Activity Theory and
Web-based Training
David
Peal and Brent Wilson
Peal, D., & Wilson, B. (2001). Activity theory and web-based training.
In B. Khan (Ed.), Web-based training (pp.
147- 153). Englewood Cliffs NJ: Educational Technology Publications. Also
available: http://ceo.cudenver.edu/~brent_wilson/acttheory.html
How is it that children in some cultures learn to do complex mental
calculations, identify myriad plant types, and use star patterns to pilot
canoes over long distances, all without the supposed benefits of formal
schooling? Activity theory seeks to account, among other things, for the
effectiveness of everyday learning environments. Researchers are beginning to
identify how activity theory can inform the design of learning environments as well (Jonassen & Murphy,
1998). In this article we provide an overview of activity theory and show how
this theory can serve as a framework for creating one particular type of
designed environment: Web-based training (WBT). We also suggest ways in which
designers can address the difficulties inherent in implementing realistic
learning environments on the Web.
Activity Theory Essentials
Activity theory starts not with the individual learner, but with the activity
system, a larger and more realistic unit of
analysis. An activity system consists of a group, of any size, pursuing a
specific goal in a purposeful way. For example, doctors practicing preventive
medicine in a health-maintenance organization make up an activity system (Cole
& Engestrom, 1993). Students in different countries collaborating on a
project to build a Web site about the Himalayas make up another activity
system. A telephone sales unit of a precision-parts distributor provides
another example (Laufer & Glick, 1996). Even seemingly isolated activities
are usually embedded in a larger system, as in the case of collaborating
researchers who must negotiate differing approaches, align schedules, agree on
a division of labor, and coordinate their actions with colleagues, editors, and
others.
Figure 1. Components of an
activity system. See: http://www.edu.helsinki.fi/activity/6.htm
These examples can be analyzed into the elements shown in Figure 1, adapted
from a diagram created by Finnish researcher Yrjo Engestrom (Cole and
Engestrom, 1993, p. 8). The central relationship is between the individual participant (or subject) and the activity system's purpose
(or object); this relationship is not
direct, but is mediated by artifacts (tools). Participants are usually part of communities, a
relationship mediated by rules for
acceptable interactions. Communities in turn help accomplish system purposes
and outcomes through a division of labor. The model depicted in the figure has the advantage over other
situated-learning approaches of allowing for the identification of an activity
system's elements and for the comparison of dynamic systems (Nardi, 1996).
Activity systems are, in fact, in constant flux, always subject to change
through the intrusion of new participants, purposes, and tools. Training itself
can introduce change, in part by helping an activity system achieve its
purposes in new ways, in part by revising participants' understanding of the
activities in which they are engaged.
The Centrality of Tools
By bridging the worlds of participant and purpose, tools (depicted at the
apex of the figure above) make activity possible in the first place. Tools can
be both physical (notebooks, books, software) and cognitive (concepts,
language, notational systems). Physical tools shape what people can and cannot
do, as Norman (1988) shows in his critique of poorly designed doors, faucets,
and other everyday things. Cognitive tools likewise enable and constrain
activity. Instructional design procedures in the training world, for example,
prescribe a way of doing (and not doing) design, thereby shaping associated
ways of thinking (and not thinking) about design. Cognitive tools are of
special importance because they free us from immediate stimuli, providing
access to the past, to situations not physically present, and to imaginary
worlds (Cole, 1996, pp. 121-122). Consider, for example, the centrality of
tools for engineers, who could not function without tables, regulatory guides,
design software, and a vast conceptual apparatus shared with other engineers
(Perkins, 1993). For the engineer, tools can serve as "functional
organs" experienced almost as personal properties (Kaptelinin, 1996, p.
51).
An activity, then, is simply what the
activity system does: people using tools for more or less well-defined
purposes. Any activity consists of deliberate actions, which can be further decomposed into automatic operations (Leont'ev, 1974). In the case of telephone sales,
for example, order-processing constitutes an activity carried out through
deliberate calculations (actions) and automatic order-writing (operations).
These three levels (activity, action, operation) are situationally defined and
subject to change. For management, order-processing is but a lower-level action
in a larger corporate activity system. And we've all experienced how
otherwise-ignored operations can become disrupted. When software crashes
(ceasing to be a tool and forcing itself into consciousness as a troublesome
object), automatic operations are
halted as one tries to figure out which actions are required to resume work (Nardi, 1995, p. 75).
