THE RELATIONSHIP OF PRACTICE AND THEORY IN THE CONTEXT OF NURSING FACULTY (CRITICAL).
Contributors: University of San Francisco.
Published: 1985
Number of pages: 237
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: The existent separation of nursing practice and education has prompted calls for increased involvement of faculty in practice. Little understanding exists, however, of the meaning of faculty practice, its rationale, or goals. Using Jurgen Habermas's critical theory, this study explores the meaning of faculty practice in nursing and examines relationships between practice and theory in the context of faculty and nursing's social mission. The study investigates processes by which practice is defined, how client needs are determined, and how faculty and curriculum relate to these needs. The study attempts to reconceptualize theory/practice relationships in nursing with faculty and curriculum viewed as critical connections in these relationships.

Procedures used in this qualitative study are based on phenomenological and participatory research methods. Tape-recorded interviews were conducted with twenty nurses including clinical specialists, faculty, and doctoral students. Interview categories were: determination of client need, theory/practice/research relationships, curriculum, faculty practice, and vision of nursing. Verbatim transcripts were returned to participants for review and elaboration. Data were analyzed using an adaptation of the phenomenological method, and interpreted within a critical theory framework.

Study participants believe that current approaches to determination of client needs are not legitimized by social and philosophical values of clients or nurses; current theory and research are largely irrelevant to practice; curricula lack pertinence to realities of practice; and nursing faculty have an intellectual rather than personal commitment to practice. Conceptions of the nature and form of faculty practice differ widely. Constraints on the evolution and realization of professional nursing come from without and within the profession. Within nursing, problems emerge from contradictions between the nature of nursing practice and the scientistic approach to theory development and research, and the estrangement between faculty and practitioners.

To realize nursing's potential, new ways of thinking about theory, practice, and research must be entertained. Nursing's knowledge base must be reexamined in light of nursing's interests; cultural unity between the education and practice arms of the profession must be restored; the nature of curriculum and the relationship of faculty to theory and practice must be transformed. Critical theory offers an approach to such transformation.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 46-11, Section: B, page: 3782.

Thesis (ED.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO, 1985.

School code: 6019.