ABSTRACT
Like cognitive theories and Kelly’s personal construct theory, theories of action have evolved as a critical reaction to behaviourism and empiricism. In the behaviourist theories, knowing and learning behaviour are described, explained and predicted as responses to certain stimuli, but processes of conscious planning, action and decision are not the central focus of enquiry; at the most, cognition and consciousness are additional side-effects observed in the change of behaviour. In contrast, action theories regard cognition and conscious action as essential factors in human behaviour. They assume that mental processes, such as reasoning, problem-solving or decision making, as well as motor procedures, are dependent components of the macro unit ‘action’. However, it should be pointed out that the terms ‘action’ and ‘activity’ are sometimes used synonymously and sometimes with distinctly different meanings. The confusion in the literature is probably due to the fact that many action theories have been translated differently into English from German (e.g. Holzkamp, Lenk, Hacker, Volpert) and from Russian (Leontiev, Galperin, Vygotskij, Zincenko). In this book ‘action’ is to be understood as the superordinate concept of the state or process of acting or doing; ‘activity’ as a specific action, deed or a sphere of actions (e.g. learning/teaching activities); and ‘operation’ as a process of a practical or mechanical nature in some form of work or production (Macquarie Dictionary).
