Abstract:

Since its development by psychologists in the former Soviet Union, Activity Theory (AT) has been developed and refined by a number of contributors in the area (most noticeably: Lev Vygotsky, Alexei Leont’ev and Yrjö Engeström). AT can be defined as a goal based system in which issues of participant motivation, agency and behavior are fundamentally connected to the respective goal and controlled by mechanisms of regulation. The main purpose of this paper is to consider the use of AT as a tool for understanding higher education (HE) contexts. Using a narrative literature review (Popay et al. 2006) the research will seek to examine the perspectives and interactions of both students and staff as well as between departmental colleagues. Through a review of the work done by Trowler & Knight (2000) and Scanlon & Issroff (2005), the paper tentatively concludes that interactions between the various academic activity system members are subjective, political and underpinned by a need for effective skills for inference.

Keywords:

activity theory, activity system, higher education.