This document outlines different sources of knowledge for nursing practice, including tradition, authority, borrowing from other disciplines, experience, role modeling, intuition, and reasoning. It then describes the scientific method as a systematic approach to problem solving and expanding knowledge through orderly procedures like defining a problem, designing a solution, collecting data, and analyzing results. Key characteristics of the scientific approach are described as maintaining order and control, relying on empirical evidence gathered through the senses, and striving for generalized understandings. Limitations include the method being time-consuming, expensive, and difficult to apply to human subjects due to issues with measurement, control, and complexity.

1. The Scientific
Approach

2. SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE
 Tradition – truths or beliefs based on
customs and trends
 Authority – a person who knows more
in a given area than others do
 Borrowing – the appropriation and
use of knowledge from other fields or
disciplines to guide nursing practice

3. SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE
 Experience (Trial & Error) – an
approach with unknown outcomes
that is used in a situation of
uncertainty in which other sources of
knowledge is unavailable
 Personal Experience – involves gaining
knowledge by being personally involved
in an event, a situation, or a
circumstance

4. SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE
 Role Modeling – learning by imitating the
behaviors of an expert
 Intuition - (gut feeling) an insight into or
understanding of situation or event as a
whole that usually cannot be explained
logically
 Reasoning – the processing and
organizing of ideas in order to reach
conclusions

5. THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD
 Is a systematic approach to problem
solving and to the expansion of
knowledge
 Refers to a general set of orderly,
disciplined procedures used to acquire
information

6. Problem
Design
Solution
Data Collection

7. Characteristics of the
Scientific Approach
 Order and Control in a scientific
study, the researcher moves in an
orderly fashion
 Systematic means the investigator
progresses logically through a series of
steps, according to a pre-specified plan
of action
 Control involves imposing conditions on
research situation so that biases and
confounding factors are minimized

8. Characteristics of the
Scientific Approach
 Empiricism
 The process whereby evidence is rooted
in objective reality and gathered directly
or indirectly through the human senses
is used as a basis for generating
knowledge

9. Characteristics of the
Scientific Approach
 Generalization
 Understanding a phenomena where
pursuit of knowledge is focused on a
more generalized understanding of
phenomena and how they are
interrelated
 The degree to which research findings
can be generalized to individuals other
than those who participated in the study

10. LIMITATIONS of Research
 General Limitations
 Expensive
 Time Consuming
 Moral and Ethical Issues
 Concerns constraints on what is
acceptable in the name of science with
regards to the rights of living organisms
 The kind of problems that can be solved
using the scientific method

11. LIMITATIONS of Research
 Human Complexity
 Biologic & physical functioning is
considerably more regular & consistent &
less susceptible to external influences
than is psychological functioning. Each
human being is essentially unique with
respect to his/her personality, social
environment, mental capacity, values &
lifestyle

12. LIMITATIONS of Research
 Measurement Problems
 Accurate measures of psychologic
phenomena have not been developed
 Control Problems
 Adequate control is often difficult to
achieve. Confounding factors may be
difficult to even identify let alone control
especially with humans in naturalistic
settings

13.  Reference:
Polit, D. F., & Beck, C. T. (2008).
Nursing Research: Generating
and Assessing Evidence for
Nursing Practice (8th
ed.)