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Module 1 Study Questions
Introduction to Nursing Science, Knowledge Development,
and World Views
Study questions are meant to facilitate your independent reading and learning. Questions 1-7 are designed to guide you in synthesizing the readings and your responses are NOT required. Although you will not formally submit your answers to these study questions, I suggest you write your responses to these questions to evaluate your understanding. This type of activity facilitates critical thinking and skills you'll cultivate throughout your graduate education.
Your answer to Question 8 and 9 ARE REQUIRED and worth 3% (2% for definition of terms and 1% for identifying your concept and field study).
1. Reflect on your reading in Chapter 1 of Chinn & Kramer regarding Carper's patterns of knowing for nursing and your own nursing practice.
a. Describe a client situation and/or problem requiring a nursing intervention.
b. Describe the intervention.
c. How do you see Carper's ways of knowing contributing to your actions?
2. Briefly describe the purposes of knowledge development as summarized by Chinn and Kramer (p. 14-16).
3. According to Chinn and Jacob three major trends contributed to developing nursing knowledge in the second half of the twentieth century. Briefly highlight each trend and how it impacted nursing knowledge development. (Chapter 2)
4. Review the various definitions of theory provided in Chapter 3. Which is closest to the definition you held before starting this class? Try to put into words your own definition of theory.
5. Refer to the empiric-abstract continuum figure on page 55 of Chinn & Kramer.
Provide an example of at least one abstract construct and its corresponding direct or
indirect concepts and empirical indicators.
Example:
Construct: pain
Concept: acute pain, chronic pain, phantom pain, referred pain
Empiric Indicators: subjective evaluation, subjective rating from 0 to 10 (10
being most), McGill pain scale scores
6. Chapter 3 of Chinn & Kramer provides an overview of the empiric theory development process. The process of creating conceptual meaning (concept analysis) is described first, but need not be the first step in theory development. One major individual assignment for this course is to perform an analysis on a concept of interest to you in your clinical practice.
a. Identify the concept, or possible concepts you will choose from, for your analysis.
b. Describe the purpose of the concept analysis (refer to Chinn & Kramer pp. 61-62 on "clarifying your purpose").
7. Refer to Chapter 3 in Chinn & Kramer and the terminology list below. These two sources describe and define various definitions for theory and theory related terms, as well as terms relevant to the concept analysis process. Review definitions for each of the following terms. Please note that Chinn & Kramer and Walker & Avant (1995) (see concept analysis tutorial) give different definitions of related and borderline cases---you may want to use Chinn & Kramer's to decrease confusion.
Terminology Assignment
8. Jot down your definitions of the following terms without going to any sources for help. Then check your definitions with definitions in the text and revise yours as needed. Please give examples of each term when appropriate. Do your work in a Word file and submit all terms, definitions, and examples in the box below.