Benner's Model Analysis

Benner’s model is situational and described five levels of skill acquisition and development: novice, advanced beginner, competent, proficient and expert. The model theorizes that changes in four aspects of performance occur in movement through the levels of skill acquisition: movement from relying on abstract principles to using past concrete experiences to guide actions, shift from reliance on analytical rule-based thinking to intuition, change in learner’s perception of situations as whole parts rather than in separate pieces, passage from a detached observer to an involved performer, no longer outside the situation but now actively engaged in participation (Alligood, 2014). Since the model is situation-based and is not trail-based, the

Expert nurses focus on the whole picture even when performing tasks. They are able to notice subtle signs of a situation such as a patient that is a little harder to arouse than in previous encounters. The significance of this theory is that these levels reflect a movement from past, abstract concepts to past, concrete experiences. Each step builds from the previous one as these abstract principles are expanded by experience, and the nurse gains clinical experience. This theory has changed the perception of what it means to be an expert nurse. The expert is no longer the nurse with the highest paying job, but the nurse who provides the most exquisite nursing care. One of the greatest strengths of Benner’s Novice to Expert model is that it focuses on the behavior of nurses depending on their level of understanding with nursing practice – novice, advanced beginner, competent, proficient, expert. Her theory highlights are widely used as it provides a foundation to use for assigning clinical competence. Competencies are identified from actual nursing situations rather than hypothetical ones. However, Benner’s model has been criticized as devaluing education and theory for nursing practice (Alligood, 2014). Benner’s theory proposes that the road from novice to expert nurse encompasses five stages yet, these stages are ill defined in the literature. In addition, the criteria used for assigning nurses to stages (number of years of experience and supervisors’ judgements) are not reliable and do not always correlate with expertise. Nurses can be categorized as experts in adult Medical-Surgical nursing but a novice in neonatal intensive care