What This Theme Explores
Schön’s concept of Reflection-in-Action names the artistry of professionals who think in the midst of doing—reshaping their moves as a situation unfolds. It asks how practitioners draw on tacit, intuitive Knowing-in-Action, then interrogate and revise it when surprises expose the limits of their current frame. The work is a “reflective conversation with the materials of a situation” introduced in the Preface and elaborated in the Chapter 1-2 Summary, where anomalies prompt on-the-spot reframing and experimentation. In opposing the Critique of Technical Rationality, Schön elevates improvisational judgment over rule-bound problem solving, arguing that real expertise emerges in messy, uncertain contexts where theory alone cannot decide what to do.
How It Develops
Schön begins by diagnosing the “dilemma of rigor or relevance”: technical methods work well on the “high ground” of clear, bounded problems but falter in the “swampy lowland” of indeterminate, value-laden practice. He defines a practical sequence that anchors the book: routine performance leads to a surprise; the practitioner pauses-in-action to inquire; the problem is reframed; and a rapid cycle of testing follows—moves made to see what the situation “says back” and then revised in response.
The idea is animated through the architectural studio, where the coach Quist teaches Petra in a live design critique (see Chapter 3-4 Summary). Here, Reflection-in-Action is both method and pedagogy: Quist sketches, reads the drawing’s back talk, reframes, and tries again, while Petra learns to inhabit that same stance. Their exchange models “reciprocal reflection-in-action,” where teacher and student co-construct problems as they work.
Schön then generalizes the pattern beyond design. He shows that the felt, structured improvisation of Pablo Casals, the interpretive give-and-take of psychoanalysis, and the intervention craft of Chris Argyris all share a designlike logic: hypotheses are enacted, the situation answers, and the frame is reshaped midstream. Finally, he recasts professional education around The Reflective Practicum, a protected “virtual world” where novices practice making and remaking sense under the guidance of reflective coaches—bridging university knowledge and the world of practice.
Key Examples
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The Carpenter’s Gate: Confronted with an unexpected “wobble,” Schön stops treating the task as merely assembling pickets and reframes it as “how to keep the gate square.” By experimenting with a string to equalize diagonals, he uses the material’s feedback to guide successive adjustments—an everyday portrait of reflection triggering reframing and on-the-spot testing.
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Jazz Improvisation: Collective improvisation shows how reflection can be embodied rather than verbal. Musicians vary and recombine motifs inside a shared schema, sensing the music’s direction and revising in real time as the ensemble “talks back.”
“Improvisation consists in varying, combining, and recombining a set of figures within a schema that gives coherence to the whole piece. As the musicians feel the directions in which the music is developing, they make new sense of it. They reflect-in-action on the music they are collectively making—though not, of course, in the medium of words.” (p. 30) The passage clarifies that coherence arises not from preplanning but from a disciplined responsiveness that keeps experimentation tethered to form.
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Quist’s Design Review: When Petra bogs down on a “screwy” slope, Quist reframes by imposing a new geometric order and immediately tests its consequences through drawing. As emergent possibilities (like the gallery’s newfound prominence) surface, he lets the drawing’s “back talk” redirect the concept—reflection steering action, and action generating new insight.
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Casals’s Cello Lesson (see Chapter 7-8 Summary): Casals first requires Bernard Greenhouse to become an “absolute copy,” then instantly alters every bowing and phrasing to demonstrate multiple valid interpretations within the same structure. The juxtaposition teaches that mastery is not reproducing a single right answer but the capacity to reframe and re-enact the piece coherently on the fly.
Character Connections
Quist embodies the reflective practitioner. He designs by doing—sketching, reading feedback, reframing—and he narrates just enough of his moves to apprentice Petra into that stance. His authority comes not from applying fixed rules but from showing how to keep the conversation with the situation alive, disciplined, and generative.
Petra models the learner crossing into reflection. Her “stuttering” attempts and willingness to inhabit Quist’s reframes reveal how uncertainty becomes the raw material of learning. As she starts to hear the drawing’s back talk herself, she shifts from asking “Is this right?” to asking “What is the situation telling me to try next?”
Judith dramatizes resistance to Reflection-in-Action. Locked in her initial frame, she treats coach Northover as an ideological adversary instead of a partner in reframing; the result is a “learning bind” (Chapter 5-6 Summary, p. 137) where feedback can neither be heard nor used. Her impasse shows that the first step in reflection is relinquishing the need for premature certainty.
Dani and Michal chart a different route. By asking, “Do you like it?” Dani pushes Michal to surface her intentions—turning personal aims into design criteria that can guide experiments. Once her ends are explicit, Michal can reflect-in-action toward them, rather than chasing a mythical “proper solution.”
Symbolic Elements
The High Ground and the Swamp: Introduced early (see Chapter 1-2 Summary), this terrain metaphor maps method to context. Technical rationality fits the high, hard ground; Reflection-in-Action is the compass for the swamp, where problems are ill-defined and values are at stake.
The Sketchpad and Tracing Paper: The studio’s drawing board is a “virtual world” (p. 75) where consequences can be staged safely and quickly. Quist’s tracing over Petra’s lines materializes reframing—overlaying a new order to elicit the drawing’s back talk and invite fresh moves.
“Back Talk”: By personifying materials as speaking, Schön insists that situations are co-authors of solutions. Reflection-in-Action requires listening for unintended consequences and latent affordances, then letting that conversation direct the next experiment.
Contemporary Relevance
Across education, healthcare, management, and tech, the problems that matter most are swampy: ambiguous, novel, and value-charged. Practices like design thinking, agile development, and iterative prototyping operationalize Schön’s insight by privileging rapid cycles of trying, sensing, and reframing—learning from the situation’s “surprises” instead of forcing it into a preset plan. In an age of automation, Reflection-in-Action highlights what remains distinctly human in expertise: the capacity to make sense with others in motion, to negotiate competing aims, and to improvise coherently under uncertainty.
Essential Quote
“thinking what they are doing while they are doing it” (Preface, p. xi)
This line condenses the entire theme into a behavioral imperative: reflection is not a postmortem but a way of acting. Its power lies in the simultaneity—professionals must keep moving and keep questioning at once—so that each small move doubles as an experiment that reshapes both the problem and the practitioner’s understanding.