logo

Articles

Vol. 1 No. 1 (2020): Debating the status of 'theory' in technology enhanced learning research

Making a case for Cultural Historical Activity Theory: Examples of CHAT in practice

DOI:
https://doi.org/10.82168/znj6ha87
Submitted
26 July 2026
Published
10-06-2020

Abstract

This paper argues that Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) provides a practical framework for theory-based research into Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL). Far from being inaccessible, CHAT provides researchers with the concepts, language and tools to create meaningful and manageable data sets that allow insights into complex social situations such as education. Within the context of a pre-university English language program at a Federal institution in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the paper describes two recent examples of the author’s research into laptop-mediated English language classrooms using CHAT as the theoretical framework. The paper then goes on to describe a theory-based intervention currently in progress that has grown out of the two examples described. This paper aims to demonstrate that theory and practicality need not be separate. CHAT can be used to guide and design research into not only innovation and best practice in TEL but also the actual day-to-day realities of technology usage in real classroom settings, bringing much-needed criticality to the field. The paper concludes by arguing that CHAT can also provide a framework to drive theory-based interventions via the Change Laboratory. Through CHAT, findings from theory-based research need not remain at a conceptual level but can actually be used to create concrete solutions to problems and actual improved educational practice and policy.

References

  1. Al-Khatib, H. (2011). Technology enhanced learning: virtual realities; concrete results case study on the impact of TEL on learning. European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning, 14(1).
  2. Bennett, S., & Oliver, M. (2011). Talking back to theory: The missed opportunities in learning technology research. Research in Learning Technology, 19(3).
  3. Bligh, B., & Flood, M. (2015). The Change Laboratory in Higher Education: research-intervention using activity theory. In J. Huisman, & M. Tight (Eds.), Theory and Method in Higher Education Research (Vol. 1) (pp. 141-168). Emerald Group Publishing Ltd.
  4. Bligh, B., & Flood, M. (2017). Activity theory in empirical higher education research: Choices, uses and values. Tertiary Education and Management, 23(2), 125-152.
  5. Brannick, T., & Coghlan, D. (2007). In defense of being “native”: The case for insider academic research. Organizational Research Methods, 10(1), 59-74.
  6. Carver, L. B. (2016). Teacher perception of barriers and benefits in K-12 technology usage. Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology-TOJET, 15(1), 110-116.
  7. Castañeda, L., & Selwyn, N. (2018). More than tools? Making sense of the ongoing digitizations of higher education. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 15(22), 1–10.
  8. Cavanaugh, C., Hargis, J., Kamali, T., & Soto, M. (2013b). Substitution to augmentation: Faculty adoption of iPad mobile learning in higher education. Interactive Technology and Smart Education, 10(4), 270-284.
  9. Cavanaugh, C., Hargis, J., Munns, S., & Kamali, T. (2013a). iCelebrate teaching and learning: Sharing the iPad experience. Journal of Teaching and Learning with Technology, 1(2), 1-12.
  10. Chao, J., Xie, C., Nourian, S., Chen, G., Bailey, S., Goldstein, M. H., Purzer, S., Adams, R. S., & Tutwiler, M. S. (2017). Bridging the design-science gap with tools: Science learning and design behaviors in a simulated environment for engineering design. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 54(8), 1049-1096.
  11. Engeström, Y. (1993). Developmental studies of work as a testbench of activity theory: The case of primary care medical practice. In S. Chaiklin & J. Lave (Eds.), Understanding practice: Perspectives on activity and context (pp. 64-103). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  12. Engeström, Y. (1987/2015). Learning by expanding: An activity-theoretical approach to developmental research (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
  13. Engeström, Y. (2016). Studies in expansive learning: Learning what is not yet there. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  14. Engeström, Y., & Sannino, A. (2011). Discursive manifestations of contradictions in organizational change efforts: A methodological framework. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 24(3), 368-387.
  15. Engeström, Y., Virkkunen, J., Helle, M., Pihlaja, J., & Poikela, R. (1996). The change laboratory as a tool for transforming work. Lifelong Learning in Europe, 1(2), 10-17.
  16. Englund, C. (2018). Exploring interdisciplinary academic development: The Change Laboratory as an approach to team-based practice. Higher Education Research & Development, 37(4), 698-714.
  17. Englund, C., Olofsson, A. D., & Price, L. (2018). The influence of sociocultural and structural contexts in academic change and development in higher education. Higher Education, 76(6), 1051-1069.
  18. Erduran, S. (2018). Toulmin’s argument pattern as a “horizon of possibilities” in the study of argumentation in science education. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 13(4), 1091-1099.
  19. Ess, C. (2002). Computer-mediated colonization, the renaissance, and educational imperatives for an intercultural global village. Ethics and Information Technology, 4(1), 11-22.
  20. Galleguillos, J., & de Carvalho Borba, M. (2018). Expansive movements in the development of mathematical modeling: Analysis from an Activity Theory perspective. ZDM, 50(1-2), 129-142.
