Educational Psychology—Limitations and Possibilities

Activity Theory as a Framework 781
SYSTEMS DESIGN AND ACTIVITY THEORY: A CULTURAL-HISTORICAL
SYSTEMS PERSPECTIVE
Systems design is largely communicative in nature, depends on discourse as a semiotic tool for
mediation within the cognitive, cultural, and creative activities essential to overcoming deep sociohistorical
patterns of learning that are woven into the fabric of human activity and educational
systems. The use of cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) as a framework for designing educational
systems, learning systems in particular, represents a sociocultural and inquiry-oriented
perspective that illuminates the relationship between design as a human activity system and the
sociocultural context in which the design activity unfolds. The design activity, as described in
Banathy’s concept of systems design (1996), is mediated by conversation and language forms
of semiotic mediation. Mediation of design, through the use of cultural artifacts like discourse
and language, represent actions within the human activity system of design. The mediational
role of conversation and use of other symbol-based systems in systems design is supported by
cultural-historical activity theory, which presents a systemic view of design activity (Engeström,
Miettinen, and Punamäki, 1999). The semiotic nature of discourse and language within communities
of design practice, as well as learning communities, enables participants to transcend
formal cognitive and cultural patterns that often marginalize and disadvantage voices of difference.
Essential to the design of complex activity systems for learning is the ability of participants
to acknowledge the dialectical contradictions that have emerged in their past or present activity
system(s), while also acknowledging the importance of creating dialogical relationships toward
the goal of designing new systems.
Discourse and language systems—semiotic tools of mediation— underlie the process of both
learning and systems design. The framework of cultural-historical activity theory suggests that
mediational artifacts such as language and discourse do not exist inside or outside of individual
consciousness; rather they reside on the borderline between oneself as designer and the others
who are also designers and users. Learning, as is the case with designing learning activities, is
“a process of social negotiation or collaborative sense making, mentoring, and joint knowledge
construction” (Zhu, 1998).
CULTURAL-HISTORICAL ACTIVITY THEORY AND HUMAN
ACTIVITY SYSTEMS
In society, the nature of, and capacity for, human activity is endlessly multifaceted, mobile,
and rich in variations of purpose, context, content, process, and form (Engeström and Miettinen,
1999). The social structure of society is not characterizable as something standing alone, apart
from the activity and people that created it. Rather, “society forms the individuals who create
society; society, that is, produces people, who produce society, in a continuous dialectic” (Bhaskar,
1989). Human activity forms systems that, with their particular social languages and other cultural
artifacts such as discourse and physical tools, do not operate independently one from another. They
interact dynamically, forming systems of interrelated and interdependent activity, with particular
goals and purposes. The meaning of activity as related to social systems design and activity theory
will be examined, using the idea of educational systems design as a context and referent. Human
activity systems related to educational systems design will be explicitly referenced to further
contextualize the meaning of activity.
Human Activity Systems
Checkland (1981) suggests that human activity systems may best be understood as structured
sets of activities that are notional, expressing some purposeful human activity that could be found