Abstract
Observations of children using mathematics software are the empirical base for this article. The conceptual base is the socio-historical school of psychology. Our purpose was to develop an ability to characterize and contribute to the children’s learning. To guide observations of the children and interactions with them, we relied on some aspects of the theory that have often been used in studies of learning and development (the use of auxiliary means, the contrast between reduced and elaborated forms, the zone of proximal development) and other concepts that are less well promulgated (activity variations, analysis by units, and models). At the same time, an enriched understanding of the theoretical concepts arose as we grappled with the children’s varied performance on the specific tasks embedded in the software (representation, repetition, and re-analysis). The data are collapsed and annotated field notes of the experience, reshaped to make them available for more general use. The main point is that the two bases are mutually informative.
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This work is part of a larger long-term project (cf. Belyaeva & Cole, 1989 for an account of the full project). The Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Internationl Fund of Moscow have support the project as a whole.
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Griffin, P., Belyaeva, A. & Soldatova, G. Socio-historical concepts applied to observations of computer use. Eur J Psychol Educ 7, 269–286 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03172893
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03172893