Activity Theory to Guide Online Collaborative Learning Instructional Design

Activity Theory

The foundation works of Activity theory was inspired by many studies related to human activity. Mostly cited studies are from the Russian/Soviet region which recognises Vygosky’s work as the initial researcher. Learners’ (subject) response to an activity are due to a stimulus or object (objective) and the stimulus-response (S-R) chain uses mediated artefacts (i.e sign, language, tools) to complete its learning activity (Vygosky, 1978). In the late 1970s and early 1980s through two publications; the English translation of Leont’ev’s’s Activity, Consciousness, and Personality (1978), and collection papers of Leont’ev’s further explored the interaction between the subject and their learning objectives (Kaptelinin & Nardi, 2009). Also known as Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), the theory has been identified as one of the theories of learning implicit in the CSCL research community, besides neo-Piagetian conflict, social practice, Deweyan transactional inquiry and Bakhtinian dialogicality theories (Stahl, 2000). It is acknowledged as a descriptive tool to analyse human behaviour and their activities in the process of learning through technology mediated environment. It focuses on practice but it is primarily a descriptive tool rather than a prescriptive theory (Kaptelinin & Nardi, 2009; Jonasssen & Rohrer-Murphy, 1999). The activity triangle model represents an outline of the various components of an activity system into a unified whole (Mwanza & Engestrom, 2005). Activity itself is both defined by and defines context which works as an outer container in which human behave in certain ways when in contact with other people, settings, object and artefacts (Jonasssen & Rohrer-Murphy, 1999).