This study applied the recent concept of 'threshold graphics' (Lackovic, 2020) and developed it further in the context of professional social care education. Threshold graphics are pictorial images selected and analysed by a learning community for critical and deep thinking about threshold concepts across disciplines (Ibid.).

Many studies of threshold concepts (TCs) have followed the seminal work in this field by Meyer and Land (2003). However, there is a scarcity of studies that researched the teaching of TCs in depth through pictorial images such as photographs, other than Lackovic (2020). This study addresses the gap, building on the concept of 'threshold graphics' (Lackovic, 2020): it develops a unique threshold graphics classification for the field of social care. The key novelty of the threshold graphics approach applied in the thesis is that it embeds the inquiry graphics theory and method, based on semiotics (how signs of communication make meaning to learners).

An inquiry graphics analysis was applied, which is, in principle, a photo-elicitation method that integrates inquiry graphics. The method was applied with 45 students, graduates and educators at Irish higher education institutions, within the programme in social care education. Four researcher-provided photographs and varying numbers of participant-provided images were analysed by the participants in semi-structured interviews at various locations across Ireland. Of the forty-five people who participated, twenty-seven educators taught various subjects on social care programmes, including knowledge contributors or those who had researched and published in social care. Six students were currently in a level 7 or 8 social care programme, and twelve graduates had a level 7 or 8 social care qualification and were working in social care.