Transcript Leeds University Business School Principles of Activity Theory: Relevance to Information Behaviour and Learning Mira Slavova AIMTech Research Group, LUBS Wednesday, 21 March 2007, 12 –

Leeds University Business
School
Principles of Activity Theory: Relevance to
Information Behaviour and Learning
Mira Slavova
AIMTech Research Group, LUBS
Wednesday, 21 March 2007, 12 – 1 pm
Use of Activity Theory
Variety of disciplines:
•HCI
Worldwide:
• UK & Ireland
Nardi and Kaptelinin (1996, 2006)
•Cognitive Science
Cole and Scribner (1974)
•Education
Lave and Wenger (1991)
•Cultural Psychology
Cole (1996)
U of Bath, U of Birmingham, U of Bristol,
U of Limerick
•
UCSD, U of Miami
•
Australia
U of Wollongong
•
Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark
U of Helsinki, U of Umea, U of Oslo, U of
Bergen, U of Aarhus
•Management
Information Systems, Developmental
Work Research
Engestrom (1987, 1990)
USA
•
Russia & Ukraine
Moscow State University
Kharkov National University
Value from Activity Theory
Derived in areas involving complex systems:
•Collaborative uses of technology
e.g. multi-agency cooperation at incident grounds
•Varied virtual and physical contexts
e.g. use of mobile technologies
•Expanded set of activities
Technology beyond work, at home and in everyday life
•Human experience in general
Not only cognition but the totality of action, reflection and
emotion.
Origins
•Activity Theory and Russian Cultural Psychology.
• CHAT: cultural-historical activity theory.
•After the revolution of 1917 demand for:
• Psychology taking into account the social nature of men (as
opposed to ‘bourgeois’ individualistic psychology)
• Psychology based on dialectical materialism i.e.
• Primacy of matter
• Dialectical logic
•Lev Vygotsky (1896 - 1934)
•Aleksei Leontiev (1903 - 1979)
Ideas: Russian Cultural
Psychology 1920s – 1930s
•Unity of consciousness and activity
• The human mind is bourne in the interaction with the world.
It emerges and develops in order to make interaction more
successful. Evolutionary origins of the mind as an organ.
•Social nature and cultural determination of mind
• Applies to both poles of the interaction.
• The human subject is social, shaped by culture, influenced
by language, acting with or through other people in
organizations, groups communities.
• The world itself is social. The entities people deal with are
other people and culturally produced artifacts.
•Interaction between human beings and the world is
understood in terms of culture and society.
Vygotsky: Internal-External
Within a single function there are internal and external components
Internalization/Externalization is redistribution of internal and external components
within a function (not elimination of external/internal processes)
•Stages of restructuring:
• No mediation
• External mediation
• Internal mediation
Natural psychological functions
Unmediated functions such as mental ability and perception which develop as a result
of practice, maturation or imitation. Common for humans and animals.
Higher psychological functions
Mediated processes, instrumental acts. Result from the restructuring of natural
psychological functions in a cultural environment.
Mediating Artifacts
•physical artifacts mediating external activities (e.g. art, maps, diagrams)
•signs intended to help people affect others or themselves (e.g. language, numeric
systems, algebraic notation)
Vygotsky: Individual-Collective
•Internalization is the process during which phenomena
external to the subject (physical or social) become individual
and internal.
•Externalization is the process during which phenomena
internal to the subject become collective and external.
•Individuals and collectives are two poles of a single
individual-collective dimension.
•The two dimensions internal-external and individualcollective are independent:
• memorizing a map for driving (alone)
• memorizing music for playing in an orchestra
Leontiev: Activity and the
Development of Mind
•Historical account of the evolution of the mind as an organ, the variety of
mental phenomena, the ‘psyche’. Needed a concept allowing for
evolutionary explanations e.g. ‘life’.
•Organisms are orientated to the environment
• Responsiveness: respond to stimuli producing direct biological
effects
• Sensitivity: respond to signals i.e. stimuli producing indirect
biological effects
•Stages of problem-solving (development of mind):
• Sensory (fish)
• Perceptual (animals)
• Intelligence: effectiveness, fast learning, high transfer (apes,
humans)
•The notion of activity is used to explain the transition from a ‘pre-mental’
sensory responses (not mediated by a representation of objective reality), to
problem-solving mediated by objective reality.
Structure of Activity
•Within activity mental and non-mental phenomena can be
defined and differentiated.
•Purposeful activity is the basic unit of analysis. Need.
Objectified motive.
•Primacy of activity over the subject and the object.
Analysis of activity allows understanding both.
•Hierarchical Structure:
• Activity ↔ motive
• Action ↔ goal
• Operation ↔ instrumental constraints
Triadic Nature of Activity
• Mediating artifacts. Tools. Instruments.
