Patterns of Knowing and Knowledge

Patterns of Knowing and Knowledge Development in Nursing

Chinn & Kramer (2008) distinguish among 5 different "ways of knowing," as these can be applied to the nursing profession. These ways of knowing include the emancipatory, the empirical, the ethical, the aesthetic and the personal way of knowing. The authors discuss each of these expansively in their 2008 version of the work, Integrated Knowledge Development in Nursing. Each way of knowing is considered an integrative part of nursing, to cumulatively further the purpose of emancipatory knowing.

The empirical way of knowing, for example, concerns all forms of knowledge that can be accessed via the five senses, as well as traditional research and ideas surrounding science. Reality is made known by means of observation (Chinn & Kramer, 2004, p. 4). Within this paradigm, a nurse is considered competent if he or she engages consciously in problem solving and logical reasoning as informed by empiric data.

The ethical way of nursing, according to Chinn & Kramer (2004, p. 5) concerns the paradigm of obligation in terms of the nursing relationship with patients. This way of knowing also entails that nurses make choices regarding their loyalties and priorities within their professional practice. This, together with the empiric paradigm, is perhaps the most commonly perceived way of knowing within nursing practice.

To me, the personal way of knowing is the most interesting as it concerns nursing practice. According to the authors, personal knowing is related to the inner experience of the nurse as she practices her profession. In working with people, the nurse becomes familiar with the inner experience of herself as a "whole, aware, genuine self (Chinn & Kramer, 2004, p.6). In this process, the nurse also becomes familiar with the selves of others, as the others are in fact the most important catalysts to self-knowledge.

Aesthetic knowing in turn refers to the nurse's awareness of the creativity and beauty of the nursing profession. I was never aware that nursing could have an aesthetic aspect. I always had this conception that nursing has a scientific (empirical) and humanistic (ethical and personal) side. Aesthetics generally were reserved for art. I find the proposition that nursing is also an art form rather charming.

In their newest work (2008), Chinn and Kramer added emancipatory knowing to the other four ways of knowing in the profession. This means that a critical element is added to the way in which nurses work with their clients. Social and structural changes are in order to change what is perceived as social and institutional shortcomings. Hence, nursing clients and the profession itself are emancipated as it were from social and institutional forces.

I believe that Chinn and Kramer's views in terms of the ways of knowing in the nursing profession are indeed accurate. They seem to effectively summarize not only the duties, but also the beautiful aspects involved in the nursing profession.

According to Patricia E. Zander (p. 9), Chinn and Kramer's model is an expansion of that instigated by Carper, already in 1978. She notes that the authors identify the ways of knowing as subject to three dimensions: the creative, the expressive, and assessment. These three dimensions are then applied to all the ways of knowing mentioned above.