Fundamentally, this process of reflective inquiry is about the integration of theory and practice. Schön was always critical of the split between the education of theatricians and practitioners—and from the isolation of practitioners from those who were engaged in scientific studies regarding the issues that the practitioners were facing. Schön would suggest that a successful practitioner should also be a thoughtful scientist. They should test their perspectives and assumptions against the reality they face in their daily work.
Schön identifies this everyday process as reflection-on-action and reflection-in-action. The reflective practitioner is responding to problems, messes, dilemmas and polarities – not just single-dimension puzzles. Building on insights offered by John Dewey, Schön is not only unafraid of venturing into the world of complexity and emergence. He believes that valid and useful knowledge is only gained from this “dirty” involvement in real life issues.
Given this push toward active engagement in and reflection on real-life issues, what type of questions might be asked. We can be guided by the experiential learning cycle proposed by David Kolb (Kolb, 1984) — who was influenced by Donald Schön:
Inquiry Series One (Divergence: Taking in Immediate Experience)
Description: What happened? What would a “neutral” observer have seen and what fundamental observations would they have made?
Feelings and State of Mind: “What were your reactions and feelings? What made you most happy, anxious, mad or confused?
Reflections: What biases might you have brought to this experience? What were you expecting and where were you surprised?
Inquiry Series Two (Assimilation: Making Sense of Immediate Experience)
Evaluation: What was good or bad about the experience with regard to your own welfare? What about the welfare of other people? What about sort term consequences? What about long-term consequences? How might your own opinions of good and bad influenced the judgements you have made?
Analysis: What sense can you make of the situation? What was really going on? What do you think were the causes and barriers (If any)?
Reflections: How is this similar to and different from other experiences of a similar nature? Were different people’s experiences similar or different in important ways from your own?”
Inquiry Series Three (Convergence: Learning from Experience)
Conclusions: What can be concluded, in a general sense, from these experiences and the analyses you have undertaken? What can be concluded about your own specific, unique, personal situation or way of working?
Reflections: What alternative conclusions might be reached if a different perspective is taken on what occurred? This there “another side to the story”?
Inquiry Series Four (Accommodation: Taking Action Based on Analysis of the Experience)
Personal action plans: What are you going to do differently in this type of situation next time?
Single-Loop Learning: What steps are you going to take on the basis of what you have learnt?
Double-Loop Learning: What have you learned in this situation that you can take to other situations? What did you learn about yourself as a learner?
