Abstract:

Threshold concepts are a pedagogical tool with the potential to provoke a shift in education. They are concepts of a topic that, once understood, change the way of thinking about the subject. They are transformative and lead the student to change from awareness or superficial knowledge to a deeper understanding. It is like crossing a door to a better understanding. Since its first proposal they have been studied and researched in several disciplines. Different methodologies can be used to identify threshold concepts such as interviews, focus groups, conceptual maps, or tests. Identification of the most important threshold concepts in the field of Genetics provides valuable information for understanding student learning difficulties, and insight into how they may be addressed. In this communication, a preliminary test is done to identify threshold concepts in a first-year subject of General Genetics for the bachelor’s degree in biotechnology. This degree has a high admission mark, and students are prone to learn as they exhibit a high deep learning approach. A test of previous knowledge and questions about identification of threshold concepts according to their opinion was submitted to all the students of the subject at the beginning of the term. Students face, for the first time, a high-education subject and they identify threshold concepts as difficult or new concepts that they are afraid not to understand. The relationship between the previous knowledge test and their identification of threshold concepts is analyzed. Interviews and tests are needed at the end of the subject to identify the most important concepts in the subject according to students’ opinion and to contrast it with the point of view of the teacher to identify relevant threshold concepts in the field of genetics and their performance in the subject. The identification of these threshold concepts can help improve the curriculum of the subject and choose the best methodologies to improve the performance of students and increase the understanding of the subject. The results can help identify the factors that influence the acquisition of threshold concepts and find the relationship between this acquisition and the final learning outcomes.

Keywords:

Transformative learning, deep approach to learning, key concepts, learning outcomes.