Some considerations concerning practice and feedback in nursing education

Dominant approaches to reflective practice and experiential learning in Australia and the United Kingdom seem to reflect a limited view of the functions of practice and feedback in human learning. These functions will be described from a cognitive psychological perspective and the weaknesses of such approaches discussed. It will be argued that Schönian reflective practice and some experiential learning techniques can reinforce rather than eliminate inappropriate action tendencies and that this, in turn, could consolidate nursing's theory-practice gap.