  21. Grimes, D., & Warschauer, M. (2008). Learning with laptops: A multi-method case study. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 38(3), 305-332.
  22. Hargis, J., Cavanaugh, C., Kamali, T., & Soto, M. (2014). A federal higher education iPad mobile learning initiative: Triangulation of data to determine early effectiveness. Innovative Higher Education, 39(1), 45-57.
  23. Hernandez-Martinez, P., & Vos, P. (2018). “Why do I have to learn this?” A case study on students’ experiences of the relevance of mathematical modelling activities. ZDM, 50(1-2), 245-257.
  24. Hew, K. F., Lan, M., Tang, Y., Jia, C., & Lo, C. K. (2019). Where is the “theory” within the field of educational technology research? British Journal of Educational Technology, 50(3), 956-971.
  25. Hwang, G.-J., & Wu, P.-H. (2014). Applications, impacts and trends of mobile technology-enhanced learning: A review of 2008–2012 publications in selected SSCI journals. International Journal of Mobile Learning and Organisation, 8(2), 83-95.
  26. Jameson, J. (2019). Developing critical and theoretical approaches to educational technology research and practice. British Journal of Educational Technology, 50(3), 951-955.
  27. John, P., & Wheeler, S. (2015). The digital classroom: Harnessing technology for the future of learning and teaching. Routledge.
  28. Kaatrakoski, H., Littlejohn, A., & Hood, N. (2017). Learning challenges in higher education: An analysis of contradictions within Open Educational Practice. Higher Education, 74(4), 599-615.
  29. Livingstone, S. (2012). Critical reflections on the benefits of ICT in education. Oxford Review of Education, 38(1), 9-24.
  30. Lloyd, A. (2014). Following the red thread of information in information literacy research: Recovering local knowledge through interview to the double. Library & Information Science Research, 36(2), 99-105.
  31. Marken, J. A. (2006). An application of activity theory. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 19(2), 27-49.
  32. Miles, R. (2017b). Professional Development: A phenomenographic case study into the differences in experience of English Language teachers with regard to classroom technology. Lancaster University.
  33. Miles, R. (2018a). Activity theory: Identifying the contradictions in the technology enhanced language classroom. Lancaster University.
  34. Miles, R.(2019). iPads in the classroom: Teachers’ perspectives post-implementation. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education: Gulf Perspectives, 16(1).
  35. Mokhtar, I. A., Al Bustami, G., & Elnimeiri, A. (2009). Use of Weblogs by Non-native EL students: A case study in the UAE. Paper presented at the E-Learn: World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education.
  36. Montoro, C. (2016). Learn or earn? Making sense of language teaching and learning at a Mexican university through a Change Laboratory intervention. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, 11, 48-57.
  37. Murphy, E. (2013). Activity theory perspectives on technology in higher education. IGI Global.
  38. Murphy, E., & Rodriguez-Manzanares, M. A. (2008). Using activity theory and its principle of contradictions to guide research in educational technology. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 24(4).
  39. Mwanza, D. (2002). Conceptualising work activity for CAL systems design. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 18(1), 84-92.
  40. Nicolini, D. (2009). Articulating practice through the interview to the double. Management Learning, 40(2), 195-212.
  41. Park, Y., & Warschauer, M. (2016). Syntactic enhancement and second language literacy: An experimental study. Language Learning & Technology, 20(3), 180-199.
  42. Paskevicius, M., & Knaack, L. (2018). Tablets and Trees: Equipping Forestry Students with Mobile Tools for Learning in and Out of Classroom. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology/La revue canadienne de l’apprentissage et de la technologie, 44(1).
  43. Passey, D. (2019). Technology‐enhanced learning: Rethinking the term, the concept and its theoretical background. British Journal of Educational Technology, 50(3), 972-986.
  44. Raddawi R., Bilikozen N. (2018) ELT professors’ perspectives on the use of e-rubrics in an academic writing class in a university in the UAE. In A. Ahmed & H. Abouabdelkader (Eds.), Assessing EFL writing in the 21st century Arab world (pp. 221-260). Palgrave Macmillan.
  45. Richards, J. C. (2005). Communicative language teaching today. SEAMEO Regional Language Centre.
  46. Rind, I. A. (2016). Conceptualizing students’ learning experiences in English as second language in higher education from structure and agency. Cogent Social Sciences, 2(1), 1191978.
  47. Scanlon, E., & Issroff, K. (2005). Activity theory and higher education: Evaluating learning technologies. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 21(6), 430-439.
  48. Selwyn, N. (2011). In praise of pessimism—the need for negativity in educational technology. British Journal of Educational Technology, 42(5), 713-718.
  49. Tubaishat, A., & Bataineh, E. (2009). The impact of laptops on female students learning in an outcome-based Learning environment. Paper presented at the Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference.
  50. Unluer, S. (2012). Being an insider researcher while conducting case study research. The Qualitative Report, 17(29), 1.
  51. Virkkunen, J., & Newnham, D. S. (2013). The change laboratory: A tool for collaborative development of work and education. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
  52. Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Thought and language (Revised edition). Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
  53. Yamagata-Lynch, L. C. (2010). Activity systems analysis methods: Understanding complex learning environments. Springer Science & Business Media.