methods of acquiring knowledge in nursing

1. Methods of Acquiring
knowledge in Nursing
BY: MRS. ARCHANA MALETHA
ASST. PROF. SGRRU

2. introduction
 Nursing is considered one of the oldest arts, yet finds place among
the youngest of professions. It is an evolving profession, which needs
a continuously growing and expanding body of knowledge, which can
be developed only through research.
 Research is one of the few ways by which knowledge can be
generated, and a discipline can maintain its professional status and
growth. Moreover, research provides a solid foundation on which
nurses can develop and refine their professional knowledge and
practices.
 Without new knowledge, nursing cannot improve techniques for
newer and latest therapies, such as infant care, pain management,
grief counselling, client education, or many more such interventions.

3. Cont…..
 Research is a systematic inquiry that used disciplined methods to answer
questions or solve problems. The ultimate goal of research is to develop,
refine and expand a body of knowledge.
 Nursing research provides the scientific basis for the practice of profession. It
uses multiple diverse methodologies, philosophical and theoretical
approaches to understand the patterns of newer acute and chronic
morbidities, prevention or delayed onset of disease or disability, slowing the
progression thereof; finding effective approaches to achieve and sustain
optimal health; and improvement of the clinical settings in which care is
provided.
 The present era of complex health problems makes interdisciplinary research
an essential characteristics of nursing research, because multiple
perspectives are required for the complex study of health and illness
experience of society.

4. Methods of Acquiring knowledge in Nursing
 A well-developed & reliable body of knowledge is a
foundation for any profession. This most sought-after
knowledge can be acquired from highly structured as well as
loosely arranged processes or methods.
 The method of acquiring the nursing knowledge may be
classified under two broad categories, i.e.
1. Unstructured methods of acquiring the knowledge
2. Structured methods of acquiring the knowledge

5. Methods of acquiring knowledge
Structured Methods
Unstructured Methods
Tradition
Authority
Intuition
Experience
Trial and error
Inductive reasoning
Deductive reasoning
Assembled information
Problem solving
Scientific method

6. Unstructured Methods
Tradition:
Traditional nursing knowledge is learnt mainly from books, journals, by words of
mouth, and by observing the practices of others.
 Traditions include truths on beliefs that are based on customs and past trends.
 Traditions can positively influence nursing practice because they were developed
from past experiences.
 Traditions can also narrow and limit the knowledge sought for nursing practice
 The nurses on patient care units quickly inform new staff members about the
accepted or traditional behavior of the unit
Eg: The idea of providing a patient with a clean, safe, well ventilated environment
originated with Florence Nightingale( 1859 ).

7. Advantages
 It is efficient as an information source
 Tradition or custom also facilitates communication by providing a common
foundation of accepted truth
Disadvantages
 Tradition may interfere with the ability to perceive alternatives
 There is growing concern that many nursing interventions are based on tradition ,
customs and “ unit culture” rather than on sound evidence
 Traditions are difficult to change because they have existed for long periods of time
and are frequently supported by people with power and authority
 Many traditions have not been evaluated or tested for accuracy or efficiency

8. Authority:
There are authorities (People with specialized expertise in every field). The people
with higher length of experience in a discipline & with virtue of their position are
believed to be a sound source of knowledge & understanding.
 There are authoritative people who will give decisions in making judgment on an
issue by virtue of specialized training or experience where we had no direct
experience
 Knowledge acquired from authority is illustrated when one person credits another
person as the source of information
 Nurses who publish articles and books or develop theories are frequently
considered authorities
 An expert is only an authority when addressing his or her area of expertise
 Authorities in nursing must have both expertise and power

9. Advantages
 Authorities will give guidance and specialized training in fields where
we had no direct experience
Disadvantages
 Knowledge obtained from these authorities can be inaccurate
 Knowledge acquired from these authorities has frequently not been
validated and although it may be useful , it must be verified through
research

10. Intuition:
It is known as information obtained through sixth sense without
conscious thinking but in this the rationalizing the information may not
be obtained.
 Intuition means ‘ acquiring knowledge by ourselves’
 It is a type of knowledge that cannot be explained on the basis of
reasoning or prior instruction
 Intuition is an insight on understanding of a situation or event as a
whole that usually cannot be logically explained
 Even though intuition is often unexplained, it has some important
scientific uses

11. Advantages
 Intuition is the result of deep knowledge
 A burst of intuition may identify a problem for study, indicate,
important values for measure or link two ideas together in interpreting
interpreting the findings
Disadvantages
 Intuition cannot be explained with ease scientifically and people are
uncomfortable with it
 Intuition is unexplainable
 It is difficult to develop policies and practices for nurses on the basis
of intuition
 Intuition is generally considered unscientific and unacceptable for use
in research