• Monistic vision. Cartesian separation is overcome.
Tool
Subject
Object
Leontiev: Division of Labour
• When a person participates in a socially distributed activity, his actions
are motivated by one object but directed to another.
• Eg. Hunt. Out of the context of the collective activity the actions of the bush
beaters appear to have no meaning.
• Within socially distributed activities the distinction between motivating
and directing objects is forced on the individual by the organization of
activity.
• Individual activities can develop complex relationships between motives
and goals. Division of labour dissociates motives and goals.
Engestrom
•
•
•
Formulated an interpretation of activity theory for use in education and developmental
work research.
Main influences:
• Theories on signs and semiotic mediation (from Pierce to Popper)
• Theories of intersubjectivity (from Mead to Trevarthen)
• Russian cultural-historical psychology (from Vygotsky to Leontiev).
Human activity is:
• Pictured in its simplest, genetically original structural form. The smallest unit
that preserves the essential unity and quality behind any complex activity.
• Analyzable in its dynamics and transformations, in its evolution and historical
change. No static or eternal models will do.
• Analyzable as a contextual or ecological phenomenon. Models have to
concentrate on systemic relations between the individual and the outside world.
• Analyzable as culturally mediated phenomenon. No dyadic organism-environment
models will suffice. Culturally mediated, triadic or triangular structure of human
activity.
Engestrom
Extends Leontiev’s analysis to the supra-individual level.
• Introduces community as a third component of activity
• Norms and division of labour as additional mediations. Norms mediate between
the subject and the community. Division of labour mediates between the object
and the community.
Structure of activity in transition from animal to man:
Engestrom
Structure of human activity:
E.g. Hunt: bush beaters, hunters (S); animal (O); hunting
(production); dividing shares (distribution); communication
(exchange); eating, surviving (consumption).
Development & Disturbances
• An activity system is constantly in a state of flux induced by its internal
tensions.
•
“a virtual disturbance- and innovation-producing machine”, Engestrom, Y.
(1987)
• changes occurring in the system trace its history and development.
• Disturbances
• deviations from the standardized habitual scripts of the activity.
• gaps, overlaps and disco-ordinations disrupting the normal flow of work.
• manifestations of internal tensions with the activity system. indicate that the
activity system has reached a significant phase and it is on the cusp of
developmental change.
Contradictions
•
Contradictions:
•
long-term frictions within the activity system which are obviated by the disturbances.
•
The primary contradiction is the “double nature” of the activity. It is contained within
each of the constituents of the activity system. E.g. primary contradiction within the
subject.
•
Secondary contradictions exist between the elements constituting the activity.
Working relationships between these elements are conflicted or rearranged. E.g.
Division of labour lagging behind possibilities offered by advanced instruments.
•
Tertiary contradictions are reactive in nature. They emerge as a result of the
introduction of culturally more advanced forms of the activity. E.g. pupil goes to
school to play with his friends but parents and teachers try to make him study
seriously.
•
Quaternary contradictions between activity systems
Principles of Activity Theory
• Object-orientedness
• Objectives give meaning to what people do.
• Hierarchical structure
• Conscious actions
• Automatic operations
• Internalization-Externalization
• Internal/mental vs. external/physical
• individual/intrapsychological vs. collective/interpsychological
• Mediation
• Development
Information
Behaviour/ Practice
•Information behaviour/practices: socially and culturally
constituted ways to identify, seek, assess, use and share
information
•Paradigms for studying information behaviour/ practice:
•
•
•
•
Behavioural/ Behaviourist (Wilson)
Cognitive (Dervin, Kuhlthau)
Social (Chapman, Savolainen)
Similar to the variety of approaches in HCI, ranging from
cognitive science to ethnomethodology.
• Why Activity Theory?
• Rich enough and practical
• Post-cognitivist theory of interaction
PAMIS Research Questions
• Explore the relationship between policing tasks, relevant information
resources, and the technological delivery mechanism.
• How do newly introduced mobile technologies affect the system of
policing activity:
• Dynamically change the hierarchical structure of activity
• Influence underlying motivations, goals and operational constraints
• Impact the task-related community
• Affect individual roles and division of labour within police teams
• Challenge existing work norms
Contributions
PAMIS aims to contribute to the existing theoretical literature
on information behaviour by introducing a social
constructivist approach with a strong cognitive basis
(Activity Theory).
• Context and situation. Activity system.
• Technology. Mediation.
• Affective Response. Unity of cognition and emotion,
reflection and action.
• Design. Implications for HCI.
