´thinking with liminality, as a way of thinking and practicing as an educator, we go to the Bildung tradition, and draw upon the term of the Between (beziehung) in Martin Buber ´s work on dialogue, and the work of Wolfgang Klafki, the ´Categorical´ (kategorical Bildung) and Schön´ s ideas of reflective practice (von Humboldt 1793/2000, Buber 1947, Klafki 1991, Schön 1983, Schön 1987).

ABSTRACT. We present the design, the set-up, and results of research of which difficult or special physics concepts students of environmental sciences identify as threshold concepts, in the physics course for environmental sciences of their undergraduate e-learning programme. More specifically, which characterizations –, transformativity, irreversibility, integrativity, counter-intuitivity, and boundedness – are applicable in their view, and what they did to overcome these threshold concepts. The data are gathered by analyzing a reflection assignment of the students at the end of the course. The pattern observed in earlier threshold concepts research, computer science and mathematics, that very few threshold concepts are mentioned by a vast majority of the students, while all the other threshold concepts were mentioned by very few student, is also investigated. Finally, we analyzed to what extend the use of the physics concepts increased their knowledge of environmental topics. As results we report as the highest scoring threshold concepts: Carnot cycle, radiation enforcement, quantum theory, and electromagnetism. This is indeed in accordance with the earlier mentioned pattern in computer science and mathematics that a few high scoring threshold concepts are mentioned and many low scoring threshold concepts. The highest scoring characteristics are transformative, irreversible, and integrative. The most frequently mentioned ways of overcoming a threshold concept are: studying the physical concept again and working with it (exercises) or using it (applications). The least mentioned way is consulting external resources, such as internet and literature. The benefit of knowing physics concepts in oder to better understand the environmental topics is on the average judges as 4.5 on a 5-points-scale, which is interpreted as that understanding physical concepts has highly improved their understanding.

ABSTRACT. As Entrepreneurship is a comparatively emerging scientific discipline, there is a growing demand on research to promote the development of disciplinary concepts (Wiklund, Wright, & Zahra, 2019) and to avoid a "hodgepodge" (Thrane, Blenker, Korsgaard, & Neergaard, 2016) of teaching formats and curricula. This applies to both domain-specific and individual knowledge building from a learner's perspective.

This paper examines the potential of effectuation framework developed by Sarasvathy (2001) as a threshold concept (TC), established by Meyer & Land (2003), in entrepreneurship. While former studies investigated the concepts of entrepreneurial failure or specific entrepreneurial ways of thinking (Bolinger & Brown, 2015; Hatt, 2018) as possible TC in entrepreneurship, effectuation has not been explored yet. The discourse on this matter points out its counterintuitive and unconventional perspective on entrepreneurial decisions and behavior, which contradicts the traditional managerial approaches.

The first step consists of a literature-based analysis of effectuation with a primer focus on its potential to meet TC-characteristics proposed by Meyer & Land (2003). In a second step, effectuation was embedded in an entrepreneurial learning arrangement. For this purpose, students of entrepreneurship (n=102) attended a 6-week entrepreneurship course. In the first three weeks period, only basic concepts (e.g., definitions, historical background) were taught and discussed. In the following three weeks period, learners were primarily confronted with effectual logic. The diagnostic assessment was carried out with pre-post surveys as well as a daily learning questionnaire that depicts entrepreneurial learning in cognitive, motivational and emotional dimensions. The results indicate that compared to the basic concepts, the confrontation with the effectuation concept does evoke the TC-specific characteristics.

Both theoretical work and empirical results contribute to the scientific discourse in terms of providing a systematic framework for the identification of TC in entrepreneurship. Practical implications are provided regarding the design of entrepreneurial courses and curricula.

