Browsing by Subject "Activity theory"

Now showing 1 - 10 of 10

Accessibility Scans and Institutional Activity: An Activity Theory Analysis
(College English, 2007-11) Spinuzzi, Clay
An activity theory interpretation of university ESL students’ experiences of classroom group work
(2011-12) Hardy, Jacques Wilburn; Schallert, Diane L.; Blyth, Carl S.; Horwitz, Elaine K.; Maxwell, Madeline M.; Muñoz, Linda
This study investigated the experiences of university-level ESL students engaged in classroom group projects. Using the lens of Activity Theory (Engeström, 1987, 2001; Leont’ev, 1976) I attempted to discover how students’ expectations and goals concerning small group work were enacted in their group interaction and participation. I conducted a qualitative case study of one class of nine students in a university-level English for Academic Purposes (EAP) Advanced Listening and Speaking class. I observed all classes during a 3-month instructional term, recording students’ small group work. In addition, I conducted interviews with 4 focal student participants and their instructor. I investigated students’ goals and expectations for group work, as well as the dynamic interplay between these factors and the local context as it unfolded in the work and interaction of each group. I also investigated the sources, effects, and interconnections of contradictions that emerged within and between activity systems in which the students engaged. An analysis of students’ interaction and self reports indicated that students’ expectations about the objectives, partners, distribution of tasks, and suitability of artifacts for each group task influenced their task-related and social goals for group activity. As the groups worked, contradictions within current activity systems and between current and past activity systems emerged. These contradictions necessitated the formation of new goals and activities, thereby promoting or limiting opportunities for interaction. Creative forms of L2 interaction, including negotiation, joking, teasing, and discussions of language form, emerged in response to contradictions. However, other contradictions involving the division of labor within the group promoted conflict or constrained interaction.
Bridging disciplines : a case study of interdisciplinary design-based learning between undergraduate artists and engineers
(2020-05-06) Harron, Jason Robert; Hughes, Joan E.; Resta, Paul; Azevedo, Flávio S; Klein, Joseph; Vakil, Sepehr
This dissertation’s original contribution to knowledge is a cultural-historical examination of an authentic interdisciplinary partnership at the intersection of the arts and engineering. This observational case study focuses on how creativity activity and interdisciplinary learning emerged as part of a College of Fine Arts course. Course participants included 23 undergraduate fine arts, communication, and engineering majors and their two instructors. This observational case study followed these participants for 14 weeks as they collaborated to design, build, film, and edit practical movie special effects. Within the cultural-historical context of this course, it was the practitioners who made interdisciplinary learning possible. This study found that creativity activity (i.e., those activities that result in new motives, goals, and operations) emerged through artistic constraints as metaconditions. Weekly routines enabled creative activity along with the use of shared spaces and consistent communication protocols. Routines inhibited creative activity when they blocked access, led to scheduling conflicts, and caused delays. The instructors established the pedagogical structure of the course, which provided students with enough scaffolding for creative activity to thrive. Interdisciplinary learning took place when a knowledgeable peer would step back to allow a learner to step up to a task. These steps are part of The Six Steps of Interdisciplinary Learning, which are outlined in this dissertation as a distributed pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) learning model. This interdisciplinary collaboration between artists and engineers influenced perceptions about each other’s disciplines. These findings include that engineers working in an arts-based context were able to put theory into practice in a way that is “not supposed to be perfect.” This interdisciplinary collaboration allowed engineers and fine art majors to gain an appreciation for each other’s knowledge, skills, and abilities. However, some tensions did arise between artists and engineers that led to gatekeeping and resentment. Despite this resentment, the rallying point of the study became the universal respect that emerged when engineers began painting. Findings also include the elicitation of peer and instructor feedback via Slack. Discussion includes suggestions for researcher-practitioner partnerships and a reflection about the current state of science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) in higher education.
Critical sociocultural perspectives on an asynchronous online intercultural exchange between Hindi and English language learners
(2017-05) Parnami, Shilpa; Blyth, Carl S. (Carl Stewart), 1958-; Schallert, Diane L.; Horwitz, Elaine K.; Palmer, Deborah K.; Shah, Gautami H.
This study examines an asynchronous online intercultural exchange between Hindi language learners (the HLLs) in the United States and English language learners (the ELLs) in India. Drawing on Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), the study conceptualizes this online exchange as a dynamic system and adopts a critical sociocultural approach to understand what constitutes the system and how it operates. The study also examines the different contradictions and outcomes that emerge within the system. Finally, the study looks closely at three the HLLs’ experiences to understand how their discursive cultural identities shape their online interactions with the ELLs and their overall engagement with the discussion project. The study involved six-weeks of online discussions between seventeen the HLLs from an intermediate-level Hindi language class at a large American university and eleven the ELLs from a Sanskrit Studies Institute in India. The bilingual discussion forums were structured around thematic analysis of a mainstream Hindi (Bollywood) film called English-Vinglish, where participants discussed issues related to film studies, gender-roles, and language ideology. Sources of data included the HLLs’ languacultural autobiographies, post-collaboration reflections, interviews, transcripts from the online discussions, researcher’s reflective journal, and transcripts from online and telephone communication with the ELLs and the teacher-collaborator in India. Qualitative analytical approaches like constant-comparison and triangulation inform the process of data analysis. In addition, theories and tools from Interactional Sociolinguistics (IS) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) provide an overarching critical lens to understand the complexities of the different processes and interactions operating within the system under study. Findings highlight the deeply contextual and layered nature of the online activity system, where each component of the system—subject, mediational tools, rules, community, division of labor, and object—plays an important role in how language, culture, and identity are perceived and constructed by the participants. Furthermore, analysis shows that technological, affective, and academic contradictions alter the dynamics of the system and limit participants’ opportunities for learning. Finally, case study analysis of the three the HLLs reveal that their cultural identities are situated in diverse historical, political, and socioeconomic experiences, which allow them to negotiate interpersonal understanding with their interlocutors and make meaning of the text under discussion.
