Identifying threshold concepts in community services work - a new focus for curriculum in vocational education and training

Abstract

The community services work industry in Australia continues to expand, leading to sustained demand for workers who can adapt to the complex needs of a growing client population. Training of these workers is provided largely through vocational education and training (VET). Both industry and VET exist within volatile environments impacted by change. Changes of government, funding shortages, politically charged events, and pandemics can all result in policy changes that are massive, immediate, and characterised by a focus on directed outcomes and expectations. The community services work environment demands workers who have the capabilities, understanding, and know-how to work with clients and adapt programs within the shifting landscape. There is a need for training that transforms students into the critical thinkers and capable workers needed by this expanding industry to service the complex needs of an ever-increasing client population. The current competency-based curriculum for community services work in VET is both complex and fragmented, providing challenges for VET in meeting these training aims. This study argues that identifying threshold concepts could offer the opportunity to refocus the curriculum for this industry. The original contribution to knowledge this thesis makes is both a framework to identify notable and threshold concepts, and the identification of four threshold concepts in this discipline: client-centred approach, evidence-based approach, self-awareness, and power balance within the worker-client relationship. Threshold concepts are those conceptual ideas in discipline knowledge that are transformative and integrative, opening to learners new ways of seeing the discipline and the interconnections within it, and potentially leading them to see differently the world and their place in it. The research, undertaken between 2012 and 2017, used a grounded theory approach to collect and analyse data from eleven community service workers, eleven teachers and twenty-two students enrolled across five courses in community services work in VET: Alcohol and Other Drugs, Community Development, Community Services, Mental Health, and Youth Work. A multi-stage process was used. First, the data was analysed to identify emerging themes. Then a two-part framework was developed to identify notable concepts and assess these against characteristics of threshold concepts (TCs). A triangulation of the data of the three participant groups added to the overall picture of emerging themes. The findings highlight transformation in learners through grasping concepts that shift their understanding and thinking about the discipline. Many of the participant learners demonstrated being on the threshold between old and new ways of being and thinking, indicating signs of liminal states. Participant teachers and community service workers identified notable concepts and what they believed was required from the training and provided their observations of the impact of training on students. This study argues that TCs in this discipline offer a new lens to refocus the curriculum for community services work in VET. Focussing curriculum development around learning TCs puts the student and the discipline at the centre; it does this by taking seriously the transformations in ways of being and thinking necessary for the modern community services worker, while reducing the complexity and fragmentation in the current curriculum. Show more