ABSTRACT. Significant changes to the delivery and assessment methods of A-level specifications in schools in England have introduced increasing levels of difficulty (CIFE, 2018), making what is already a difficult transition from GCSE to A-level study even more acute. Recent investigations into students’ journeys highlighted the cognitive and affective discomfort brought about by encounters with threshold concepts (Dunn, 2019a; 2019b), which served to exacerbate these troublesome transitions. We argue that focusing on threshold concepts (Meyer & Land, 2003) within A-level teaching is a pedagogically productive endeavour which has the potential to impact positively on teaching practice. This paper reports on an ongoing, collaborative project involving student teachers, academics, school teachers and pupils. We will update delegates on the Threshold Connections project: outlining the research design; presenting findings and analysis from phase one; explaining the design and implementation of phase two and direction of travel for phase three. Whilst the project is centred around UK secondary schools and teacher education, the principles and theoretical approaches are potentially transferable to other international contexts and educational phases.

The critical theme of this conference is timely, particularly in the field of education. Whilst there are many references to threshold concepts evident within social media, popular education texts and guidance documents, we have become increasingly concerned by the throwaway use of the term ‘threshold concepts’ in this discourse, often without reference to the underlying theoretical framework, or with superficial application. We have therefore based our project design on a critical appraisal of the Threshold Concept Framework (TCF), particularly how the TCF characteristics have been applied in empirical studies throughout the literature, and with consideration of the published critique of the TCF.

ABSTRACT. This presentation addresses the sparsely researched link in architectural education between students’ experience of liminality and their design work. The trajectory from layperson to an identity as architect student is for many a challenging journey of negotiating existential questions and personal transformation (Cuff 1991, Thompson 2019). Through a strategy of challenging, extending and rendering existing perspectives as ‘strange’ (Land 2016), the students are called to question cultural experiences they hitherto taken for granted (Turner 1974). This ambiguous situation of ‘becoming’, typically characterized by states of confusion, frustration, excitement and revelation, seem to be reflected in the spatial representations of their design work. Acknowledging that liminality is essentially a spatial concept (van Gennep 1960, Thomassen 2014), its potential and challenges regarding architectural education has been waiting to be explored. Within the research context of TransARK, a pedagogic forum at the Faculty of Architecture and Design at NTNU, architects and pedagogues have done so for seven cohorts of first semester architect students. Through a crystallization inquiry (Richardson & St. Pierre, 2005) a large volume of empirical data, primarily architectural scale models and drawings, supported by interviews, questionnaires and student reports, reveal spatial patterns and narrative layers that until now have been overlooked. Spirals and circles with trees in the centre, dark passages and tunnels, mazes and challenging paths and dimly light underground caves emerge from the material, corresponding with archaic, pre-modern societies’ use of space mediating rites of passage (van Gennep 1960, Eliade, 1961). By venturing into new and anxiety-provoking ways of working (Barnett 2007), the students articulate and give meaning to their existential situation through spatial images, as externalization of the mind (Pallasmaa 2011). These findings challenge traditional ways of seeing and interpreting first semester student’s work that open new perspectives on architectural education and the role of the teacher.

ABSTRACT. The inclusion of students as research participants in the identification of threshold concepts is controversial. There is an inherent contradiction and methodological challenge regarding the involvement of student participants in the gathering of valid and reliable perspectives in curriculum inquiry. Students do not know what they do not know, and therefore cannot articulate where the threshold concepts might lie in any subject discipline. However, even if students do not always know what they need to learn, they are able to report what the learning experience is, and was like and can provide an alternative perspective to the educators. Researchers have been challenged to strive for appropriate methodologies and forms of enquiry that will allow purchase to be gained on the experiences of students as they grapple with threshold concepts. There is a need to find ways to get at partial understanding of troublesome and transformative knowledge and insight into experiences of liminality. Findings are taken from a doctoral thesis that is concerned with enhancing entrepreneurship curricula in higher education using the threshold concept framework. A staged stakeholder curriculum inquiry was undertaken to identify the threshold concepts of entrepreneurship and how to best educate students in them. This paper is concerned with the methodological choices taken in the final stage of the research which consisted of concept mapping workshops with students on a specialist entrepreneurship programme. The proposed paper sets out a methodology that responds to the challenge of hearing the student voice in curriculum inquiry using the threshold concepts framework, namely the utilisation of concept maps, and offers a contribution to the literature not just on threshold concepts but on concept maps as a methodological tool for eliciting student voice.

