Activity Theory

Origins

The origins of activity theory can be traced to the work of Russian psychologists, most notably Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky (1896–1934), Alexander Romanovich Luria (1902–1977), and Alexei Nikolaevich Leont’ev (1903– 1979). Their work was influenced by Karl Marx (1818– 1883), who defined the components of the labor process as human activity, the subject of the work, and its instruments or tools. From this philosophical basis, they explored how activity, instruments, and culture affected individual development and thinking.

Vygotsky and Luria studied how physical tools were used in the activities of humans and higher animals. Influenced by the field of semiotics, they expanded the concept of tools to include sign systems (e.g., language, numbers). Higher animals are able to use physical tools to solve problems but are constrained by their environments. Vygotsky and Luria observed how children used language to solve similar problems. Initially, children would describe their actions and reflect on experience, but language eventually freed them from the immediate environment, allowing them to think abstractly and plan actions. Vygotsky and Luria believed not only that cognition was developed through activity, but that it was also intimately connected with activity and the real world.

According to Leont’ev, activity theory can be summarized in six key ideas:

• 1.
  Activity can be viewed at different levels of analysis. At the highest level, an activity addresses a need. It comprises actions that are directed at goals toward meeting that need. Operations describe how actions are carried out; they specify conditions, such as which tools are used.
• 2.
  Actions are specifically goal oriented. The goals may not always be voluntary or the result of conscious selection. However, goals provide the motive for action.
• 3.
  Activity is mediated. This mediation comes from tools and sign systems. Mediation occurs in mental activity as well as in physical activity. For example, internalization of a society’s modes of thinking and meanings mediate an individual’s cognitive activity.
• 4.
  Activity is to be studied with a developmental approach. Development occurs within a society as well as within the individual. As a culture changes along with its tools, the activities of individuals will be altered and so will the mental abilities required and developed.
• 5.
  [Page 4]Individual activity exists within a system of social relations. Activity does not exist without those relations. Its form is determined by the activity of others. Society and culture form a complex network from which activities, motives, and tools cannot be separated.
• 6.
  External activity is responsible for the development of internal mental activity. Consciousness is a reflection of an individual’s activity, his reality. Through social processes and sign systems, individuals develop and share understanding.

Engeström’s Activity Theory Model

In 1987, Finnish scholar Yrjö Engeström published Learning by Expanding: An Activity-Theoretical Approach to Developmental Research. Engeström characterized Vygotsky’s work as the first generation of cultural-historical activity theory. He saw the work of Leont’ev and others as a second generation in which collective activity was more fully explored. Engeström saw himself as part of a third generation. As activity theory reached a more international audience, Engeström and others felt a need to place greater emphasis on social and cultural influences.

...