Reflection can be traced back to Aristotle. More recently, Donald Schön, an American philosopher and industrial consultant, developed critical reflection as a strategy for learning from practice to solve complex situations that require problem solving skills and a degree of artistry. Such situations were famously referred to as:

"The swampy lowlands, where situations are confusing messes incapable of technical solution and usually involve problems of greatest human concern" (Schön 1983, pg 42).

Schön believed that the ability to provide evidence of learning and development is not just served by theory based in science. He advocated:

• Use of critical reflection to bridge the theory-practice gap.
• Equal respectability for evidence gained through critical reflection in practice with other forms of evidence, e.g statistics.
• Division of critical reflection into…
  • Reflection in Action
  • Reflection on Action

Definitions of reflection  |  Reflection: summary   |  Reasons why reflection is important