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Over the last decade there has been a growing interest in the area of threshold concepts and its relevance for curriculum design and for teaching and learning. The seminal work of Meyer and Land (2003a, b) and papers that followed have sparked an interest in and a realization that the notion of threshold concepts not only improves the quality of instruction but can also help shape the strategies necessary to help students through the liminal stages of learning. The growing interest by governments in a number of countries on the standards of qualifications have resulted in a focus on monitoring and regulating the quality of higher education, whether implicitly or explicitly (as in the case of Australia) on developing learning standards (or threshold concepts) that a student should attain at the completion of their studies. Threshold concepts are seen as a way to foster a deeper engagement with the learning process both at a discipline and non-discipline level. They are also seen as an effective way for preparing graduates for the ever-changing needs and expectations of employers and industry. Threshold concepts can be thought of as the lights along a tunnel leading to the attainment of the graduate attributes, which can be thought of as the light at the end of the tunnel (i.e. graduate’s qualification). The linkage between the two ensures a thorough and complete learning experience that produces work-ready graduates demanded by employers, government and industry.
The introduction of threshold concepts is a way of addressing the concerns raised following the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), when media commentators argued passionately for an overhaul of business education. The plea for Business Schools to reform their approaches included many, but most notably – a greater emphasis on ethics and corporate governance and a move away from the siloed approach of producing the so-called “I-shaped” graduate to a “T-shaped” graduates – that is, a graduate with specialist knowledge that is capable to think outside of the silo through a more “interdisciplinary” approach to problem solving. This call for a change in emphasis necessitated the need to redesign the curriculum with an increasing focus on the non-disciplinary graduate attributes that are often crowed-out in the “busy” business curriculum. This push for change greatly increased the relevance and role...