Overview of Activity Theory

The Vygotsky Approach

``Human activity is too complex to isolate, dissect, and study in a vacuum.''

(Dixon-Kraus, 1996)

Slides prepared by Neill A. Kipp

November 24, 1996

(table of contents)

1. Activity Theory vs. Fitts, GOMS, Plans, Metaphor

• Fitts: measurable, automatic, moot

• GOMS: measurable, complex

• Plans: cognitive, intuitive

• Metaphor: subjective, paradigmatic

• Activity theory: intractable

2. Activity theory vs. Ethnography

• Activity theory is a concept
  • how people work implies how people think

  • social and historical precedents cannot be ignored

  • rooted in psychology, sociology, and anthropology

• Ethnography is a method
  • study how people work (live, play, learn, etc.)

3. Computers and Activity Theory

• Is not:
  • ease of use

  • ease of learning

  • user-friendliness

• Rather, is:
  • how computers integrate into playplace, learnplace, workplace

  • how computer interface integrates into same

4. Modern Work is Changing

• Hierarchies thin or absent

• Team-team interaction required

• Communication intensive

5. Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky

Founder of Activity Theory

• Born 1896, Byelorussia

• Moscow University, graduated 1917

• Russian psychologist, 1920s-1930s

• Supported Bolsheviks, but work banned under Stalin

• Died in 1934 of tuberculosis

• Work banned in Soviet Union until 1956

• First English translation, Thought and Language or Thinking and Speech (1962)

6. Zone of Proximal Development

• Distance between what we know and our potential for knowing

• Need a ``more knowledgeable other'' (MKO; see McMahon, 1996)
  • builds scaffold for learning

  • sets up the next zone (not too wide, not too narrow)

  • evaluates learner

• Learner must be willing to try

7. Roles in the Zone

The novice...

• Must be engaged in difficult activity

• Self-effacing

• Supports performance of novice

• Assesses learning

• Has flexibile mediation role (semiotic flexibility)

• Focuses on amount of support needed

8. Language: Critical Premise of Activity Theory

• Vygotsky: ``through language people alter themselves''

• Language can include non-word items as signs
  • How do learners use language as psychological tools?

  • How does language affect development?

9. Behavior Theory vs. Activity Theory

Behavior Theory	Activity Theory
Humans, like animals, are complex salivating organisms (SR, Pavlov)	Humans are too complex to understand fully
Humans are independent beings and can be studied that way	Humans are tightly linked to social and cultural process via language and actions
Humans, like animals, develop almost identically	Humans develop differently from person to person

10. Marxism Influenced Vygotsky

• Human nature is not fixed

• Productive activity conditions everything else

• Humans operate on nature to survive

• Social process is paramount

• Man makes complex tools to interpose with environment

11. Activity Theory: Tenets

• Mental process is inextricable from the interpersonal process

• `Thinking' is actions + context + goal

• Actions have cultural significance

• Incoherencies and conflicts inspire change

• Working together is more productive than working alone (whole > sum of parts)

12. Containment Chart

Activity theory connects: actions, language, thoughts, communities

13. Learning Activity

How is knowledge attained?

• Heaps - random categories

• Complexes - links between objects

• Potential concepts - transition

• Genuine concepts - knowledge

14. Steps in Learning through Activity

Abstract Synthesis

• Detach concept from practical experience (abstract)

• Synthesize with past knowledge (synthesize)

• Represent with a word or symbol (symbolize)

• Place it in conceptual system (understand)

15. Semiotic Mediation

Manipulation of signs in a social context

leads to development of higher-order thinking

• Examples:
  • counting on fingers

  • 

  • 

16. Concept Development: Active Learning

• Learners do not internalize concepts immediately

• Conflict promotes statement of ideas in group

• Learners relate new ideas to ideas in their knowledge base

• Society reacts and learning progresses

• Thinking develops through social interaction

17. Learning is Internalization

Mental functions begin on interpsychological plane (language)

and move to intrapsychological plane (thought)

by internalization.

• Internal consciousness is formed by internalization.
  • Early activity: interpersonal dialog

  • Later activity: intrapersonal dialog

18. `Semiotic Mediation' Activity Model

• Think of a purpose

• Choose an strategy

• Act on object

• Collect result

• Reflect on result

• Adjust thinking

19. Activity: Key Points, Main Features

• Working is an active, purposeful endeavor

• Actor transforms objects

• Activity is situated somewhere

• Activity is rooted in tradition and history

• Activities overlap and interrelate

• Conflict inspires collective learning

20. Activity Theory: Open Topics

• Study transition of novice to expert in workplace

• Study how to encourage sharing of priorities (where before work was routine and easily not understood)

• Study emotional impact of communication overload

• Study emotional impact of personal accountability overload