Threshold Concepts for Modeling and Assessing Higher Education Students’ Understanding and Learning in Economics

Abstract

In the last decade, the research carried out on threshold concepts as a content-based way to model students’ understanding and learning in several domains has increased. However, empirical evidence on this approach is still scarce. In this chapter, the authors investigate the adequacy of the threshold concepts approach in the domain of business and economics in higher education following an established differentiation between basic, discipline, and modeling thresholds. After conducting a cognitive interview study using verbal reports, a self-assessment questionnaire was used to assess the respondents’ familiarity with the content and their security to solve the tasks. Results indicate that there is a complex relation between students’ response processes, self-assessment, and test scores, which varies according to the different thresholds and that all three measures generally confirm our hypotheses yet have to be critically discussed. There are implications that test developers, test users, respondents, and other stakeholders should be aware of this complex relation; it affirms that the threshold concepts approach is at least a useful tool when conceptualizing and developing tests, which can be considered to be an addition to classic taxonomies of educational objectives.