Gryaznova, E. V., Matyaeva, I. L. Activity Approach to Studying Features of Distance Education

Abstract: The authors of the present article analyze whether it is possible to use the activity approach as one of the methods in researches of the phenomenon of distance education as the part of research area ‘Topical issues of distance education’. In order to create a complete and successive image of the aforesaid social phenomenon, it is necessary to apply not only methods from general and individual science, but also universal methods of philosophical analysis because we are talking about a complex social and technical object where the ‘Human Machine’ system plays a key role. The researchers use the activity approach as the element of the many-level concept of methodological knowledge that is usually related to the philosophical research methods. The activity approach allows to describe the structure of distance education and understand its special features. It is the activity approach that demonstrates distance education as a new social phenomenon, activity, special form of social relations and special social institution. This, in its turn, underlines how important it is for a researcher to take into account the complexity of all levels and elements of the phenomenon of distance education. Subject matter, terms, research methodology, nomology and praxiology of the science that studies topical issues of distance education must be formed on the basis of information- technological and social-humanitarian spheres of research where the activity approach must perform the integrating methodological function as the basic method of philosophical research.

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