Patterns of Knowing and Knowledge Research Proposal

Aesthetics generally were reserved for art. I find the proposition that nursing is also an art form rather charming.

In their newest work (2008), Chinn and Kramer added emancipatory knowing to the other four ways of knowing in the profession. This means that a critical element is added to the way in which nurses work with their clients. Social and structural changes are in order to change what is perceived as social and institutional shortcomings. Hence, nursing clients and the profession itself are emancipated as it were from social and institutional forces.

I believe that Chinn and Kramer's views in terms of the ways of knowing in the nursing profession are indeed accurate. They seem to effectively summarize not only the duties, but also the beautiful aspects involved in the nursing profession.

According to Patricia E. Zander (p. 9), Chinn and Kramer's model is an expansion of that instigated by Carper, already in 1978. She notes that the authors identify the ways of knowing as subject to three dimensions: the creative, the expressive, and assessment.These three dimensions are then applied to all the ways of knowing mentioned above.

A further dimension of knowledge is added by Martin Lipscomb (2006), reviewing a book on Critical Realism by Ruth Groff. The book suggests that reality is not static, or indeed one-dimensional, but rather that it is subject to each individual perception. Hence, reality is subject to criticism by the individual, and indeed by nurses. This theory correlates well with the different ways of knowing proposed by Chinn & Kramer. It suggests what I have myself experienced in both my professional and personal life: reality cannot be universally fixed according to only one single perception. This is what makes it interesting.

References

Chinn & Kramer (2004, 2008). Integrated Knowledge Development in Nursing. Blackwell Publishing.

Lipscomb, Martin (2006). Routledge Studies in Critical Realism. Nursing Philosophy, Vol. 7. pp. 104-105.

Zander, Patricia E. Ways of Knowing in….....