Activity theory
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Activity theory is a psychological meta-theory, paradigm, or framework, with its roots in the Soviet Vygotsky's cultural-historical psychology. Its founders were Alexei N. Leont'ev (1903-1979), and Sergei Rubinshtein (1889-1960) who sought to understand human activities as complex, socially situated phenomena. It became one of the major psychological approaches in the former USSR, being widely used in both theoretical and applied psychology, in areas such as education, training, ergonomics, and work psychology [1]. Activity theory is aimed at understanding the mental capabilities of a single human being. However, it rejects the isolated human being as an adequate unit of analysis, focusing instead on cultural and technical mediation of human activity.[2]
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[edit] Theory
Today, activity theory is most often used to describe activity in a socio-technical system as a set of six interdependent elements (Bryant et al.):
- Object - the objective of the activity system as a whole
- Subject - a person or group engaged in the activities
- Community - social context; all people involved
- Division of Labor - the balance of activities among
different people and artifacts in the system
- Tools - the artifacts (or concepts) used by subjects to
accomplish tasks
- Rules - the code and guidelines for activities and
behaviors in the system
Activity theory helps explain how social artifacts and social organization mediate social action.(Bryant et al.)
[edit] The history of activity theory
The origins of activity theory can be traced to several sources, which have subsequently given rise to various complementary and intertwined strands of development. This account will focus on two of the most important of these strands. The first is associated with the Moscow Institute of Psychology and in particular the troika of young researchers, Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky (1896–1934), Alexander Romanovich Luria (1902–77) and Alexei Nikolaevich Leont'ev (1903–79). Vygotsky founded cultural-historical psychology, an important strand in the activity approach; Leont’ev, one of the principal founders of activity theory, both continued, and reacted against, Vygotsky's work. Leont'ev's formulation of general activity theory is currently the most influential in post-Soviet developments in AT, which have largely been in social-scientific and organizational, rather than psychological research.
The second major line of development within activity theory involves scientists, such as P. K. Anokhin (1898-1974) and N. A. Bernshtein (1896-1966), more directly concerned with the neurophysiological basis of activity; its foundation is associated with the Soviet philosopher of psychology S. L. Rubinshtein (1889-1960). This work was subsequently developed by researchers such as Pushkin, Zinchenko & Gordeeva, Ponomarenko, Zarakovsky and others, as is currently most well-known through the work on systemic-structural activity theory being carried out by G. Z. Bedny and his associates.
[edit] Leont'ev
After Vygotsky's early death, Leont'ev became the leader of the research group nowadays known as the Kharkov school of psychology and extended Vygotsky's research framework in significantly new ways. Leont'ev first examined the psychology of animals, looking at the different degrees to which animals can be said to have mental processes. He concluded that Pavlov's reflexionism was not a sufficient explanation of animal behaviour and that animals have an active relation to reality, which he called activity. In particular, the behaviour of higher primates such as chimpanzees could only be explained by the ape's formation of multi-phase plans using tools.
Leont'ev then progressed to humans and pointed out that people engage in "actions" that do not in themselves satisfy a need, but contribute towards the eventual satisfaction of a need. Often, these actions only make sense in a social context of a shared work activity. This lead him to a distinction between activities, which satisfy a need, and the actions that constitute the activities.
Leont'ev also argued that the activity in which a person is involved is reflected in their mental activity, that is (as he puts it) material reality is "presented" to consciousness, but only in its vital meaning or significance.
[edit] Influence of the theory in the West
The major school of thought that develops the ideas of Leont'ev's activity theory in the West is the tradition of Scandinavian activity theory. Work in the systems-structural theory of activity is also being carried on by researchers in the US and UK.
[edit] References
- Bedny, G. Z., & Meister, D. (1997). The Russian Theory of Activity: Current Applications to Design and Learning. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
- Bertelsen, O. W. and S. Bodker. (2003) "Activity theory." In J.M. Carroll, ed., HCI models theories, and frameworks: toward a multidisciplinary science. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann, p. 291-324.
- Bryant, Susan, Andrea Forte and Amy Bruckman, Becoming Wikipedian: Transformation of participation in a collaborative online encyclopedia, Proceedings of GROUP International Conference on Supporting Group Work, 2005. pp 1.-10 [1]
- Leont'ev, A. Problems of the development of mind. English translation, Progress Press, 1981, Moscow. (Russian original 1947).
- Leont'ev, A. Activity, Consciousness, and Personality
[edit] Further reading
- Engeström, Y. Activity theory and individual and social transformation. In Engeström, Y., Miettinen, R. and Punamaki, R. L., editors, Perspectives on Activity Theory, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK, 1999, 19-38.
