Discussing Motives in Actions: The Potential of Stimulated-Recall Interviews in Facilitating Cultural-Historical Activity Theory Research

• In Event: Roundtable Session 1
  In Roundtable Session: Designing Cultural Historical Research: Audience, Purpose, and Method

Abstract

Making thinking explicit to reach adequate description and analysis in many cultural-historical (CH) studies is often a methodological challenge. Previous research relied on detailed observations or interviews to interpret language and actions in activities. This paper examines how stimulated-recall (SR) interview as a method can facilitate CH research in examining motives through actors giving accounts of actions. In the present study, interviews with teachers showing videos to seek their rationales behind group work in classrooms effectively probed into these actors’ intentions and knowledge about teaching. This paper illustrates how SR interview conforms to the theoretical underpinnings while compatibly assists the researcher to access people’s motives.

Author

• Jessica Chan, University of Oxford