ABSTRACT. One of the main issues in designing creative courses is ‘measurability’: in creative education important outcomes involve the development of intuition, inventiveness, imagination, visualisation, risk-taking, which are not easily measured. Another issue is to do with the ‘spiral nature’ of learning in creative courses: outcomes are not achieved/addressed once and for all. Rather, they are regularly returned to within and beyond levels.

Threshold Concepts (TC) After reading Pace’s work on ‘Decoding the disciplines’ and Land and Meyer work on ‘Threshold concepts – implications for curriculum design’, it became apparent that TC lend themselves much better to describing and decoding creative disciplines. They can both be seen as gateways into the disciplines and help identify typical bottlenecks where students can get stuck. This presentation discusses the development of a learning design tool using TC as one of three frameworks to support academics (re-)designing creative curricula.

The curriculum design workshop revolves around identifying perceived TC for the curriculum to be (re-)designed. This is a more useful starting point than formulating LOs. Where necessary, TC can eventually be used to formulate LOs for course documentation and QA purposes. The pilot was highly successful. Many participants said that using TC was a real eye opener to the way students learn. One said that thanks to using TC for the first time she truly understood her discipline. Other findings following the pilot are suggestions for further uses of TC, such as for end-of Unit revision and consolidation of learning. This could be both from the teacher and the student perspectives.

The presentation will be of particular interest to academics and educational developers in Creative Education. It is also useful to those who would like to combine TC with other frameworks in learning (curriculum) design.

ABSTRACT. A recent Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) study at a small, private liberal arts university in the southern United States sought to determine the degree to which faculty burnout might be addressed by learning in community via a “New-to-SoTL” community of practice (CoP) that explored SoTL in Action: Illuminating Critical Moments of Practice (Chick, 2019). The researcher conducted qualitative analysis of pre-post narratives, CoP discussions, and quantitative analysis via teaching climate/engagement surveys (Campbell & O’Meara, 2014). While they hoped to see shifts in colleague engagement or even decreased burnout (Malsach et al., 2001, Lackritz, 2004) they discovered something entirely different: that negotiating disciplinary identities at the intersection of signature pedagogies and SoTL created an almost intractable liminality for faculty and academic staff co-learners. This difficulty manifested in several forms, ranging from retrenchment into disciplinary ways of knowing, frustration with curriculum, abandonment of SoTL projects, to and an enthusiastic embrace of liminality itself.

As a result of this significant difficulty, the researcher developed an evidence-informed workbook companion to SoTL in Action for faculty and academic staff to help colleagues reframe SoTL work in light of Threshold Concepts more transparently. Metacognitive prompts, defining features matrices, reflective evaluations, and colleague interviews are some of the tools included in the workbook which has been tested and revised with two further SoTL community of practice iterations. This presentation will feature a summary of the SoTL research that informed the development of the workbook, the process by which the workbook was refined and updated, and invite colleagues to interrogate the extent to which it might be adapted and used in their home institutions.

ABSTRACT. The conference themes invite the community to reflect on the proliferation of work on threshold concepts and consider how the framework has been applied in practice. Accordingly, this paper presentation addresses the state of research designs in studying threshold concepts across the disciplines and offers strategies to engage their data in potentially unexpected ways.

Common critiques levied against the framework concern the loose definitions of the threshold concept features. The use of imprecise criteria in designs meant to identify ideas in a discipline fit to bear the title of “threshold concept” poses immediate threats to the research quality. Further complications emerge for researchers employing retrospective methods, i.e., asking participants to recall their learning experiences, where hindsight bias has been documented as a non-ignorable limitation. The several criteria combined with methodological issues in data collection place a considerable burden on researchers attempting to identify or describe threshold concepts, as the evidence required for a convincing argument demands a nontrivial research design.

Current trends in the modes of inquiry for interrogating disciplinary ideas as thresholds appear to show a preference for qualitative approaches, primarily using questionnaires and interviews as the methods of data collection. Those using multimethod or mixed methods approaches often employ a triangulation design but contain little conversation between the data. Integration strategies are generally ignored that could help the community grapple with the inherent difficulties in these designs.

