Procrastadabbler

I’ver written before about my struggle with the research I’m currently analyzing and attempting to write about. I was struggling with the theoretical framework and just what is going on in the moments I captured.

I’ve thought, maybe I should just write up the method and analysis, and then go back to the theory piece, but I can’t do that. Theory, analysis, method are all tangled together even though they each get their own little heading in an article.

Then today, as I was riding my bike, I think I had a moment of clarity. I’ve been struggling in part in my attempt to make sense of the students’ use of computer technology in this event. I have been drawing on activity theory, but was thinking of abandoning it and turning to another analytic lens because it seemed that the technology as mediating artifact was unimportant. I was thinking I just needed to let go of the technology piece. But that didn’t sit right either. I have the sense that it is important.

In two of the articles I recently read, the authors discuss how activity theory captures the contradictions and tensions between and within activity systems. In the event I’m analyzing I’m seeing how in the two dyads, one dyad is successful in achieving the learning objective and the other is not. The activity system for both dyads is the same except for the subjects (an activity theory term). However, I was really uncomfortable with saying that the failure of the dyad to achieve the learning outcome was the result of the student. That wasn’t working either.

But thinking about the articles and contradictions helped me to see what might be going on if I place the subjects in the activity system of the classroom, and also consider the subjects within the activity system of the larger community. It occurred to me that the use of the technology revealed a contradiction or tension between the two systems for the dyad that was unsuccessful. It’s not a particularly earthshattering, but I’m going to pursue it. I’m not quite sure yet what the implications are, but I need to write through this and maybe I’ll figure it out.

So goes the life of research. The frustrating thing is that school starts next week so I’m almost out of writing time.