Fieldwork
Across activities:
Across Police Forces:
• Investigation: Detective
Teams
• Hampshire
• Community Policing: Stop
and Search
• Lancashire
• Traffic Policing: Traffic
Violations
• Kent
• Supervision: Sergeants,
Divisional Commanders
• Leicester
• Metropolitan
• West Yorkshire
Stop
Tools:
Communication skills
Examination skills
MP
PO
Rules:
Search guidelines
Community:
Assisting officers,
CC
Outcome:
Grounds for arrest
(Y/N)
Division of Labour:
PO searches,
MP co-operates
Check
Tools:
PDA or
Standard radio and
Communication skills
Equivocal
information
PO
Rules:
Requirements of IT
system
Community:
IT support officers,
CC
Outcome:
Grounds for
Search (Y/N)
Division of Labour:
PO provides input,
CC accesses PNC,
IT supports systems
Search (Optional)
Tools:
Communication skills
Examination skills
PO
Rules:
Search guidelines
Outcome: Grounds
for arrest (Y/N)
MP
Community:
Assisting officers,
CC
Division of Labour:
PO searches,
MP co-operates
Record
Tools:
PDA and printer or
pen and paper form,
writing skills
Stop and
Search event
PO
Rules:
Required fields,
presentation
quality
Community:
PO, MP
Outcome: Stop
and Search
record
Division of Labour:
PO gives reason,
produces receipt,
MP self-identifies
Follow-up
Tools:
Analytical tools
Stop and Search
record
Supervisor
Rules:
Access to records
Community:
PO, Support staff
Outcome:
Intelligence, policy,
action
Division of Labour: PO
provides account, staff provide
record, supervisor analyses
record
Leeds University Business
School
Electronic and Mobile Learning in the UK
Emergency Services
Mira Slavova and Alistair Norman
AIMTech Research Group, LUBS
Wednesday, 21 March 2007, 12 – 1 pm
Engestrom: Learning Activity
• Learning begins in the form of learning operations and learning actions
embedded in other activities, above all in work.
• Learning activity has a systemic structure of its own:
• Prerequisites are school-going, work, and science/art.
• In the network of human activities, learning activity mediates between
science/art on the one hand and work or other central productive practice
on the other hand.
• “The essence of learning activity is production of objectively, societally
new activity structures (including new objects, instruments, etc.) out of
actions manifesting the inner contradictions of the preceding form of the
activity in question. Learning activity is mastery of expansion from
actions to a new activity. While traditional school-going is essentially a
subject-producing activity and traditional science is essentially an
instrument-producing activity, learning activity is an activity-producing
activity.”
Mobile Learning in
UK Emergency Services
• Distinct from mobile decision support
• Gain additional benefit from existing mobile systems
• 20,000 plus mobile devices – primarily in car terminals (6k)
and handhelds (14k)
• Handhelds are mostly Blackberries
Use of Mobile Devices
• Access to intranet resources (e.g. ‘points to prove’)
• Access to Force Control Centre Homepage as a portal to
Force and wider resources
• Word documents on in-car Mobile Data Terminals and
handhelds
Immediate Learning Aspirations
• Organisational learning
• Capture information on successes and failures. Learning from best
practice.
• Electronic portfolios for promotion
• Collect evidence of vocational skill and experience.
• Support for promotion exams
• Distribute questions on revision topics.
Longer Term Aspirations: A problem
• Lots of people fail promotions:
• Not because they can’t do it but
• Because things (e.g. emergencies!) get in the way of attendance and
learning
• Training is a blunt instrument:
• Same course for officers lots of experience and others with no real
experience in an area
• Temporal disconnect between the course, the experience and the exam.
• Cost of £500 in fees before the start of the programme, additional costs
of attendance etc.
Longer Term Aspirations:
A Solution
•
Mobility
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•
Access
•
•
•
Multimedia scenarios – more than just text and buttons
Personalization
•
•
•
•
To help and support – trainers, peers, experts, web links, Centrex (central police training
organization)
Resources which allow officers to explore further learning
New types of material
•
•
Access to learning materials outside of the classroom setting
Diagnostics before a module – tailor class and other support to the person
Revision questions sent to them after a class session (and maybe as primers before as well) –
tailored to their strengths and weaknesses
Revision questions in the run up to exams
Feedback
•
•
Feedback to managers, trainers and the training department
Integration within the overall programme
Mobile Learning Issues
• Learning is an activity system in its own right but:
• It is subordinate to other systems (policing, emergency response etc)
• It is connected to many other activities
• It uses tools which are developed for other primary uses (PDAs, MDT,
GPRS, Tetra)
• Threatens established norms and the division of labour especially the
training role
• Motivations are many and varied
• Definitions of success, benefit and value are many and varied
Activity: Police Briefing
• Motive: need to hold up-to-date information about criminal
activity within an area
• Subject: board sergeant, intelligence unit
• Object: (delivering) the brief
• Tools: SMARTboard, paper, pen, Mobile Data Terminals,
standard police information systems, intranet, handheld
devices
SMARTBoards
Briefing