Threshold concepts in academic
writing: barriers to engagement?
Marion Bowman
School of Dentistry
Why academic writing?
“More than any other activity at
University, the writing experiences of
students are directly linked to their
academic progress.”
(English, et.al., 1999, pg. 221)
Introductions
Your views:
-What are the barriers to engagement in
academic writing?
-Are there any stages of the student life
cycle when barriers are most prominent?
A whistle-stop tour…
A. Introduction
Why academic writing?
B. Theoretical ideas
Possible barriers: Troublesome knowledge
Overcoming barriers: Threshold concepts
New ways of thinking and practicing (threshold function)
Consideration for course design
C. Examples
Threshold concepts and new WTP: new institution
Threshold concepts and new WTP: new culture/ language
Threshold concepts and new WTP: new genre
Threshold concepts and new WTP: large, complex piece
of work
A. Possible Barriers: Troublesome Knowledge





Ritual
Alien / absurd at face value
Conceptually difficult
Troublesome language
Tacit knowledge
(Meyer and Land, 2003)
Overcoming barriers: Threshold
concepts
 Threshold concepts help to deal with troublesome
knowledge
 Portal to a new way of thinking
 Powerful transformative effects
 May involve a sense of loss
 Represent how people think in a particular
discipline
 May be the dominant / privileged view
(Meyer and Land, 2003)
Considerations for course design







Avoiding an ‘over-stuffed’ curriculum
The sequencing of the course content
Diagnostic tasks
Active not passive learning
Listening to students (student centred learning)
Patience with students’ reconstitution of self
Tolerating students’ period of uncertainty
(Land, 2005; Cousin, 2006)
B. New ways of thinking and practising*
(can exert a threshold function)^
 A new kind of educational institution
 A new culture / language
 A new genre of writing, e.g. reflective writing
 A piece of work unprecedented in size and complexity
*(McCune and Reimann, 2002 in ^Meyer and Land, 2003)
Threshold concepts and new WTP: Yr 1
“The National Audit Office (2002) found that due to
changes in the secondary system, most students
from the traditional A level route are not adequately
prepared for the independent learning required in
higher education. Academic writing in particular is
increasingly seen as problematic”
(Wingate, 2006, p. 458)
New WTP: first year: mismatched expectations
Top three mismatched expectations:
 all drafts of work will be read
 short turnaround time for marking work
 ready access to staff for consultations
Instead, staff expect:
 independent learning
 students to edit and evaluate own work
 longer time to mark work
(Crisp et al, 2009; Cook and Leckey, 1999; Brinkworth, et al 2009)
New WTP: First year Dental Hygiene & Therapy
•
Threshold concept: Using sources without plagiarising
•
Troublesome knowledge: tacit, alien, conceptually
difficult, alien language, ritual, privileged view
•
Difficulties: A sense of loss of ‘own voice’
•
Teaching ideas: first formative essay, mirror image
essay example, dialogue with students, rich rapid
feedback (individual and general), concept checking
questions, sequencing in curriculum
•
Results: High quality writing, transferability, low plgsm
New WTP: first year Dental Hygiene and
Therapy
Discuss: The activities in the handout
…advantages / disadvantages / usefulness / contexts?
New WTP: International Masters students
 The writing for MSc is absolutely different from my previous study,
where we don't do a perfect reviews from research papers and
analysis rather we google up all our stuffs.
(India)
 It's 100% different, in my country we where used to cut and past, with
no rules of plagiarism, besides that we have exams and almost no
assignments at all, so 95% no writting tasks.
(Saudi Arabia)
 Yes [the writing is different], because we have not been used to write
any academic writing. Its all new to me.
(India)
 I think that (at least British) universities generally teach all this stuff at
undergrad.
(Local student)
(Divan et al 2013)
New WTP: International Masters students
MSc BioScience Leeds University 2009 REF!!!
Is the writing you are required to do for your Masters
different from your previous study?
(Divan et.al., 2013)
New WTP: International Masters students
•
Difficulties: Similar threshold concepts and difficulties
with troublesome / alien knowledge to first years.
Perhaps greater sense of ‘loss’.
•
Teaching idea: Extended induction period (6 weeks).
Practical sessions on literature searching, using
sources, plagiarism, EndNote all linked to first formative
assignment with rapid-return, rich feedback.
•
Results: Much reduced plagiarism rates; positive
feedback (esp. international sudents); different
programmes for int. and home students.
(Divan et al 2013)
New WTP: International students: language
 General academic vocab/ phrases:
see Manchester Academic phrasebank
 Subject specific vocab:
see Dentistry 1 corpus of subject specific language
NB: Collecting common phrases in a notebook isn’t
plagiarism!!
Discuss: Example in Handout
 http://smlc09.leeds.ac.uk/itb
Collocations
Concordances
+ Key words: oral, health, tooth,
periodontal, cell, disease, surface, bone,
patient…
New WTP: New genre of writing:
Academic Reflective Writing (ARW)
 Threshold concept: Linking own voice & literature,
sequencing, language
 Troublesome knowledge: Alien, tacit, conceptually
difficult.
