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What is Gibbs Reflective Cycle?
Gibbs Reflective Cycle is a self-reflection and management tool that help people to think clearly and systematically about the different experiences they have gone through during specific activity or similar situation and draw conclusions.
Graham Gibbs in the year 1988 published his book Learning by Doing and mentioned the Gibbs Reflective Cycle model for the first time. The renowned psychologist and sociologist give a detailed account of this model and its related stages practically so that it makes sense and the people learn from it.
Graham Gibbs plan was to use different stages to describe the situation and make sense of the cycle. He believed that people learned from their experiences and if they did not think about how to do better next time then they were not learning anything from the experience. Gibbs Reflective Cycle is one of the important teaching and learning methods that describe the situation and help people to make sense, understand and reflect on how to do better next time.
The Gibbs Reflective Model
The Gibbs Reflective Cycle model by Graham Gibbs is a cyclical model with a framework that puts focus on repeated experiences. It has six stages where each stage helps to engage and reflect on a specific learning experience. It is easy to use The Gibbs Reflective Cycle model by Graham Gibbs as a guide to teaching in a coaching session to analyze a situation and draw conclusions. The six stages of the Gibbs Reflective Cycle model by Graham Gibbs are description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion and action plan. The details are as follows-
Step 1: Description
The first step of the Gibbs Reflective Cycle by Graham Gibbs is marked as 1 Description and in this reflective practice, people describe the situation or their experience. This is not the stage to draw conclusions but to know what has happened. The focus is on the relevant information that will provide a factual description of the situation. This stage helps to create a suitable background for understanding the incident.
Take the help of the following questions to know about the situations in the description part of the Gibbs Reflective Cycle
- What happened?
- Where and when did it happen?
- Why were you there?
- What did you do?
- What did other people do?
- Who was present?
- What was the outcome of the situation?
- What did you want to happen?
Step 2: Feelings
The second step of the Gibbs Reflective Cycle is Feelings and here people describe their thoughts and description feelings and how it has shown an impact on their experiences. This step is meant to explore your thoughts about the situations and by asking yourself some important questions
- What were your feelings before this situation?
- What were your feelings during this situation?
- What do you think other people felt during this situation?
- What did you feel after this situation?
- What do you think about the situation now?
- What do you think other people will feel about this situation now?
Step 3: Evaluation
The third step of the Gibbs Reflective Cycle by Graham Gibbs is marked as 3 Evaluation and here people evaluate their experience positively or negatively both good and bad about the situation. This is the step where you have to be objective and understand what worked in your favour and what did not.
Take help of the following questions to know about the situations in the evaluation part of the Gibbs Reflective Cycle
- What was positive about this situation?
- What was negative about this situation?
- What went well in this situation?
- What did not do so well in this situation?
- What did you do to contribute to this situation? (positively or negatively)
- What did other people do to contribute to this situation? (positively or negatively)
Step 4: Analysis
The fourth step of the Gibbs Reflective Cycle by Graham Gibbs is Analysis and here people think, feel and try to make sense of the situation and understand what happened. Earlier a person was focused on details but now is the chance to think and extract meaning from the situation and experience. People who want to include academic literature can do so at this stage. This is the stage to learn what went well and helped the situation or what was the cause of the misstep.
Take the help of the following questions to know about the situations in the analysis part of the Gibbs Reflective Cycle
- Why did things go well in this situation?
- Why did not things go well in this situation?
- What sense can you make of this situation?
- What knowledge can help to understand this situation?
- What knowledge of other people can help to understand this situation?
Step 5: Conclusion
The fifth step of the Gibbs Reflective Cycle is Conclusions and here people think about what they have learned and what could have been done differently. This is the section to come to conclusions by understanding and concluding what are the actions that could have improved the result in the future.
Take help of the following questions to know about the situations in the conclusion stage
- What did I learn from this situation?
- How could it have been a more positive situation for everyone?
- What skills do I need to develop to handle this type of situation in a better way in future?
- What else could I have done to better this experience?
Step 6: Action Plan
The sixth and last step of the Gibbs Reflective Cycle is Actions plan and here people describe how they will deal with similar situations in future and how to do better next time. This is the stage to make changes and come up with a plan to do things differently in future.
Take help of the following questions to know about the situations in the action plan stage
- If I had to do the same thing what will my action plan be and what will I do differently?
- How will I develop the required skills that I will need to handle similar situations?
- How can I make sure that I will act differently the next time in similar situations?
Here is a video by Marketing91 on Gibbs Reflective Cycle.
Summary
The Gibbs Reflective Cycle has often been used in several situations to improve understanding of a situation or an experience to make people learn. The process is considered a valuable tool that goes so well with different situations and helps participants to reflect on a given situation, understand, evaluate and conclude to take suitable action in future.
An example of Gibbs Reflective Cycle in practice:
The Gibbs Reflective Cycle is widely utilized in nursing education and professional development. In the United Kingdom, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) has made reflective practice a mandatory part of the revalidation process for all nurses and midwives since 2016. According to the NMC’s Annual Revalidation Report 2019, approximately 200,000 nurses and midwives revalidate each year, using reflective models like Gibbs’ Cycle to review their experiences and improve patient care.
This emphasis on reflection has led to significant improvements in clinical competency and patient outcomes. By systematically analyzing their experiences, healthcare professionals identify strengths and areas for development, creating actionable plans to enhance future practice. The widespread adoption of Gibbs’ model in nursing demonstrates its practical value in real-world settings.
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