Activity Theory

A theoretical framework for analysing human practice that treats purposeful activity as a systemic ensemble of interacting components—subject(s), object(s), mediating artefacts/tools, community, rules and division of labour—where individual cognition and social, cultural and material conditions are mutually constitutive.

A socio‑cultural framework that treats human action as a systemic, mediated activity in which a subject works on an object through tools (material or symbolic) within a community structured by rules and a division of labor; the unit of analysis is the activity system rather than isolated individual cognition or artifact properties.

A socio‑cultural analytic framework that treats information practices as situated, goal‑directed activities within an activity system composed of a subject, an object, mediating artifacts (tools), rules, community, division of labor and intended outcomes; emphasis is placed on mediation, historical development and the interdependence of components.