12. Experience:
Nurses & midwives base their practices in great part on their own
experience & to a lesser extent on the experience of others.
 Experience means ‘practical involvement in an activity, event etc’.
 Experience represent a familiar and functional source of knowledge
 Personal experience involves gaining knowledge by being personally
involved in an event , situation or circumstance

13. Advantages
 Experience is the foundation and stimulus for learning
 Learners actively construct their experience
 Learning occurs during personal experience and enables the nurse to
cluster ideas in to a meaningful whole
 In nursing personal experience enables one to gain skills and expertise
expertise by providing care to patients and families in clinical settings
Disadvantages
 Each individuals experience is fairly restricted
 Another limitation of experience is that the same objective event is
usually experienced or perceived differently by two individuals.

14. Trial and Error:
In this approach, alternatives are tried successively until a solution to
a problem is found. In day-to-day life, everybody uses this techniques to
solve much type of problem, including professional ones.
 Trial and error is an approach with unknown outcome used in a
situation of uncertainty , when other source of knowledge are
unavailable

15. Advantages
 Trial and error offer a practical means of securing knowledge
 Due to its uncertainty , nurses must use trial and error in providing nursing
care
Disadvantages
 There is frequently no formal documentation of effective and ineffective
nursing actions
 Using this strategy, knowledge is gained from experience but it often not
shared with others
 The trial and error way of acquiring knowledge can also be time consuming ,
because multiple interaction might be implanted before one is found to be
effective
 There is also a risk of implementing nursing actions that are detrimental to a
patients health
 This method is haphazard and the knowledge obtained is often unrecorded
and hence inaccessible in subsequent clinical studies

16. Structured Methods
1. Inductive Reasoning:
It is the process of developing generalization from specific
observation.
 Eg: The nurse may observe the anxious behaviour of ( specific )
hospitalized children and conclude that ( in general ) children’s
separation from their parents is stressful

17. 2. Deductive Reasoning:
It is the process of developing specific prediction from general
principles.
 Eg. If we assume that separation anxiety occurs in hospitalized
children ( in general ), then we might predict that ( specific ) children
in memorial Hospital whose parents do not room-in will manifest
symptoms of stress.

18. Advantages and Disadvantages
 Both systems of reasoning are useful as a means of understanding and
organizing phenomena and both play a role in nursing research.
 However reasoning itself is limited because the validity of reasoning
depends on the accuracy of the information with which one starts and
reasoning may be an insufficient basis for evaluating accuracy.
3. Assembled Information:
In making clinical decision, health care professionals also rely on
information that has been assembled for variety of purposes.

19. 4. PROBLEM SOLVING PROCESS:
INTRODUCTION
Research is considered to be the more formal , systematic
and intensive process of carrying on a scientific method of
analysis , for purpose of discovery and development of an
organized body of knowledge.

20. DEFINITION
 Problem solving “ may be an formal application of
problem identification, hypothesis formulating ,
observation , analysis and conclusion.”
 ‘Research essentially is problem solving process , a
systematic , intensive study directed toward full ,
scientific knowledge of the subject studied.”
 The process of working through details of a problem to
reach a solution.

21. Problem solving process
The problem solving process consist of a
series of steps that are followed
depending on the type of problem to be
solved.

22. 10. Evaluation
and revision
1. Problem
definition
6. Implementing
the solution
2. Problem
analysis
5. Selecting
the best
solution
3. Generating
possible
solution
4. Analyzing
the solution

23. 1. Problem Definition
 The normal process for solving a problem will initially involve defining the
problem you want to solve. You need to decide what you want achieve and
write it down.
 Merely writing down the problem forces you to think about what you are
actually trying to solve and how much you want to achieve.
 The first part of the process not only involves writing down the problem to
solve, but also checking that you are answering the right problem.
 It is a check-step to ensure that you do not answer a side issue or only solve
the part of the problem that is most easy to solve.
 This is considered as the most essential step of the problem solving process,
because without this the next steps cannot be executed.

24. 2. Problem Analysis
 The next step in the process is often to check where we are, what is the
current situation and what is involved in making it a problem.
 Understanding where the problem is coming from, how it fits in with current
developments and what the current environment is, is crucial when working
out whether a solution will actually work or not.
 Similarly you must have a set of criteria by which to evaluate any new
solutions or you will not know whether the idea is workable or not.
 This section of the problem solving process ensures that time is spent in
stepping back and assessing the current situation and what actually needs to
be changed.
 After this investigation, it is often good to go back one step to reconfirm that
that your problem definition is still valid. Frequently after the investigation
people discover that the problem they really want to answer is very different
from their original interpretation of it.

