Nursing perspectives on Integral Theory in nursing practice and education: An interpretive descriptive study

Abstract

While for decades nursing has advocated for theory‐informed practice, more recent attention has tended to focus on mid‐range theory rather than the earlier focus on developing grand theory to encompass all of nursing practice. However, there has been continued interest in the holistic nursing community on grand theory and, in particular, on Integral Theory. Although Integral Theory's four‐quadrant (AQAL) perspective is familiar in nursing, little is known about how it is being used by nurses in direct practice. The purpose of this interpretive descriptive study was to provide a practice‐based perspective on Ken Wilber's Integral Theory in professional nursing practice. The following research question was investigated: How does Integral Theory assist nurses in describing and understanding their professional work? Nurses participating in this study used Integral Theory as a map or heuristic that gave structure to an inquiry process in professional nursing practice and in nursing education in a manner that was holonic, multiperspectival, and self‐reflective. Challenges constraining nurses’ use of Integral Theory included its intricacy, as well as contextual factors in practice environments. Implications for nursing practice and education for the use of Integral Theory's meta‐framework are described.

Use of Nursing Theory to Guide Doctoral Research: An Exploratory Study

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Using the draw and tell method with adolescents as part of an interpretive descriptive study

“…Annells (2007) comments that, owing to such pressures, some authors claimed to use a certain research approach, but what they ultimately produced bore little resemblance to what they purported they were initially using. Although such practices continue into the present day (Charmaz and Bryant, 2021), there has been more confidence placed in applied methodologies, where traditional branded methodologies have been re-framed so that their design logic is more appropriate to the complex and distinct requirements of the various disciplines (Shea et al, 2019;Thorne, 2016). These applied methodologies provide researchers with a more diverse palette of methodological colours from which to choose; essentially, rather than the methodology dictating how a question should be answered, the research question dictates the way in which a methodology should be applied.…”

“…Annells (2007) comments that, owing to such pressures, some authors claimed to use a certain research approach, but what they ultimately produced bore little resemblance to what they purported they were initially using. Although such practices continue into the present day (Charmaz and Bryant, 2021), there has been more confidence placed in applied methodologies, where traditional branded methodologies have been re-framed so that their design logic is more appropriate to the complex and distinct requirements of the various disciplines (Shea et al. , 2019; Thorne, 2016).…”