Troublesome Concepts and Information Literacy: Investigating Threshold Concepts for IL Instruction

Librarians regularly encounter students who struggle to understand and apply information literacy concepts. A qualitative survey administered to information literacy practitioners asked about troublesome content and analyzed results using the threshold concepts pedagogical framework first described by Jan Meyer and Ray Land. A threshold concept transforms the learner's view of content and helps integrate previously learned material; threshold concepts are portals that, once traversed, bring insight into how to think and act like a practitioner within a discipline. This project uses the data collected to propose seven threshold concepts for information literacy.