The structure of rational interaction and its implications for educational research

Abstract

It is becoming increasingly obvious to many behavioural scientists that the concept of action is central in the systematic study of human and animal behaviour. What unifies all living creatures is the idea of activity in pursuit of a goal. Recently behaviouristic approaches that tended to neglect the action dimension of behaviour have been criticized for failure to explain voluntary action of human beings. Many researches have also been initiated with a non-reductionistic concept of human activity. One may cite the curriculum development activities under the paradigm of action-research where what is researched is the action, the practice, the doing of this and that and the gaining of personal knowledge about the actions, their effects and so forth. One may also mention the researches of Sigel and associates (1983) who introduced the distancing hypotheses in their effort to study aspects of inter-actions that facilitate what they call representational competence.