Theory, Research, and Practice Discussion

Use “The Relationships Among Theory, Research, and Practice” text and Figure 5-1. Then. refer to the specific text: “…practicing nurses focus on unique individuals, researchers focus on systematically collecting knowledge about samples and populations, and theorists focus on abstract and general concepts and their interrelationships. Understanding the different perspectives of each of these groups in knowledge building shows their activities to be complementary.”

1. How can nurses better understand these different perspectives?
2. How can nurses make the different perspectives “complementary”?
3. How can nurses use the principles of diffusion of innovations (Chap. 1) to better understand the different perspectives of the activities in knowledge building for themselves?
4. How can nurses use the principles of diffusion of innovations to help colleagues better understand the different perspectives?

SAMPLE SOLUTION

The correlation between theory, research, and practice has never been clearer than it is today. The success of the nursing profession is dependent on the ability of the nurse to understand and apply theory, research, and evidence-based practice. Nurses can better understand the nursing theory by reading more theoretical systems and many lines of inquiry. Through reading theoretical systems, nurses will be able to understand perspectives presented comprehensively. Lines of inquiry lead to the elucidation of practical problems which nurses have to understand why they are significant.
Nursing research is critical to the development of new knowledge about important issues relevant to the nursing profession. There are various ways in which nurses can understand nursing research including attending research presentations at professional conferences, participating in journal clubs in practice settings involving regular meetings among nurses for purposes of discussing and critiquing research articles, and evaluating completed research for its possible use in practice and using it when appropriate (Jensen, 2017). Also, they can collaborate in the development of an…