The State of Research on Learning Activity

Abstract

The joint efforts of psychologists and educators in different countries (USSR, GDR, Vietnam, the Netherlands, USA, and others) over recent decades on a unified research program and an original method for formative experiments have produced some extensive studies of the learning process in schoolchildren. These studies have been done under the direction of D.B. El'konin and myself. We have gathered quite a lot of factual material, analysis and generalization of which have enabled us to devise an original psychological-pedagogical theory of learning activity. The experimental data on the basis of which this theory was constructed and its principal tenets have been published in several scientific journals and books.