Graduate students’ discourse activity in synchronous online classroom discussion
(2010-12) Park, Yangjoo; Resta, Paul E.
This study is about graduate students’ discourse practices in a classroom text-based synchronous computer-mediated discussion (SCMD). Cultural historical activity theory (in short, Activity Theory) is the primary theoretical lens through which the data are analyzed. Engeström’s (1987) Activity System model among the various theoretical positions or perspectives of activity theorists has guided the overall process of the study, especially having the researcher focus on the identification and description of the model’s six key elements: subject, object, tool, community, rule, and division of labor. Several emerging themes were identified. An activity system in SCMD is situated in multiple dimensions of context: physical/biological, cultural/institutional, social/ emotional, and cognitive/intellectual dimensions; instead of a single utterance, a topical pair needs to be investigated as a unit of analysis in SCMD research; a collective unit of actions emerges through the discourse activity; and, finally, an ecological view is needed to understand an activity system as a whole. Based on these emerging themes, I conclude with a modified model of the activity system in the situation of dialogical transactions such as SCMD.
How Nonemployer Firms Stage-manage Ad Hoc Collaboration: An Activity Theory Analysis
(Technical Communication Quarterly, 2014-03) Spinuzzi, Clay
Nonemployer firms—firms with no employees—present themselves as larger, more stable firms in order to take on clients’ projects. They then achieve these projects by recruiting subcontractors, guiding the subcontractors’ interactions with clients, and coordinating subcontractors in ways that protect their team performance for the client. Using fourth generation activity theory, I examine how these firms stage-manage their ad-hoc collaborations. I conclude by describing the implications for further developing fourth-generation activity theory to study such instances of knowledge work.
Losing by Expanding: Corralling the Runaway Object
(Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 2011-10) Spinuzzi, Clay
Third-generation activity theory (3GAT) has become a popular theoretical and methodological framework for writing studies, particularly in technical communication. 3GAT involves identifying an object, a material or problem that is cyclically transformed by collective activity. The object is the linchpin of analysis in the empirical case. Yet the notion of object has expanded methodologically and theoretically over time, making it difficult to reliably bound an empirical case. In response, this article outlines the expansion of the object, diagnoses this expansion, and proposes an alternate approach that constrains the object for case-study research in writing studies.
Schooling makerspaces : on the promises and tensions of implementing this much-touted innovation in a high school
(2019-08-15) Nelson, Joshua Ben; Azevedo, Flávio S.; Hughes, Joan E; Marshall, Jill A; Petrosino, Anthony J
This dissertation explores the tensions and contradictions that manifest when implementing a makerspace in a high school. This writing is the result of a two-year ethnographically informed study of a makerspace housed on the high school campus of a K-12 independent school located in Austin, Texas. My goal was to provide a rich and detailed account of how the makerspace changed over the years, in response to the various ‘forces’ that impinge upon the system, and to triangulate these observations with issues of educational relevance that have animated discussions about the benefits of making activities. I draw on Activity Theory (Engeström, 1999b) to help focus these efforts, in particular in following how tensions and contradictions in the various elements of an activity system drive changes to the environment and its culture. While this account is by no means generalizable to other settings, this analytical strategy can help articulate themes that are likely to be manifested (in one way or another) across various other implementations of school makerspaces.
Toward a Typology of Activities: Understanding Internal Contradictions in Multiperspectival Activities
(Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 2015-01) Spinuzzi, Clay
Professional writing scholars have often turned to activity theory (AT) as a rich framework for describing and theorizing human activity. But AT-based studies typically emphasize the uniqueness of activities rather than examining how certain types of activities share configurations. Consequently, these analyses often miss the chance to examine activities’ internal contradictions that are a result of interference between different configurations of activity. This article argues that a typology of activities can deepen our understanding of these internal contradictions. Drawing from a range of literature, it describes the general characteristics of different types of activities, providing examples from other AT-based studies. It concludes by discussing how this typology can help such studies to better analyze internal contradictions in activities.
Working alone, Together: Coworking as Emergent Collaborative Activity
(Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 2012-10) Spinuzzi, Clay
Mobile professionals can choose to work in offices, executive suites, home offices, or other spaces. But some have instead chosen to work at coworking spaces: open-plan office environments in which they work alongside other unaffiliated professionals for a fee of approximately $250 a month. But what service are they actually purchasing with that monthly fee? How do they describe that service? From an activity theory perspective, what are its object, outcome, and actors? This article reports on a 20-month study that answers such questions.