This presentation will demonstrate strategies drawn from mixed methods research to aid scholars in creating research designs with a mixed methods approach - employing well-known methodologies like grounded theory and case studies. In particular, the focus will be placed on analytical strategies to facilitate integration between the different data strands in the study. Handling the definitional issues with threshold concepts will also be discussed through a mixed methods lens.

ABSTRACT. The concept of One Health, focused on understanding the complexities as related to aligned approaches to human, animal, plant, and environmental health, is a burgeoning field of study for research and practice. However, less is understood in terms of these multiple disparate areas merging for the complexities of the educational process. In particular, teaching and learning in One Health presents challenges with students, educators, and practitioners coming together from multiple disciplinary backgrounds and communities of practice. Training often may involve students taking classes in areas with different communities of practice and reconciling key threshold concepts and educational topics across the disciplines. As current pushes in the field revolve around collaboration and working at interfaces, an understanding of threshold concepts and the educational process become increasingly important. This presentation takes a two-fold approach: 1) discussing the strategies and approaches used for mapping the threshold and core concepts of One Health as an interdisciplinary field and 2) presenting the findings of One Health with applications alongside observations useful for strategic thinking in other disciplinary areas. Mapping One Health presents a look at the future of interdisciplinary teaching and learning at the intersections of the STEM, public health, healthcare, environmental, and veterinary fields, in terms of understanding how to address core and threshold concepts. Importantly, this mapping process provides insights on approaches to first reviews and deeper understanding in other areas bringing together multiple disciplines and fields. Attendees from any academic background may benefit from a look at the stepwise process taken to mapping threshold and core concepts as well as the learning gains from this process taken in One Health.

ABSTRACT. As the Threshold Concepts framework approaches 20 years, there is a now a significant body of work around threshold concepts in individual courses, programs, or even institutions. As The Threshold Concept website attests, there are identified Threshold Concepts in areas from Academic Identity to Zoology. However, little of this work is being applied to inform the study of curricular and pedagogical change.

In an educational context where institutions of higher education are under significant pressure to offer exceptional educational experiences, they are asking local educational leaders to make strategic decisions around programme and policy initiatives and/or changes. I believe that there is potential to push beyond investigating Threshold Concepts in individual classes and university programs and instead use Threshold Concepts to create new curriculum and pedagogy, and develop educational leaders with the expertise to drive these changes.

In 2007, Lucas and Mladenovic’s article The potential of Threshold Concepts: An emerging framework for educational research and practice identified threshold concepts as powerful tool for educational change – an opportunity for re-view and dialogue, followed by increased theorizing of threshold concepts within curriculum development (Carmichael, 2012; Land, 2011). Focusing on ‘stuck places’, Threshold Concepts can be a lens for investigating disciplines and act as a frame to consider curriculum for programs in higher education.

This keynote reflects on: What is the benefit or impact of determining Threshold Concepts in a course or program if we do not integrate these Threshold Concepts into future iterations and study the impact of this curriculum reform?

References

Carmichael, P. (2012). From this curriculum to that which is to come. NAIRTL Conference 2012, Trinity College Dublin, June 28-29, 2012.

Land, R. (2011). There could be trouble ahead: using threshold concepts as a tool of analysis. International Journal for Academic Development, 16(2), 175-178. DOI: 10.1080/1360144x.2011.568747

ABSTRACT. A threshold concepts framework in tandem with curricular design models provides the basis for cross-disciplinary curricular development in information literacy. This paper presents a prototype curriculum for an online short course for disciplinary faculty and librarians based on three educational frameworks: the Framework for Information Literacy (based on Threshold Concepts); Decoding the Disciplines; and TILT (Transparency in Learning and Teaching), in order to create an integrated model for professional learning, course and curriculum redesign, and community-building through networks of practice. The prototype curriculum, which coheres around the threshold concepts inherent to the Framework for Information Literacy, is a “proof of concept” for educational developers, disciplinary faculty, librarians, to build community around in order to effect educational change. The paper engages the research of Roxa and Martensson in examining the potential impacts of threshold concepts for facilitating partnerships and networks of practice which make cross-disciplinary collaborations possible.

