The Process of Theory Building Term Paper

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Theory is, in essence, “the non-empirical process of thinking about knowledge” (Basford and Slevin, 2003, p. 344). Basford and Slevin (2003) are of the opinion that theory building is motivated by the need to develop or come up with worldviews that are meaningful in an attempt to not only define the world we live in, but also enable us to live and function efficiently and effectively in the said world. In making use of nursing models to derive relationships and concepts, we often apply systematic rationalization and intellectual paradigms. In the words of Brink and Wood (1998), inductive and deductive reasoning have variously been used “to designate whether research contributes to theory testing or theory building” (p. 8). As the authors further point out, deductive reasoning is regarded the propelling force behind theory testing. By contrast, however, inductive approaches happen to be “more abstract and general in scope based on ‘soft’ data, less specific, usually exploratory or descriptive designs and qualitative data collection methods for the purpose of building or creating theory” (Brink and Wood, 1998, p. 8).

In my nursing practice area, I would build a theory via an inductive approach, in which case I would first make specific observations about the relevant issues so as to identify precise regularities and/or patterns.

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Thereafter, I would frame provisional propositions which would be subject to further exploration. This would pave way for the construction of theories or overall conclusions. To test theory in my nursing area, I would work to the specific, from the general – as per the deductive reasoning approach. The deductive approach is “usually empirical, more specific, fact based or ‘hard’ data based, and not abstract” (Brink and Wood, 1998, p. 8). From the theory, I would zoom-in to the testable hypotheses, after which I would make observations with an aim of gathering data to test the said hypothesis. This would help in either i) theory denial or ii) theory confirmation.

Leininger’s Culture Care: Diversity and Universality Theory happens to be one of the key nursing theories described in my textbook. It is important to note, from the onset, that Leininger came up with this particular theory in an attempt to define and account for issues relating to transcultural nursing (Fitzpatrick and Wallace, 2011). According to McFarland (as cited in Fitzpatrick and Wallace, 2011), “the purpose of the theory is to discover human care diversities and….....

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