Assessing outdoor and environmental education threshold concepts in Australian universities

Journal article


Polley, Scott, McLeod, Beth Lauren, Rankin, Joss, Munge, Brendon, Bovino, Peter and Picknoll, Duncan. (2024). Assessing outdoor and environmental education threshold concepts in Australian universities. Journal of Outdoor and Environmental Education. pp. 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42322-024-00168-2
AuthorsPolley, Scott, McLeod, Beth Lauren, Rankin, Joss, Munge, Brendon, Bovino, Peter and Picknoll, Duncan
Abstract

Communicating tertiary graduate skills and knowledge to employers is a contemporary issue in Australian outdoor education. Threshold concepts have been proposed as a positive way forward to a shared understanding between Higher Education (HE) professionals, students, graduates, employers, and other outdoor education stakeholders. While threshold concepts can offer a curriculum development framework that highlights the graduate capabilities of an HE outdoor educator, they do not specify how these concepts are assessed. In this paper, we explore the assessment of threshold concepts in HE degrees and then examine current assessment practices in HE outdoor education degrees. We highlight selected literature on assessing outdoor education in HE and then explore how other professions assess threshold concepts. Specific professions included have (a) identified threshold concepts and (b) considered the ability to practice upon graduation, as this has the most significant alignment with the professional role of an outdoor educator. We then describe current outdoor education HE assessment practices at selected Australian universities, highlighting the breadth and range of assessment methods incorporated in existing degrees. We conclude with a discussion of the role of authentic assessment and provide five recommendations for how academics might assess the seven HE outdoor education threshold concepts described by Thomas et al. (2019) to support communication of graduate capabilities to employers, students, graduates, and other outdoor education stakeholders.

KeywordsOutdoor Education; Threshold concepts; Higher education; Graduate skills; Assessment
Year01 Jan 2024
JournalJournal of Outdoor and Environmental Education
Journal citationpp. 1-23
PublisherSpringer
ISSN2522-879X
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1007/s42322-024-00168-2
Web address (URL)https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42322-024-00168-2
Open accessPublished as ‘gold’ (paid) open access
Research or scholarlyResearch
Page range1-23
Publisher's version
License
File Access Level
Open
Output statusPublished
Publication dates
Online02 May 2024
Publication process dates
Accepted10 Apr 2024
Deposited10 Sep 2024
Additional information

© The Author(s), 2024.

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Place of publicationSingapore
Permalink -

https://acuresearchbank.acu.edu.au/item/90xzx/assessing-outdoor-and-environmental-education-threshold-concepts-in-australian-universities

Download files


Publisher's version
  • 5
    total views
  • 2
    total downloads
  • 0
    views this month
  • 0
    downloads this month
These values are for the period from 19th October 2020, when this repository was created.

Export as

Related outputs

What outcomes are we trying to achieve in outdoor programs? An examination of outdoor education and experiential education programs effect on life effectiveness skills
Allen-Craig, Sandra Joan and Mcleod, Beth. (2005). What outcomes are we trying to achieve in outdoor programs? An examination of outdoor education and experiential education programs effect on life effectiveness skills. The 14th National Outdoor Education Conference: The Challenges We Face. Gold Coast, Australia: Outdoor Council of Australia. pp. 1 - 17
An Evaluation of Experiential Learning and Outdoor Education school programs on the life effectiveness skills of middle school boys
Allen-Craig, Sandra Joan and McLeod, Beth. (2004). An Evaluation of Experiential Learning and Outdoor Education school programs on the life effectiveness skills of middle school boys. In Andrew Brooks and Dr. Peter Martin (Chair) (Ed.). International Outdoor Education Research Conference Proceedings. Bendigo, Australia: La Trobe University. pp. 1 - 14