ABSTRACT. The authors previously presented preliminary findings from their research using the threshold concepts framework to understand dispositional readiness in the field of teaching (Seventh Biennial Threshold Concepts Conference, 2018). Session attendees demonstrated considerable interest in our methodology of collaborative thematic analysis, informed by grounded theory. For this presentation, we will focus on these methods so that session attendees will be able to employ them. We have now completed the data analysis and will report on refinements, along with insights for transferability when adapting to other domains.

Threshold concepts studies have employed methodologies such as Delphi, in which researchers seek the perspectives of experts to determine a consensus around threshold concepts in the experts’ fields. In our research, we interviewed the learners directly and analyzed their reflective writings, in order to learn about their experiences as they transitioned into the professional role of teacher. By seeking the perspectives of the learners instead of the experts, we were able to discern direct and nuanced understandings of the learners’ experiences, and to gather insights into how they might be experiencing identity shifts as they prepared to join a community of professional practice.

Consistent with the conference sub-theme “Troublesome not tricky: not all that challenges is a threshold,” our presentation will describe the methods we used to differentiate threshold concepts from critical professional praxes. We coded our data thematically and iteratively, settling upon 10 themes that emerged from the datasets. We then assessed each theme for threshold characteristics, and found that seven of the ten could be considered threshold concepts.

This method of distinguishing between themes with threshold characteristics and other themes that are vital domain practices, but which do not rise to the level of threshold concepts, can be applied and adapted by researchers in other domains.

ABSTRACT. What if we taught students the threshold concepts theory? Has anyone ever done that? Could this be a tool for students to understand the hidden curriculum of higher education? What if we asked students what their own threshold concepts were in their education? This paper reports on a novel use of threshold concepts; as an actual curriculum and pedagogical approach. Students in a capstone social sciences course were taught the threshold concepts theory and asked to reflect on their undergraduate experiences to identify personal threshold concepts, experiences with and coping strategies for liminality, and possible applications of threshold concepts theory beyond an educational setting. Instead of threshold concepts theory being used to drive curriculum design, this paper posits that the theory could be the curriculum in order to facilitate transformational learning and meaning-making for students. The theoretical foundation, course context, and implementation will be detailed but focus will be on the evidence within student work that this theory holds immense potential to be integrated into actual curriculum. Research on threshold concepts has often focused on applying the theory to understand aspects of particular fields where students get stuck and appropriate instructional intervention. This paper moves the threshold concepts theory out of the realm of the faculty; and instead, placed in the hands for students to apply in a personally meaningful way in order to advance their learning and even ‘take with them’ once they leave their educational context.

ABSTRACT. The purpose of this research was to describe the threshold concept of interprofessionality which is the deployment of innovative team knowledge toward a common goal at the crux of education and practice and that is based in values and professional codes. Thirteen healthcare students from three different educational institutions across one province representing eight different professional programs relayed their experiences of working with others from 15 different healthcare backgrounds. Phenomenography, based in a social constructionist epistemology, is research into how humans experience phenomena through the creation of a hierarchy of categories from superficial to deep learning. Students were interviewed, about an interprofessional patient threshold moment, in a stepwise approach with the subsequent student contributing to aggregate category development as each interview was completed. Students reported on serendipitous learning opportunities but also provided critique of the limited structured interprofessional experiences available within their educational programs. The liminal student experience included the chaos of being a healthcare student and becoming a professional. The phenomenographic categories reflect student interprofessional learning about the patient experience through individual, community and global interactions. Students confirmed how these categories become four learning steps which were given these short names: 1) community vision, 2) leadership expectations and obligations, 3) trust and value, and 4) ‘connect the threads.’ The ontologic shift was interprofessionality, the threshold a-ha! moment and a changing worldview toward becoming an interprofessional team member. Research conclusions developed from concerns about the authenticity of IPE, the uniqueness of being a healthcare student and the delivery of patient-centred care. Because of the social constructionist lens, the results add to discussion about threshold concepts in professional healthcare education programs, the complexity of interprofessional frameworks bridging education and health settings to ground threshold concept research and the choice of philosophical underpinnings for educational research that could impact patient outcomes.