Abstract

Book Review The Reflect ive Practiti oner: How Professionals Think in Act ion Donald A. Schon Reviewed by Vi ncent DeSanctis What do PPBS, PERT, sensitivity training, MIS, Schon avers that this condition of practice is disturbing to many professionals "because they have no satisfactory transactional analysis, zero-based budgeting, theories x and y, matrices, Theory Z, In Search of Ex cellence, The way of describing or accounting for the artful competence Change Masters, strategic planning, and their innumerable which practitioners sometimes reveal in what they do." relatives have in common? They are techniques or "Problem setting," Schon adds, "has no place in a body of knowledge sources available to individuals aspiring to or professional knowledge concerned exclusively with currently in administrative positions. Experienced problem solving." It is this dilemma that led Schon to The adminis trators not only would recognize these ideas, Reflective Practitio ner. concepts, and descriptions of practice, but probably could Schon characterizes the prevailing model of recall one or more instances when they were exposed to professional practice as "Technical Rationality". After a them. Yet how many educational adminis trators can brief review of its development, the author notes that this identify specific applications from this