Everyday Learning in Activity Systems
To account for the relation between learning and human development, Lev
Vygotsky, the Soviet psychologist who laid the groundwork for activity theory,
developed the concept of zone of proximal development (ZPD) in 1934; the term has been popularized in the
U.S. since the translation of his Mind and Society in 1978. Vygotsky defined the ZPD as the distance
between a child's current development (as measured by independent problem
solving) and that child's potential development (as measured by what can be
accomplished "under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable
peers"; Vygotsky, 1978, p. 86). Implicit in this definition is a
prescription for adults, teachers, and others to engage learners one at a time,
at the limit of their potential. Under guidance, with practice, novices
"gradually increase their relative responsibility until they can
manage" on their own (Cole, 1985, p. 155). Skills, rules, knowledge, and
tools are thereby internalized, forming the basis of the cognitive tools used
in problem-solving and self-directed learning.1
Vygotsky's concept has helped anthropologists explain how, in non-Western
cultures, complex skills such as weaving and midwifery pass between generations
(Lave & Wenger, 1991; Rogoff, 1990). In the American classroom, educators
have even designed zones of proximal development (e.g., Newman, Griffin &
Cole, 1989; Campione et al., 1984). Such designs have at least four elements:
"Guidance by an expert" requires a more active role than suggested
by "guide on the side," today's jargon for the teacher who no longer
merely purveys information in a didactic fashion. To be effective, instructors
must be sufficiently expert in their domain to judge individual learning needs,
sufficiently experienced as instructors to adjust dynamically as needs change,
and sufficiently sensitive as people to continuously juggle the novice's and
expert's perspectives, with the steady goal of nudging the novice toward
mastery (Wertsch, 1984; Newman, 1997; Wells, 1996). In the ZPD learning takes
place not "in the head," through a one-way process of knowledge transmission.
Some theorists discount individual cognition altogether, arguing that thought
and intelligence are embedded in and "stretched across" the larger
structures of activity (Pea, 1993; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Salomon &
Perkins, 1998).
A final general point: activity systems are not normative, and the
"natural" way of learning is not necessarily the best. Instead, the
concept of activity system helps the designer identify the elements and
dynamics of often undesigned systems, which can be rife with contradictions--differences,
for example, among participants about purpose, division of labor, and tool
selection and use. By analyzing the troubles of current activity systems,
designers can help emerging ones develop successfully.
Implications for WBT
WBT can focus at any level of an activity system--activity, action, or
operation. The lower the level, the looser the ties to a specific activity
system and more transferable the skill, since activities are unique to systems
while operations can be applied in many systems. WBT itself can be seen as both
a tool and a simulated activity system within which participants are introduced
to and refine their use of actions and operations. Purposive, coordinated
learning can be organized and led by an instructor, automated by a computer-based
tutorial, or created by the learners themselves, depending on the WBT design.
In this respect, the Web, like any other medium, affords a variety of
interactions in support of activity, depending on the use to which it is put.
Using WBT merely to teach routine behaviors (operations and actions) fails
to do much more than automate current practice or lower costs, thereby
shoehorning what is often procedural knowledge into a hypertext format. The
novel contribution of activity theory is to focus attention on the ways in
which WBT can support higher-level activity by enabling reflection on current
business processes and facilitation of new teams, rules, and divisions of
labor. WBT in support of activity can be delivered as a course, but perhaps more
effectively as part of everyday activity systems. Further, what Kuutti (1996)
says of information technologies applies to WBT as well. WBT can make new,
distributed activities possible and allow organizations to take on new purposes
(pp. 35ff).
Regardless of the level of training, activity theory can inform the key
aspects of WBT design: what is being learned, how training takes place, and
what is expected of the learner.
What is being learned
For activity theorists, community knowledge lies in activities and tools,
not syllabi and performance objectives. WBT designers should arguably spend
more time designing activities that use the resources of activity systems and
less time worrying about whether some sort of purified expertise has been
"captured" from a subject-matter expert. One could safely assume that
it hasn’t, since the needed expertise will likely emerge from activity itself.
Ideally, assessment should include a way of tracking students' day-to-day
activities and judging the adequacy of their participation.
WBT makes the most sense when activities are already on the Web, such as
learning HTML, designing e-commerce sites, and programming in JavaScript. Also,
it makes sense when activities are easily represented in virtual environments,
such as researching a subject or collaboratively writing a paper. In addition,
the discrete information required in professional continuing education (in
medicine and accounting, for example) lends itself well to WBT, especially when
an instructor is not required.
In other cases WBT should arguably be integrated with real-world training. A
WBT course on data-entry skills could pair novices with experienced colleagues
who know the tricks and shortcuts as well as the rule-based techniques. A WBT
course on coaching for managers could include Web-based tutorials on rules and
skills, but significant time should be spent in actual performance settings,
with learners working alongside experienced practitioners. Here they can learn
the ways in which experts recognize and grapple with the messier problems that
emerge in everyday situations.
How training takes place
American educators prefer scaffolding to
zone of proximal development, but
both terms denote the guidance learners need as they acquire new skills. In
traditional activity systems, the community and especially the adult guide
provide much of the scaffolding for novices. The same can be true in WBT
environments, which have the benefit of providing access to distributed
expertise (Brown et al., 1993). However, because the Web medium is presently
limited to text, sound, video, pictures, fewer cues and far less everyday
information can be shared than in face-to-face encounters; "live"
communications usually communicate no more than words. This inherent deficit
can leave learners feeling isolated and adrift.
