A Concept of Research in the University

Abstract

A profession seeks knowledge to rationalize its practice. The question at issue is how the profession rationalizes the search for knowledge. Historically, in the rationalization of practice, nursing drew first on knowledge of the simple needs of persons for care in illness. Later, with the institutionalization of services, nursing responded to the dicta of the organization as the basis for practice. With the expansion of knowledge in the social sciences and the increasing demands for health care from the public, nursing began to draw upon the sciences to generate hypotheses for testing in the practice of nursing. Today we can detect a movement away from the application of knowledge from related fields to a search for knowledge arising out of the practice of nursing itself.