Handbook of Design in Educational Technology

34 Lights, Camera, Learn

When the Set is as Important as the Actors

Iris Tabak

1. Introduction

All of our acts, even the simplest, which are so familiar to us in everyday life, become strained when we appear behind the footlights before a public of a thousand people.

(Constantin Stanislavski; Appears in Wilson & Goldfarb, 1996, p. 44)

In discussing the training of aspiring actors, Stanislavski makes explicit a simple, intuitive, idea that the setting or circumstances influence how we act. Conversely, the expectation that people are characterized by traits and abilities, and that they employ them with regularity and consistent outcomes across time and space, seems just as intuitive. Despite its surface intuitive appeal, empirical support for ...