While activity theory has emerged as a useful framework for the analysis of digital technology in educational contexts, critiques of the theoretical and methodological basis of activity theory still resonate in the practical application of the theory. This paper will address some of these critiques in relation to research into students’ use of digital technology for collaboration. Specifically, the issue of defining activity will be shown to be problematic for novice researchers seeking to apply activity theory in complex social contexts. Thus, it will be argued that these critiques need to be more fully explored if activity theory is to remain a robust and relevant theory.

The researcher has been investigating the ways in which Australian high school students use digital technology for collaboration. In particular, he has compared students’ use of digital technology in the classroom to the use of digital technology in out-of-school settings, such as the home. By focusing on the students’ perspective, the researcher aims to identify more appropriate ways of using digital technology in educational settings that better reflect students’ use of digital technology outside of school.

A problematic aspect in analysing data from this project has been balancing a suitable level of abstraction in defining activity systems and providing a well supported analysis of the research context. In other words, there is a tension between using conceptually broad activity systems that enhance generalisability and the need to present detailed evidence about individual activity systems. Moreover, the varied definitions and applications of the concept of activity in existing research further complicate this process.

Specifically, the pilot data revealed a number of activity systems that were central to understanding the contradictions that occurred but remained ill defined. For instance, gaming was a central activity that caused contradictions in the home activity system yet it is hard to identify a durable, long term goal that defines the activity. Moreover, a similar problem was faced with regards to the activity of communicating with friends.

These theoretical and methodological issues resonate with the criticism by Bakhurst (2009) of activity theory. In particular, he argued that the philosophical foundation of activity within activity theory is problematic and that the generality of the activity system schema reduces the explanatory power of the theoretical framework. As suggested above, these criticisms remain problematic for researchers and a robust discussion amongst users of activity theory is required to further clarify these issues.