The Relationship of Paradigm, Model, and Theory

Janice A. Thibodeau (1983), described nursing as a practice-oriented profession. Nursing is a “doing” profession and the development of a theoretical base for nursing practice is required. Since nursing has a wide range of parameters, the method must be structured by the use concepts. The ability to understand concepts and apply them in nursing is advanced by using well-defined models in practice. In order to understand models, it is imperative to understand the concept of paradigm, because the development of a model is based on a certain paradigm (Thibodeau). The purpose if this posting is to define and discuss the relationship of paradigm, model, and theory. Also it will discuss the importance of nursing theory in praxis.

Paradigm is described as the general rules of thumb of a discipline. It offers information regarding the boundaries, essence, and the purpose of the discipline. A paradigm has to be at least implicitly acknowledged by the members of the profession. Hence, every profession has one prevailing paradigm. A nursing paradigm must express the nature, the goals, and the process of nursing. There are four vital components of a nursing paradigm, which are: People, environment, health and nursing. All four must be incorporated in a paradigm to be considered a nursing paradigm (Thibodeau, 1983). The metaparadigm concepts are connected with the four propositions that are written by Donaldson and Crowley as cited in Fawcett and Malinski (1996), the first proposition is person and health, it shapes that the discipline of nursing focuses with the principles and laws that govern life-process, well beings and the optimal functioning of humans. The second proposition stresses about the interaction between people and envir...

... middle of paper ...

...es. Janice Morse (1992) argued that theories are only tools, that facilitate the organization of data and understanding reality. She also mentioned that theories are not fixed and it can be revised and reconstructed and new ones can be developed. Therefore, it needs to be examined; needs to be pursued and it must be tested while still remembering that it is just an idea (Morse). In the article of Rolfe (1993), he stated that theory does not determine practice; rather it is generated from practice. Schon as cited in Rolfe (1993), contend that a practitioner develops situational experiences and continuously expands and modifies it to meet new situations.

In conclusion, Nursing praxis is the combination of theory and practice which contains a continual process of hypothesizing and testing out new ideas, and modifying practice according to the results (Rolfe, 1993).