Designing Activity Systems Research Essay

The greatest challenge facing an Activity- guess-based come oned to questioning interconnected networks and action systems is the focus between the necessarily holistic view of better contextuality suggested by Kuuti, and the need for an appropriate level of analytic abstraction and generalizable research results ask for the research to have utility across disciplines (as cited in Nardi, 1996, p. 22 Nardi, 1996, p. 70). This tension can be partially mitigated by focusing concurrently on endeavor/motive-oriented research of soulfulnessistics and on alliance- intention-oriented research of large airfield communities.Thus in a research setting, the object, performance, and operation levels of to each one individual subdue would be documented, both as subjectively articulated in interviews, and as prescribed in that individuals task description. The everywherearching community object, legal action, and operation levels of the various interacting subject communities would also be documented, in cost of a written prospectus of the groups initial goals and all obtainable data regarding any sub-groups particular objects, either explicitly or implicitly declared.Because of the magnitude of data likely resulting from such research techniques, trends from the collected data argon probably best analyzed by means of statistics-based computer imitateing. Any truly contextual understanding of activity systems requires researchers to expect close attention in particular to what Kuuti calls action-operation dynamics, noting when and how, for individual subjects, the orientation sort of a given action has passed and the action has been internalized as operation (as cited in Nardi, 1996, p. 31).This phenomenon could be identified in a number of ways. For instance, when individuals begin to exclude unnecessary orientation-stage-steps in a process, or when they have re-articulated their objects to indicate a broadening of scope, it is likely because they ha ve moved beyond the orientation phase for a given action and internalized it as operation. Research into interrelated activity systems and networks also requires a nuanced understanding of how community subjects interact, both which each early(a) and with individual subjects.Documenting these interactions through research would require a thorough memorial of how both formal and informal subject groups affect one another, and the particularised contradictions that they exhibit through their objects (Kutti as cited in Nardi, 1996, p. 34). For example, to fully define and indeed research the activity of a software company working on a new database platform, researchers would need to understand the myriad goals of each sub-group and point within the company, as well as the companys larger goals, and the intentions of competing companies.This would require ongoing observation and interview data, and given the vast amounts of data likely to be mined in this process, a computer-based, statistical approach would likely be most effective. determined process vs. Activity Theory Because Situated deed Models explicitly reject an intention or goal-based translation of action, they do not lend themselves well to analytical abstraction. Each model being inextricably embedded in a particular situation, no two models are likely to offer enough commonality to take comparison across situations, let alone across disciplines (Nardi, 1996, p. 1).Activity Theory, by contrast, offers its fundamental tenet as its organizing schema consciousness and intent are the defining the elements of all activity (Nardi, 1996, p. 11). This perspective has several benefits. First, since Situated Action refuses to consider a subjects intent in its analysis, the activity can only be known as it plays out in situ (Nardi, 1996, p. 82). This means that Situated Action researchers must posit their own adaptation of a subjects actions, and ignore the subjects stated intention.Such constructed r ationalizations are more the province of speculative psychology than empiric science (Nardi, 1996, p. 82). This view appears even more absurd in blithe of the fact that Situated Action offers no explanation as to why, despite its guiding premise, human subjects invariably do explain their actions through their intentions, and ofttimes demand or believe such explanations from others (Nardi, 1996, p. 81).Second, Activity Theory, by starting time from the premise that intention and consciousness are fundamental elements in the description of action, immediately offers a means of demarcating and understanding activity that Situated Action Models lack (Nardi, 1996, p. 83). As Nardi points out, two subjects in identical environments may endanger disparate actions that can only be parsed in light of each subjects intent or object (Nardi, 1996, p. 83). Using the object as the organizing rinciple further allows Activity Theory to maintain a conformable analytical schema across discip lines and at varying levels of generality.For instance, both individual subjects and subject communities can be parsed according to the subject/object and object/action/operation paradigm. Lastly, Activity Theory allows research to continue over a longer time horizon because, while the situations examined in Situated Action Models tend to be quite ephemeral, the objects of Activity Theory may persist for months or years (Nardi, 1996, p. 3). This allows research of a given subject to proceed cumulatively, and not be wasted as soon as a given situation expires. It further allows researchers to focus on a higher level of abstraction, recurrence, and commonality than Situated Action Models, and to avoid the confined thicket of descriptive detail that becomes necessary when disregarding intentionality (Nardi, 1996, p. 92).