Schon's Reflective Model: Reflection in Action and Reflection on Action

Who was Donald Schon?

Donald Schon (1930-1997) was an American philosopher, educator, and organisational theorist whose work fundamentally changed the way professional education understood the relationship between knowledge and practice. His most influential contribution to reflective practice was his 1983 book The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action, in which he argued that the model of professional knowledge taught in universities, which he called "technical rationality," failed to account for the kind of thinking that skilled practitioners actually do when dealing with complex, uncertain, or unique situations.

Schon observed that experienced professionals in fields such as architecture, medicine, law, management, and teaching did not simply apply theoretical knowledge to practical problems. Instead, they engaged in a more dynamic and intuitive form of thinking that he termed "knowing-in-action" and which was refined through two types of reflection: reflection in action and reflection on action. These two concepts form the foundation of Schon's model and distinguish it from other reflective frameworks such as Gibbs and Driscoll.

Reflection in action

Reflection in action refers to the thinking that practitioners do while they are in the middle of a professional situation, in real time, as events are unfolding. It is the kind of thinking that allows an experienced nurse to adjust their approach mid-interaction when they sense that a patient is becoming distressed, or that enables a skilled teacher to change their explanation when they notice that a student has not understood. Schon described this as "thinking on your feet" and characterised it as a form of knowledge that is embedded in practice rather than derived from theory applied externally to practice.

The defining feature of reflection in action is its immediacy. The practitioner does not pause, retrieve a theoretical framework, and consciously apply it before acting. Instead, they draw on a repertoire of previous experience and tacit knowledge that has become internalised through practice. This makes reflection in action difficult to articulate, but Schon argued that making it visible and discussable is precisely the work of professional education.

Reflection on action

Reflection on action refers to the thinking that practitioners do after a professional event has concluded. It is retrospective: the practitioner looks back on what happened, considers what they did and why, evaluates the outcome, and draws lessons that will inform future practice. This is the mode of reflection most commonly encountered in university assignments, practice portfolios, and continuing professional development activities.

Reflection on action is more deliberate and structured than reflection in action. It creates the space for the practitioner to engage with theoretical frameworks, to seek out relevant literature, and to consider alternative courses of action that were not taken. Schon viewed it as the mechanism through which tacit knowledge acquired through reflection in action is made explicit, examined, and developed into a more conscious professional understanding.

The relationship between the two types of reflection

Schon argued that the most effective professional development involves an iterative relationship between reflection in action and reflection on action. Practitioners learn through doing (reflection in action), make that learning explicit through retrospective examination (reflection on action), and then carry that refined understanding back into their practice, where it enriches their capacity for future reflection in action. This cycle of implicit knowing, explicit reflection, and refined practice is what Schon meant by the development of professional artistry.

This distinction is one of the key theoretical contributions that separates Schon from Gibbs and Driscoll. Gibbs and Driscoll are frameworks for structuring reflection on action: they guide the practitioner through a retrospective examination of a completed experience. Schon's model is broader in scope, encompassing both the real-time thinking of the practitioner in the moment and the subsequent deliberate reflection. For university assignments, Schon's model is typically applied to reflection on action, but the most sophisticated reflective writing also attempts to capture and examine the reflection in action that occurred during the event being reflected upon.

How Schon's model applies to professional practice

Schon's model has been applied across a wide range of UK professional disciplines, including nursing, teaching, social work, counselling, and architecture. In nursing education, reflection in action might be examined through a student's account of a clinical decision made under time pressure, while reflection on action is explored through the formal reflective assignments submitted for assessment. The NMC Code's emphasis on reflective practice is broadly aligned with Schon's framework, requiring nurses to learn from experience and to use that learning to improve patient care.

In teacher education, Schon's distinction between reflection in action and reflection on action has been influential in shaping the design of practice placements and reflective journals. Student teachers are increasingly asked not only to describe what happened during a lesson but to articulate the thinking they were doing in the moment, making the implicit knowledge of classroom decision-making visible and discussable.

Strengths and limitations of Schon's model

A significant strength of Schon's model is its recognition that professional knowledge is not simply academic knowledge applied to practice situations. By giving theoretical language to the tacit, intuitive knowledge that experienced practitioners develop through years of practice, Schon made it possible to value and develop that knowledge within professional education. His work challenged the assumption that universities are the primary source of professional knowledge and positioned practitioners themselves as generators of knowledge through their reflective engagement with experience.

A limitation of the model is its relative lack of structural guidance compared to frameworks such as Gibbs or Driscoll. Schon does not provide a step-by-step process for reflection, which can make the model less accessible for students who are new to reflective writing and need more scaffolding. In practice, many educators use Schon's conceptual framework in combination with the structural guidance of Gibbs or Driscoll, drawing on the theoretical richness of Schon's ideas within the organisational clarity of a more explicitly staged framework.

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