Current issues with the identification of threshold concepts in nursing

Abstract

While there has been some growth in the body of literature on threshold concepts in health science disciplines, the nature of this discourse and which approaches have proved successful remains unclear. This paper illustrates one of the primary issues facing the development of threshold concepts in nursing education literature specifically – a lack of transparent and rigorous processes for their identification. The paper briefly examines the methods that have been utilised to identify threshold concepts in the nursing education literature, and what issues using these approaches raise. It then considers how the field might further develop in order to best engage the benefits that threshold concept analysis and identification may have for curriculum development and teaching in nursing.