1. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto The Change Laboratory The concept and the research practice Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning CRADLE University of Helsinki Jaakko Virkkunen Prof. emer. 0

2. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning (CRADLE) The Change Laboratory a method for formative intervention in activity systems and for research on their developmental potential as well as processes of expansive learning, collaborative concept formation, and transformation of practices developed in the mid 1990s by Yrjö Engeström based on the broader Developmental Work Research methodology and theory of expansive learning developed by Yrjö Engeström in the 1980s on the basis of the Cultural Historical Activity Theory (L.S. Vygotsky; A.N. Leont’ev; V.V.Davydov) 1

3. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning (CRADLE) 2 Locating the Change Laboratory in the landscape of forms of research in social sciences Engeström, 2013

4. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto Transforming experiment, formative intervention U. Bronfenbrenner: “An experiment that radically restructures the environment, producing a new configuration that activates previously unrealized behavioral potentials of the subject.” “It is one thing to compare the effects on development of systems or system elements already present within the culture; it is quite another to introduce experimental changes that represent a restructuring of established institutional forms and values.” 3 (U. Bronfenbrenner, 1977. Toward an Experimental Ecology of Human Development. American Psychologist)

5. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning (CRADLE) The outline of my presentation A case example of a Change Laboratory intervention in a school The philosophical background of the Change Laboratory method Basic principles of Change Laboratory interventions The setting and the process of a Change Laboratory intervention Examples of themes of Change Laboratory based research 4

6. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning (CRADLE) A case example: Change Laboratory in a middle school in Finland Jakomäki is a disadvantaged suburb of Helsinki. In 1998, Prof. Engeström led a Change Laboratory intervention in the Jakomäki middle school (about 280 students, 30% of them recent immigrants). The process consisted of 1) preliminary data collection: interviews with students, teachers, and parents, videotaping classroom lessons; 2) eleven weekly 2 h CL sessions with the whole faculty (27 persons); 3) teachers’ experimentation with new practices; 4) collection of follow-up data. 5

7. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto A contradiction in teachers’ view of the students The teachers especially wanted the Change Laboratory to help them to find a way to overcome the students’ apathy, which they experienced as a major problem. As this problem was discussed in a Change Laboratory session, one of the teachers remarked that she had seen some of the students pursuing their hobby very energetically after the school hours. There were two contradictory characterizations of the same students as apathetic at school and as energetic at their hobby. 6

8. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto A new element in students’ studies One of the ideas created in the Change Laboratory that the teachers started to implement was a new kind of ’final project’ that the students carried out during the last semester before leaving the school. Each student chose him or herself the object of the project. Several teachers supported the students in carrying out their projects. 7

9. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto 8 “ The final project allowed the students and forced the teachers to operate beyond and across encapsulated school subjects and work on a long-term basis. The final project introduced work motivated by the pride of achieving something beyond the demands of the curriculum, but offered the students also a change to enhance their grades.” Engeström, Engeström, Suntio, 2002 The researchers’ characterization of the effects of the final project on the school work

10. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto 9 The final project united two opposing set of features, those of systematic school work and those of pursuing one’s hobby The final project mediated the interaction between teachers and students in a new way

11. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto The basic idea of formative intervention is to find a way to resolve a contradiction within an activity by re- mediating the relationship of interaction in which there is a contradiction. 10

12. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto 11 The Change Laboratory, Action Research, and Design Experiments

13. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto The philosophical background of the Developmental Work Research methodology and the Change Laboratory Method 12

14. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto 13 In metaphysical (mechanistic) ontologies world is assumed to consist of unrelated things that have fixed properties and exist prior to and independently of their mutual relationships. The qualities that emerge in the external relationships between things are assumed to be a function of the properties of the relating things. In dialectical ontology world is assumed to consist of developing systems of interaction between complementary (and therefore contradictory) elements. The elements of a system mould each other in the internal relationships and have as elements of a system qualities that they do not have outside it. Different ontologies Tolman,1981

15. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto 14 Idea of intervention in metaphysical ontology Intervention is based on empirical generalizations concerning causal relationships between independent and dependent variables. It follows the logic of practical syllogism: It is known that A causes B B is needed Therefore A is implemented The intervention can produce a change but it does not produce development. The inner dynamics of the target system does not change.

16. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto 15 Intervention in dialectical ontology Means the mediation of opposites in order to enable their interaction and to overcome a contradiction within a system. A mediator is not completely a cause nor a consequence but unites two things in a process of co-evolution. It brings forth new qualities in the interacting things. Legend: A & B = opposites C = mediator Ca&Cb = the qualities of the opposites within C

17. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto 16 Being apathetic or energetic are not students’ fixed inherent qualities or traits but qualities that they exhibits in specific systems of mediated interaction. Re-mediating the interaction brings forth new qualities in both teaches and students and can start a cycle of development in both.

18. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto 17 The foundational principles of formative Change Laboratory interventions The principle of double stimulation The principle of ascending from the abstract to the concrete Together these two principles contribute to the development of the practitioners’ transformative agency, that is, their capacity to break away from the given frame of action and to take initiative to transform it collaboratively.

19. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto 18 The principle of double stimulation

20. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto 19 Three layers of causality 1.Causal layer: Individuals base their actions on generalizations concerning causal relationships. 2.Contradictory layer: In collective work activities, individuals are often driven by contradictory motives and pressures and can act in unpredictable ways when trying to find a resolution. 3.Agentive layer: People can proceed from the contradictory situation to taking transformative actions by inventing and using artefacts to control their behaviour from the outside. (Engeström, 2011)

21. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto The principle of double stimulation 20 Vygotsky saw double stimulation as the general principle of the formation of will, of how human beings intentionally break out of a contradictory situation, change their circumstances, or solve difficult problems. The first stimulus is a challenging problem or conflict of motives. The second stimulus is an external artifact which the subject turns into a sign, a psychological tool by giving it a meaning that is related to the problem. With the help of the second stimulus the subject gains control of his/her action and a new understanding of the problem situation.

22. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto 21 The two phases of d ouble stimulation The first phase, preparation - encountering an unsolvable problem or conflict of motives that paralyzes action - turning an external artifact into a sign and an auxiliary motive by connecting it to a form of behavior Second phase, actuation: determined, agentive action

23. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto 22 Vygotsky’s example of double stimulation Upon waking, a conflict of motives often develops between the obligation to get up and the desire to sleep a little longer. A person can control his or her behavior in this situation by deciding to count to three and to get up on at three. Voluntary act in this situation has four elements: 1) I must get up (motive 1), 2) I don’t want to get up (motive 2), 3) counting to three (second stimulus, auxiliary motive) and 4) rising at the count of three. (Vygotsky, 1997, p. 211)

24. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto 23 K. Weick’s story that tells about the importance of a second stimulus During World War Two, a young lieutenant of a Hungarian military detachment in the Alps sent a unit to a reconnaissance mission into the icy wilderness. Unexpectedly, there was heavy snowfall on the mountain; the soldiers got lost and found themselves in a hopeless situation expecting to die. Then, one of the soldiers found a map in his pocket. That calmed the soldiers who pitched camp, lasted out the snowstorm and then, with the help of the map returned back to their unit. The lieutenant had a good look at the map and discovered to his astonishment that it was not a map of the Alps but of the Pyrenees. The map, however, had functioned as a second stimulus that had made it possible for the solders to take determined action. Weick, 2001

25. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto 24 The principle of ascending from the abstract to the concrete

26. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto 25 Two forms of abstraction In empirical thinking, abstraction means capturing external properties of things and relationships between them. Abstraction in dialectical-theoretical thinking means capturing the smallest and simplest, genetically primary unit of a complex system. The unit is the starting point of tracing and reproducing the development of the system through the emergence and resolution of its inner contradictions.

27. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto 26 The principle of ascending from the abstract to the concrete refers to the dialectical movement of thinking from the immediate observations through abstraction of the essential relationships of interaction between complementary elements in the system to a systemic understanding of the whole and the observed phenomena. (Marx, 1904, Ilyenkov, 1982)

28. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto 27 The theoretical abstraction of the unit of analysis in the Change Laboratory: system of object-oriented activity Engeström, 1987

29. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto 28 The hierarchical structure of human activity Leont’ev, 1978 A.N. Leont’ev, 1978

30. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto 29 The object of an activity is a process in a material entity that leads to an outcome that meets a need in the society is the true societal motive of the activity mediates between a form of production and a form of consumption is inherently polyvalent and contradictory: partly material, given and partly ideal, constructed; has an exchange value and a use value is more robust and sustained than specific objectives

31. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning (CRADLE) 30 Ascending from the abstract to the concrete by taking expansive learning actions

32. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning (CRADLE) 31 The Change Laboratory method

33. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning (CRADLE) 32 The setting of Developmental Work Research

34. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto A framework for problematizing practices of school instruction 33 Engeström, Engesröm, & Suntio, 2002.

35. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning (CRADLE) The setting of DWR in the Change Laboratory 34

36. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning (CRADLE) Sociocognitive processes in the Change Laboratory 35

37. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning (CRADLE) Change Laboratory session in the domestic news department of a daily paper 36 Discussion of a disturbance process in the previous evening in the preparation of the domestic-news pages

38. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning (CRADLE) A Change Laboratory Intervention 37 Data about the activity system Preparatory data collection6-12 2h sessionsFollow up Participants’ data collection and planning between the sessions Data collection about changes, problems,and further developments The process produces unique data that can be analyzed for various research purposes after the intervention Selection of specimens to be used to form a mirror for the practitioners

39. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning (CRADLE) Collecting data for the Change Laboratory process 38 Data is needed for a historical and for an actual-empirical analysis of the activity both for orienting the researchers and for creating a mirror of the activity for the practitioners in the Change Laboratory. Principles 1.To ‘follow the object’ and give it a ‘voice’ (e.g. a case history) 2.To combine different points of view and create a multi-voiced account 3.To combine different types of data: video recording + actors’ comments on it artifacts (tools, forms, documents) +actors’ explanations 4.To move between levels of the hierarchy of activity: individuals’ actions, the activity system, important operations

40. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning (CRADLE) Expansive learning process in the Change Laboratory sessions 39 The researcher- interventionists prepare a series of task for the participants to stimulate them to take expansive learning actions.

41. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning (CRADLE) Elements of a task in the Change Laboratory 40 1. First stimulus: material or evidence of a potentially problematic or contradictory situation. 2. An open or focused question or task posed to the participants about the material 3. A second stimulus: a conceptual and/or practical tool that the participants can use when dealing with the problematic material (sometimes the researcher/interventionist waits for the practitioners to produce it themselves).

42. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto The CL process in a school for neurologically ill and disabled children 41 Virkkunen & Tenhunen 2010

43. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto 42 Re-mediating the activity in the school for neurologically ill and disabled children

44. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto 43 From problems of coordination, through co-operation to continuous reflective communication between professionals

45. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning (CRADLE) The roles of the researcher in conducting Change Laboratory sessions 44 Organizer and supervisor of the process * plans session agendas and tasks for the participants * organizes the work and controls the use of time Chair of the discussion * secures that all participants are heard and their contributions understood and discussed * makes intermediate summaries, points out open questions, and supports dialogue between points of view Conductor of the joint expansive learning process * forces the participants to confront problems, question prevalent thinking, and helps them to analyze the system * helps to identify and explicate contradictions in the system * supports the development of participants’ agency Researcher * intervenes in the discussion, documents the process

46. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning (CRADLE) The four steps of the dialectic method of leading the discussion in a CL session 45 1. Evoking and clarifying different observations, views, and ’voices’ 2. Elaborating differences and oppositions between presented observations and ideas 3. Bringing the oppositions to a head, formulating contradictions 4. Turning a contradiction into a task of creative concept formation and guiding the search for an expansive resolution of the contradiction

47. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto Experimentation in the Change Laboratory 46

48. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto Types of results of Change Laboratory interventions 47 Theoretical, systemic understanding of the origin and causes of problems and disturbances in the daily activity A new, future oriented concept of the object and purpose of the activity or of collaborating activities Boundary crossing and new forms of collaboration over institutional boundaries Practitioners’ joint transformative agency (‘our activity’) Innovations that have potential for generalization and further development Data for further analysis of aspects of the learning and transformation process

49. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto The Change Laboratory as an instrument for practice-inspired multidisciplinary basic research 48 Researcher Developmental Work Research Researcher/specialist ’Substance science’ An area of activity Change Laboratory intervention(s) Architects, construction engineers, computerscientists Pest biologist Library scientist Construction Pest management in tomato cultivation University libraries

50. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto Variants of the Change Laboratory method 49 Boundary Crossing Change Laboratory - partly shared object (clients) but different and incompatible conceptualizations of the object Competence Change Laboratory - for the development of learning practices in work organizations Occupational health and well being Change Laboratory - for identifying causes of problems of well being at work and helping the practitioners to collaboratively overcome them

51. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto Topics of research based on Change Laboratory interventions 50 1.Systemic causes of problems, possibilities for development and specific new solutions in specific activities or kinds of activities 2.Manifestations of systemic contradictions in the daily activity 3.Conditions and processes of the development of practitioners’ transformative agency 4.The process of expansive learning 5.Changes in participants’ way of thinking

52. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto Systemic causes of problems, possibilities for development and specific new solutions in specific activities or kinds of activities 51 An example The contradiction between a complex, changing object of activity and fixed division of labor between specialists and rigid processes (chronically ill patients with many diagnoses who are clients of primary health care and several units of specialized care; planning a complex building in construction industry; library informaticists’ support of research groups’ projects) Object oriented knotworking: involved specialists meet to asses the case and plan how to proceed in managing it, flexible composition and division of labor, agreed on follow-up and reassessment.

53. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto Manifestations of systemic contradictions in practitioners’ daily work and their talk about it 52 Studies on disturbances and ruptures in work processes and their relation to systemic contradictions in the joint activity and practitioners ways of handling them. The effect of inner contradictions in the activity system on practitioners’ work and work-related well being. Discursive manifestations of inner contradictions in the activity system in the discussions in Change Laboratory sessions: dilemmas, conflicts, double binds, critical conflicts.

54. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto Conditions and processes of the development of practitioners’ transformative agency 53 Steps and related dilemmas in the process of building joint transformative agency in the Change Laboratory Types of manifestations of participants transformative agency in a Change Laboratory intervention

55. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto 54 1.Different dimensions and forms of expansion in the solutions produced in interventions. 2.Forms of expansive learning actions and their sequences: empirically identified variants of the theoretical types, occurrence of various types of expansive learning actions in different phases of the intervention The process of expansive learning

56. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto 55 1.Change in the way teachers construct students as the object of their activity Engeström et al.: increase in positive talk about students Sannino: from professional categories (Piaget’s levels/age) to concrete analysis of individuals’ learning problems) Virkkunen et al.: Overcoming dysfunctional student categorization 2.Schaupp: change in managers’ way of explaining as a function of models used: explaining by referring to traits, to relationships and further to the development of a system Changes in participants’ way of thinking from abstract classifications to concrete analysis

57. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto 56 The process of formation of a new functional concept of an activity Greeno (2012) calls ‘ functional’ a concept that contributes to the way the practitioners organize their understanding of what they are doing. Such concepts become embedded in the structures and practices of an activity. Engeström et al. have studied the processes of concept formation from three points of view: the vertical and horizontal interaction between competing conceptions in the process, the forms and levels of articulation of a concept and the use of various kinds of models in it, and the processes of embedding and stabilizing the concept.

58. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto Thank you! 57

59. www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto 58 TED talk Emily Pilloton: Teaching design for change https://www.ted.com/talks/emily_pilloton_teaching_design_for_change#