Theoretical Foundation of Nursing

1. Describe the steps in theory development

 Silent knowledge educ. & Practice- Nurses were trained in hospitals.
- Education was controlled by the hospital and doctors.
- Education and practice were based on tradition, rules, and principles and focused on
technical skills.
- Apprentice form of education
 Received knowledge stage
- Serious nursing shortage
- Hill-Burton Act increased the need for nurses.
- Nursing for the Future published—promoted nursing education in universities
 Subjective knowledge stage
- Published articles on theory development and theory for a practice discipline.
- Number of nursing theorists grew.
 Procedural knowledge stage
- Nursing viewed as an academic discipline
- Theories became the framework for nursing education.
- More nursing theories were published.
 Constructed knowledge stage
- Incorporation of philosophy of science courses into graduate programs
- Development of middle range and practice theories
 Integrated knowledge stage
- Increasing focus on “evidence-based practice”
- Continued development of middle range and situation-specific theories
- Attention to “translation” of research in practice

2. What are the components of a theory and their contribution to theory? Describe each
component. Define and give proof

Theory components Contribution to the theory Examples

Components and definitions
Concept
Theoretical definitions of
concept
Operational definitions of
concept
Rational statement
Theoretical statements
Operational statement
Describe phenomena
Establishment meaning
Provide measurement
Related concepts to one
another: permit analysis
Relate concept to
measurements
Age
How long someone has been
alive
Years of life
Exercise decreases with age
The house of activity decreases
with more years of life.
Linkages and ordering
Linkages of theoretical
statement
Linkages of operational
statement
Organization of concepts and
definitions into primitive and
derived terms
Organization of statement and
linkages into premises and
derived hypotheses and
equation
Provide rationale of why
theoretical statements are
linked; add plausibility
Provide rational for how
measurement variables are
linked, permit testability
Eliminates overlap (tautology)
Eliminates inconsistency
A 2013 CDC reported that more
than 30% of adults aged 65 or
older report no leisure-time
physical activity. (CDC, 2013)
Self-reports of amount {hours}
are practical, easy to
administer to large groups, and
place relatively low burden on
and interfere little with the
usual habits of individual.
However, they are prone o
either overestimation of
underestimation because of
inaccurate recall, social
desirability, and
misinterpretation {Flack et al.,
2016}
Older adults would be heathier
if they exercised.
Older adults participate in
fewer hours of exercise in a
week. Older adults have
increased risk of health
problems. Therefore a decrease
in exercise increases the risk of
health problems.

3. Theory development principles

a. Scientific laws- A statement of facts meant to describe an action or a set of actions.

b. Hypotheses- An educated guess based upon explains a set of related.
c. Theory- one or more hypotheses that explain a set of related observation or events and has
been verified multiple times.

4. What are the steps of theory development in scientific methods?

 Observation: Starts an observation that evokes a question.

 Logical hypothesis: Using abductive, inductive, or deductive logic, state a possible answer
(hypothesis)
 Testing: Perform an experiment or est.
 Dissemination: Publish your findings of the discipline
 Replication: Other scientist will read your published work and try to duplicate it (verification)
 Theory: If experiments from other research support your hypothesis, it will become a theory.