 Difficulties: Gap between own voice and literature.
v
New WTP: New genre: sense of loss
 “I got a hard time referring it [my experience] to
citations… I could have sat and cried yesterday
when I did my essay…when I actually read it [my
essay] I thought, oh, I don’t know what it means
myself…” (Bowman and Addyman, in press)
New Genre: Teaching response: Error analysis
Paragraph 1:
The first patient I observed had caries. Some of this caries was
easily visible on the surface of the teeth, however some of
the caries was in between the teeth and less visible. I
observed … (etc.)
Paragraph 2:
Caries is a very common dental disease caused by the
demineralisation of the tooth which is in turn caused by lactic
acid produced by bacteria in the mouth (Smith, 2006). Caries
…(etc.)
New Genre: Teaching response: Error analysis
The patient had caries in between his teeth, which
is a common caries-prone site where plaque
accumulates (Jones, 2008). Caries is often difficult
to detect when it is in between the teeth, and is
often overlooked (Smith, 2009). In this case, the
dentist took an x-ray in order to locate the cause
of the sensitivity that the patient had reported.
The caries had initially not been visible to the
naked eye.
New WTP: New genre: Reflective writing
Teaching responses:
example texts / extracts,
analogies,
rich rapid feedback,
common error analysis,
sequencing: formative task followed by analogous
summative task e.g. disease report / treatment rep)
dialogue with students,
use of common errors,
peer review of drafts
Matching observations to the literature C
Literature
Observation
NB: The aspect must match the literature.
New WTP: Work of unprecedented size
/ complexity
e.g. Final Year Projects or Literature Reviews
 FYP’s often represent a ‘leap in expectations of students’ or
a ‘curricular disconnect’ with the rest of the degree
(Rasul et al, 2009).
 “[In] the traditional curriculum, ... professional skills like
communication and design are not included until the
capstone design course, a point at which a host of skills
must be applied simultaneously.” (Williams, 2002, p. 203)
New WTP: final year project: teaching and
feedback at each stage
Systematic review (Dental H&T final
year)
Final year project (Computing)
(Bowman and Cullen, 2012)
Project choice form
Project specification
Title, aims, objectives, rationale
Draft list of literature sources
Draft literature review
Draft literature review
Draft methodology section
Draft Gantt chart
Draft results section /critical analysis
Draft system development methodology
First full draft
Draft mid-term project presentation
Mid-term project report
• Guidance at each stage followed by short formative tasks with rich
feedback = > time management & quality.
• Backwards design effect on year 1 and 2 curriculum.
Other thresholds
 Any other levels where there is a ‘curricular disconnect’
from the cohorts’ previous experience
 Any other individual students where there is a curricular
disconnect from their previous experience, e.g. mature
students, ESL.
Other teaching responses: Getting dialogue going
Discuss with students:
Their previous experiences of academic writing
The stages of the academic writing process
How long each stage will take (time planning)
Your expectations of the writing task (examples?)
Dialogue with individual students:
The Student Advice Team in Dentistry
• set up in Feb 2013 (2 fte)
• free, confidential advice on: academic writing,
understanding feedback, time management, revision
skills, group work, referencing, presentations etc.
• provides advice as face-to-face appointments or via
email
• was accessed by 93% of first year dentistry students
& 84% of second year dental hygiene students in
Semester 2 2012/3 (mainly academic writing)
Getting dialogue going: The Student
Advice Team: student feedback
“Overall, I have found the denstudy
service has helped increased my
confidence and revision techniques
and also improved the quality of my
essay writing. I would definitely use
the service again.”
Conclusions
Academic writing is not something that is ‘picked up
easily’ by students. It is one of the most difficult
aspects of university study for students.
The threshold concepts associated with academic
writing require a pedagogic response.
Teaching academic writing is as important as
teaching content (need not take up too much time).
However, academic writing should be taught within the
discipline, within the module, linked to a particular task
/ context / genre (academic literacies).
References
Bowman, M. and Cullen, A. 2012 Enhancing the quality of Final Year Project’s in
Computing through weekly tasks, Journal of Learning Development in Higher
Education, [Online] 4 [Accessed 4 January, 2014], Available from:
www.aldinhe.ac.uk
Bowman, M. and Addyman, B. 2014 Forthcoming. Student experiences of
academic reflective writing on a course for post-registered Nurses and Midwives,
British Journal of Nursing.
Brinkworth, R. McCann, B. Matthews, C. 2009. First year expectations and
experiences: Student and teacher perspectives, Higher Education, 58, pp 157-173.
Cook A. and Leckey J. 1999. Do expectations meet reality: a survey of changes in
first year student opinion Journal of Further and Higher Education, 23 (2), p 157171.
Cousin, G. 2006. An introduction to threshold concepts, Planet, Issue 17, 4-5,
[online] available at www.journals.heacademy.ac.uk. Accessed 7 January 2014.
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a university wide survey Journal of University Teaching and Practice 6 (1) p 13-26.
Divan, A., Bowman, M., Seabourne, A. 2013. Reducing unintentional plagiarism in
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development programme, Journal of Further and Higher Education,
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