This written assignment is worth 35 marks, which is 35% of the overall course grade, and must be completed individually.

  1. One purpose of writing this paper is for you to solidify your understanding of the nursing metaparadigm and to revisit/update your personal philosophy in light of what you have learned so far in this course and across the program.
  2. Another purpose is for you to consider how your current philosophy fits and/or does not fit with a body of selected theoretical work: theories developed by Newman, Boykin and Schoenhofer, or Benner only. Note that you cannot choose a theoretical body of work that was/is the subject of your presentation, e.g., if you present on theory of nursing as caring (Boykin and Schoenhofer) then you must use only health as expanding consciousness (Newman) or novice to expert (Benner) in this paper.

I want to emphasize that you are not choosing a specific theoretical approach for your whole career when you choose a body of theoretical work to explore in this paper. You are only starting to try out a theoretical approach and it will take time to understand what is comfortable for you and how you want to be a nurse. In the second stage of this course in your next term you will further develop your understanding of nursing theories and their application to practice.

  1. The next purpose is to allow you to demonstrate how you might use the selected theoretical work in practice as part of meeting professional standards and requirements. Therefore, you will need to demonstrate links between practice using the selected theoretical work and the CNO ethics (CNO, 2019g) and entry-to practice (CNO, 2019b) documents from the required course reading materials.
  2. The final purpose is to continue your development in using correct APA writing style. You will write in full sentences and paragraphs throughout the paper. APA format, e.g., margins, font, and referencing, is expected, and a cover page is required. Please see the documents on Class folder about the paper, as well as the materials in the APA folder, to help you be successful in this paper. Refer back to the APA information provided for the first paper and make sure to incorporate the feedback you received on your first paper to help you earn your best grade possible for this paper.

Please use headings/subheadings appropriately, and before moving into a subheading make sure you provide a brief statement about what you will do in the overall section.

Writing the Content

  • First, similar to what you were to do in the first paper, you will identify and very briefly discuss the four concepts within the nursing metaparadigm (NM): Nursing, Person/Human Beings, Health, and Environment.

You will need to obtain a scholarly article to support your discussion of the NM and its concepts, but you can use a relevant article that was used in the first paper.

You also will need to use at least 1 appropriate chapter from the textbook for this section.

  • You will then reflect on if and in what way(s) your own values, beliefs, and assumptions for each of the four concepts within the NM (Nursing, Person/Human Beings, Health, and Environment) – so your personal philosophy – have shifted in light of what you have learned so far within the course and more broadly across the program

If you believe that for one or more concepts your values, beliefs, etc. have not changed, then under each concept you need to specifically discuss the ways in which your original values etc. for that concept are a fit with what you have been learning in this course.

You will need to describe what you valued, believed, etc. in the first paper so you can be clear when you claim that something has not changed. If something has changed, then you need to clearly state what is different from the first paper to this second paper. In all compare/contrasts, you need to articulate a rationale for your claim of change/no change.

You will need a subheading for each of the four NM concepts.

You will not use any references to support your own values, beliefs, and assumptions.

  • You will then demonstrate your understanding of a theoretical body of work, as well as show how your own values etc. fit/do not fit with that body of work.

You will first identify which of the selected theoretical bodies of work you are using in the paper and you will clearly identify the main concepts within the theory. Only the theoretical work first developed by Newman, Boykin and Schoenhofer, or Benner can be used in this paper.

Be careful to use the current theoretical work, so including the 2018 textbook used in this course, as all have been further developed in the past few years. Also, you must provide sufficient detail to demonstrate your understanding of the theoretical work.

In this section, you also will discuss how your current values fit/do not fit with your selected theoretical work – so comparing and contrasting your own values etc. with the main assumptions under each of the four NM concepts. In all compare/contrasts, you need to articulate a rationale for your claim of similarity/no similarity.

You will need a subheading for each of the four NM concepts and within each subheading you will need appropriate references related to the theoretical work but no references for your own values, beliefs, etc.

You must reference the appropriate chapter in the textbook (be very specific about the page # when identifying the theoretical assumptions within each concept) and be careful to provide the correct authors.

You also must use one appropriate, scholarly nursing article that is about the theoretical work – note that a reference may be written by the theorist herself or by other people. Make sure you do not write something like “Newman believes” unless you are specifically referencing an article written by Newman herself. None of the relevant chapters in the course were written by the theorists themselves

  • You will demonstrate how you as a student nurse might use the selected theoretical work in practice as part of meeting professional standards and requirements.

You will identify two competencies from the CNO (2019b) entry-to-practice document and two behavioural directives from the CNO (2019g) ethics document and describe how you could use the theoretical work to meet those competencies and behavioural directives.

For example, I might discuss an aspect of the theory of health as expanding consciousness that is about the nurse-patient relationship and show how using the approach in this theoretical work would help me meet the fifth ethical behavioural directive of “maintaining the therapeutic nurse-client relationship” (CNO, 2019g, p. 6) within the CNO ethical value of client well-being.

You need to use one subheading for the competencies’ discussion and a second subheading for the behavioural directives’ discussion.

You must use one new (not yet used in your paper) scholarly nursing article that is about the theoretical work in practice, so the content is related to practice and not just theory. You are not to describe or analyze the article within your paper. Rather, you are to use the reference to support your statements about how you could use the theoretical work in practice – so for each of the competencies and for each of the behavioural directives. Remember, the article for this section must be a different article from the one used in the section about the fit between your values/beliefs and the chosen theoretical work.

Reference to the book chapter about the theoretical work and to the first article you used about this work may also be applicable, but they can only be in addition to the practice-related article you find for this section.

Other Specific Requirements

  • Please check the detailed information for the first paper with regard to format/style requirements. All are the same for this second paper except for length.
  • This second paper should be 7-9 typed pages (excluding cover sheet and references), so you will have a maximum of 9 pages in the body of your paper.
  • It is expected that you search for and use references that are not in the course reference list.
  • The new references that must be articles (so not a book, professional, organization, website, etc.), must be relevant and current (preferably not older than a 2014 publication date, must be within the past 10 years).
  • These scholarly articles must also include a nurse as an author (not necessarily the first author) and be at least three pages of text in length (so not including references, even on the third page).
  • Note that each chapter in the textbook has a reference list with multiple references – these lists may be a good addition to your toolbox in finding appropriate articles.
  • You must use your course textbook (see the course outline) and only relevant chapters as appropriate when references are required from the course textbook.
  • You need one chapter about the nursing metaparadigm and another chapter about your chosen theoretical work.
  • Do not use another textbook (or even another edition of the Alligood [2018] edited book) otherwise some of your paper would automatically be incorrect (e.g., references) and you risk not earning a passing grade.
  • Be very careful to provide the correct author names for a chapter. If you do not use the correct version of the course textbook then the authors’ names will most likely be incorrect.
  • You need a minimum of seven references: three articles, two chapters from the textbook (one of which will depend on the chosen theoretical work), and two from the CNO. It is possible to use up to three additional references, for a maximum of 10 references in total.
  • I will also use the “Template for Feedback “that is in the Class folder. If you use this template as your guide to ensure you complete all aspects of the paper, including sufficient and acceptable references in sections of the paper, then you should be on track for doing well in the paper.