The Ways of Knowing in Nursing

Abstract

Using Rodger's (2000) model of concept analysis the historical evolution of ways of knowing in nursing will be discussed. The ways of knowing in nursing will be explored through their antecedents of learning styles and knowledge, their attributes, and their consequences. The primary focus of the article is the four ways or patterns of knowing in nursing identified by Carper (1978) which have become known as nursing's epistemology. facobs-Kramer and Chinn (1997) later described these ele- ments of the epistemology in depth with Silva, Sorrell, and Sorrell (1995) using them to explicate the ontology of nursing.