With some ingenuity in implementation, WBT can compensate for media
limitations. Instructors will themselves need guidance in the art of
scaffolding as they learn to use e-mail, chat, and message boards to engage
students regularly, substantively, and supportively as required. An effective
WBT environment will also include a variety of performance supports such as job
aids and reference sheets to help learners pick up community practices. Above
all, realistically presented practices will allow participants to master tools
efficiently and thoroughly--not just as skills, but as "personal
properties."
Virtual learning communities even hold some advantages. Because WBT
interactions can be archived, students can consult previous work samples. A
searchable and browsable library of such samples (as in a Lotus Notes
discussion database) can make a workgroup's history more retrievable than it
ever has been. By making a community's knowledge tangible, collaborative
visualization technologies help participants see and resolve differences,
building joint understandings (Edelson, Pea, & Gomez, 1996). In the text
world of Usenet newsgroups, compilations of frequently asked questions (FAQs)
have successfully met this need for years by representing shared knowledge in a
compact format, efficiently bringing novices up to speed and reducing the
burdens placed on the community's most experienced members. Such digital
archives do not, of course, encapsulate past human interactions in quite the way Vygotsky envisioned. Even so,
networked storage, retrieval, and visualization capabilities can help
compensate for the serious limitations of WBT and effectively embody virtual
workgroups.
What is expected of the learner
Traditional and virtual communities differ in the expected roles of
students. In WBT environments, instructors cannot micro-monitor students’
progress, or even be aware of learning needs on a daily basis­a real
obstacle to implementing ZPDs on the Web. Students must be encouraged to take
the initiative and seek out needed resources. Because WBT constrains
opportunities for the direct observation and modeling of expert participants,
designers should expect failures--not so much in content transmission as in
learners' inadequate adaptation to new roles.
For WBT to be effective, students need to see learning goals in terms of
problems to be solved. The metacognitive skills of self-monitoring,
question-asking, decision-making, and self-evaluation must be constantly in
play. A key task for instructors in this environment is both to cultivate such
skills and to encourage students to model experienced peers. Since many
students do not arrive well-prepared in these areas, WBT environments must
include support for high-level skills. Scaffolding thus extends beyond support
of technical skills and into reflection, troubleshooting, and self-guided
training.
Activity theory and WBT: Some design guidelines
Cultivate the social. Communities are
central to normal training practices and should also be central to WBT. Even
individualized modules need to be conceived as part of a broader network of
interacting people.
Get people talking. Learning happens
when people get practice using the community's tools, with all the associated
jargon and tricks of the trade.
Provide continued scaffolding.
Learners benefit most when they stay engaged at that "stretching"
level, with support from multiple experts.
Tap inherent intentionality. Every
activity system has its purposes, which inform all underlying actions and
operations. WBT environments will be successful to the extent that they tie
learners’ goals to these larger purposes.
Build around meaningful activity. The
power of WBT lies in the cases, projects, and problems--not in objectives and
content outlines. Activity-based WBT draws on the power of authentic
collaborative activity to convey what needs to be taught.
Work with the available tools. Some
WBT tools will be richly simulated; others will be lower fidelity, text-only
case studies. Learners and trainers need to improvise and adapt as they
accustom themselves to the online environment. Even so, impressive learning can
result through creative use of online tools and resources.
Use collaboration to allow different levels of participation, support,
and learning. Not every learner has to
engage in the same activity in the same way; such standardization can kill a
creative activity system. Learners need to be encouraged to find a place where
they can learn--at the center, periphery, or somewhere in between. In
collaborative activities directed at challenging, complex problems, room can be
made for everybody.
1The apprenticeship
process presented schematically here, and only characterized at a high level by
Vygotsky himself, has been closely analyzed by Barbara Rogoff (1990) in her
cross-cultural study of child development--a more readable account of
apprenticeship than Lave & Wenger's popular theoretical study of situated
learning (1991). Though dealing with children, Rogoff's work bears close
reading by designers of training for adults. Gordon Wells (1996) provides many
insights into teacher-student dynamics in the classroom ZPD. Kieran Egan (1997)
has developed Vygotsky's hints about the genesis of cognitive tools into a
highly imaginative theory of human development and education.
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Author Notes
Brent Wilson is associate professor,
Information and Learning Technologies, School of Education, University of
Colorado at Denver. He can be reached by e-mail (brent.wilson@cudenver.edu),
regular mail (Campus Box 106, P. O. Box 173364, Denver CO 80217-3364),
telephone (303.556.4363), and fax (303.556.4479).
David Peal has written computer books
for Sybex, Osborne/McGraw-Hill, Lycos Press/Macmillan, and AOL Press. He has a
Ph.D. in history and is working toward an MA in Educational Technology
Leadership at George Washington University. He can be reached by e-mail
(davidpeal@aol.com), telephone (301.718.7355), and fax (301.718.7329).
For more information: Martin Ryder
has collected a large set of Web links relating to Activity Theory
(http://www.cudenver.edu/~mryder/itc_data/activity.html).