Java

A threshold concept can be expressed as being comparable to a gateway, the realisation of an unfamiliar and once unattainable way of thinking about a significant concept within a discipline. It is considered as a “transformed way of understanding, or interpreting, or viewing something without which the learner cannot progress. As a consequence of comprehending a threshold concept there may thus be a transformed internal view of subject matter, subject landscape, or even world view. This transformation may be sudden or it may be protracted over a considerable period, with the transition to understanding proving troublesome ” (H.F. Meyer and R Land, 2006, p.3).
An example in Java programming, the array is the accepted standard to store more than one variable, it is virtually practised universally. But the concept, when grasped, tends to be “ritual knowledge” (Perkins 1999). It doesn’t have to be understood, one just has to do it. Thus it is not a threshold concept. But the understanding as to why the method has been widely adopted since its invention (the use of arrays reduce the sum of many variable ito one compact variable which is easy to understand and practise) essentially changes one’s perception about Arrays. Meyer and Land (2006) would define this particular threshold concept as being “transformative”. They also define threshold concepts as being “integrative’’, they bond together ideas that were once unfamiliar to the student. “Irreversible”, they are tough for the student to forget. Probably “troublesome”,the concepts are difficult to follow. Generally “boundary markers”, pinpointing the limits of a concept.
Programming is a rapidly evolving discipline; since the development of the C programming language by Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kernighan in 1970 and the release of the Java language by Sun Microsystems in 1995; only now have we extensively studied the ways in which students learn and thus introduce approaches which will help them most