Values and Beliefs of Nursing

Each week you will be taking steps to create a personal nursing concept map and relating it to a nursing theory of your choice.  This will then be used, along with a systems theory, in your final paper assignment.

Students will write a 1 to 2-page paper discussing the progress of the concept mapping and responding to written prompts. Some weekly assignments will ask you to submit a rough draft of your concept map work to show your progress and keep you on track. In week 9, you will post your concept map with a brief explanation to the discussion board for peer review during Week 10. The final Concept Map will be submitted along with your Final Paper.

Before starting the assignment, please watch this video – The Difference Between Concepts, Models, and Theories (linked below).  Also, refer to this list of concepts to help you get started. (Please note that while this document contains a list of possible concepts that can be used for this assignment, some concepts are not appropriate for this assignment. It is just meant to help “kick-start” your creativity)  Also review Nursing Theory and Philosophy: Terms & Concepts Guide!

Week 2 prompts:

• Discuss personal values and beliefs of nursing.
• Discuss your assumptions about nursing clients and the world in general.,
• Consider how your philosophical beliefs influence your practice.
• Compile a list of concepts that you engage in during your practice.
  • Begin a list of concepts. Decide which concepts ‘‘rise up’’ as priorities in your nursing practice.
  • Explore why particular concepts emerge as ‘‘essential,’’ while others seem ‘‘secondary.’’

  • Select 1 concept to be used for the concept map.

Concept Map

The video defined a concept as a description of an event, situation, or experience. It is important to define a concept so that people can communicate. A conceptual framework is when researchers describe what is known about the concepts without a model. More often, a framework showing the relationship between variables can be in the form of a model or a theory. The video argued that models are usually developed based on qualitative research.

Models demonstrate the researcher’s interpretation of how concepts are related to one another. Sometimes, models are based on understandings that are not from specific research studies. Unlike models, theories must be tested and are used to explain, predict, prescribe, and describe phenomena. The video provided that it takes more than one research study to prove a theory. Although both models and theories show proposed relationships between concepts, the amount of proof required to justify the two differs. APA