25. 3. Generating possible Solutions
 When you have discovered the real problem that you want to solve and have
investigated the climate into which the solution must fit, the next stage is to
generate a number of possible solutions.
 At this stage you should concentrate on generating many solutions and
should not evaluate them at all. Very often an idea, which would have been
discarded immediately, when evaluated properly, can be developed into a
superb solution.
 At this stage, you should not pre-judge any potential solutions but should
treat each idea as a new idea in its own right and worthy of consideration.

26. 4. Analyzing the Solutions
 This section of the problem solving process is where you investigate the
various factors about each of the potential solutions. You note down the
good and bad points and other things which are relevant to each solution.
 Even at this stage you are not evaluating the solution because if you do so
then you could decide not to write down the valid good points about it
because overall you think it will not work.
 However you might discover that by writing down its advantages that it has
a totally unique advantage. Only by discovering this might you choose to put
put the effort in to develop the idea so that it will work.

27. 5. Selecting the best Solution(s)
 This is the section where to look through the various influencing factors for
each possible solution and decide which solutions to keep and which to
disregard.
6. Implementing the solution
 The final step of the problem solving process is to practically solved the
problem by implementing the selected solution.
7. Evaluation and revision
 This is the final stage of the problem solving process where after
implementation of the most potential solution, an evaluation is made to
judge the effectiveness of solution in resolving the problem. This stage also
helps to redefine the problem and revise the problem solving process in
case the initial solution fails to manage the problem effectively.

28.  Problem solving models are used to address the many challenges that
arise in the workplace. While many people regularly solve problems,
there are a range of different approaches that can be used to find a
solution.
 Complex challenges for teams, working groups and boards etc., are
usually solved more quickly by using a shared, collaborative, and
systematic approach to problem solving.

29. Advantages of Problem Solving
 The problem solving method provides a focused procedure for the problem
solving (PS) group.
 It ensures consistency, as everyone understands the approach to be used.
 By using data, it helps eliminate bias and preconceptions, leading to
greater objectivity.
 It helps to remove divisions and encourages collaborative working.
 It stops PS groups diverging into different problems.
 It also helps PS groups reach consensus
 It eliminates the confusion caused when people use different problem
solving techniques on the same issue.
 It makes the decision making process easier.
 It provides a justifiable solution.

30. Scientific method
 Scientific method is a synthesis of a reason and observation
. scientific method is with the verification of the acquired
knowledge . it finds out some order in which things are
related together. The conclusion which are arrived at by the
scientific method have an objective nature.

31. DEFINITION
 Scientific method is “ an objective , logical and a systematic
method”. Scientific method aims at discovering facts.
 ‘’The scientific method is a process for experimentation
that is used to explore observation and answer questions’’.

32. Basic concept
Scientific methods have five basic concepts of
 It relies on empirical evidence.
 It utilizes relevant concepts.
 It is committed to only objective consideration.
 It result in probabilistic predictions.
 Testing the conclusion through replication.

33. CHARACTERSTICS OF SCIENTIFIC
METHODS
 They are orderly and systematic processes.
 Scientific attempt to control the external factors that are not
under direct investigation.
 Their finding is based on the empharical evidences.
 Findings of scientific method can be generalized, which mean
that they can be used in situations other then the one under
study.
 They are based on assumption and hypothesis.
 They are basically conducted to develop or test theories.

34. Purposes of scientific methods
The basic purposes of scientific methods are
Description, exploration, explanation, prediction,
control, prescription, and identification of
relationship of the facts.

35. Steps of scientific methods
The steps of the scientific methods depend on the
type of the study, which follows either a qualitative and
quantitative approach.
The main steps used in any scientific method or
approach are as follow:

36. 1. Selecting the topic and identifying the
problem
2. Defining the objectives of the study
3. Reviewing the literature from theory and
other related studies.
4. Defining concepts and variables to be
studied.
5. Stating hypothesis about expected
observation or phenomenon to be
studied.

37. 6. Identifying assumption and implication.
7. Determining the ethical implication of
proposed study.
8. Describing the research design and
methods of data collection.
9. Defining study population and sample
10. Planning the data analysis and
discussion.

38. 11. Collecting data from subjects.
12. Analysis and interpreting data.
13. Communicating finding of the study.

39. Limitations of scientific method:
Scientific methods are generally regarded as the one
of the best ways of attaining knowledge that human
being has devised. There are however some limitations
in applying scientific approaches to nursing problems:

40. Moral and ethical problem:
Human complexity
Measurement problems
External variable control problem