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Activity Theory Assignment | Social Sciences

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Added on  2019-10-01

Activity Theory Assignment | Social Sciences

   Added on 2019-10-01

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Activity Theory1Activity TheoryActivity TheoryActivity Theory 6th August 2019About Activity TheoryActivity theory is mainly used in in the case of research and theories with relation to electric Social Sciences. It has its root in the famous Soviet psychological activity theory which has been pioneered by Sergei Rubinstein, Alexei Leont'ev, and Lev Vygotsky. These famous Scholars have attempted to understand different human activities. They have introduced us with social and systematic situated phenomena of human activities. According to them, human activities are beyond reflexology paradigms. Activity theory is also beyond classical conditioning, behaviorism, and psychoanalysis. Activity theory has gained its popularity as one of the important psychological approaches and it can be applied in both the field of applied psychology and theoretical aspects. Activity theory has also been popularly applied in the domains of professional training, education, social psychology, autonomics, and work psychology. Activity or it is something more than a descriptive method theory. It is also beyond predictive theory. It entails the entire activity or what system including organizations and teams. It involves the analysis of a single or multiple users and actors. It is responses to the history of the person, environment, and role of the artifacts, culture, motivations, and several complexities in real-life activities of human beings. One of the major advantages of activity theory is that it helps in bridging the gap between social reality and the individual subject. It emphasizes both social reality and individual activity through the means of mediating activity. The activity theory has the unit of analysis which is the concept of collective, object-oriented, and culturally mediated activities of human beings or the entire activity system. By the term system, we can understand the subject, the objectives, mediating artifacts such as tools and science, community, rules, and division of labor. Activity theory aims at creating contradictions and tensions within the components of the system. Bonnie Nardi who is an ethnographer and one of the leading theorists in activity theory has mentioned that activity theory focuses mainly on practice that obviates the requirement in distinguishing between pure science and applied science by understanding regular practice in the real world situations, which is one of the major objectives of any kind of scientific practice. Therefore, it can be said that the main objectivity of activity theory is to develop an understanding of the unity of activity and consciousness. Activity theory is also term as Cultural-
Activity Theory Assignment | Social Sciences_1
Historical Activity Theory because it focuses on virtual form and communication which is mediated through printed text and electronic means. Activity theory can also be considered to be one of the significant aspects in qualitative research methodologies such as case study, ethnography, etc. Furthermore, an activity can be considered as a broader concept which is highly related to interactions of human beings with the world. The interaction is defined as a process which has asubject and an object. An activity can be represented as the function of subject and object. These two key aspects fundamentally differentiate a particular activity from other means of interactions. An activity on interaction always needs a subject and then the object. Every human being needs to interact with other people and execute certain actions in which the subjects are found to be mutually determining one another. The activity theory defines an activity to be a generative force which helps in transforming both the objects and subjects. In the activity theory, it has been highlighted that every subject has a need. An activity can be defined as a unit of life of any material subject which exist in this objective world. Every subject has or needs which is indispensable for surviving and to fulfill such need some activities or needed to be carried out. Interactions are also needed to carry out activities and to achieve certain objectives. The theory has also highlighted the fact that every living organism on this earth has some needs or motives. The name of the subject can never be kept limited to do human beings. There are several other entities such as teams animals and organizations which also have certain need-based agency. Therefore it can be said that every entity can be e a subject of activity.Activity theory also provides an effective method of analyzing and understanding a phenomenon. It helps in identifying patterns which in turn helps in making inferences across several interactions. Activity theory also describes and presents phenomena through rhetoric and built-in language. Specific activity is always goal-directed and it indicates meaningful interaction between an object and a subject through the use of several methods and tools. These methods or tools are exteriorized forms of different mental processes which are manifested in psychological or physical constructs. Activity theory also recognizes externalization and internalization of cognitive processes which are highly engaged in the use ofthe tools. It also recognizes the development or transformation of results from any interaction. Hence, we can understand the activity theory is an important theory which helps in understanding the entire process of activity or interaction and helps in gaining an understanding of the findings of the interactions. History of Activity TheoryIn the history of activity theory, several sources have provided subsequent evidence which reveals that various intertwined and complementary strands of development are associated with this theory. Three major strands associated with the line of development of activity theory involve the Moscow Institute of psychology and some of the young Russian researchers such as Luria, Vygotsky, and Leont'ev. The other strand involves the works of scientists like Nikolai Bernstein and P. K. Anokhin. These famous Russian scientists focused on the
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