Developing Praxis in Nursing Education

Our featured article from the current issue of ANS is titled “Work-Integrated Learning: A Didactic Tool to Develop Praxis in Nurse Education” by Elisabeth Dahlborg Lyckhage, PhD, RNT, RN and Sandra Pennbrant, PhD, RNT, RN.  In

Elisabeth Dahlborg Lyckhage

this thought-provoking article, the authors examine the concept of “praxis,” clarifying various meanings and proposing a view of this concept that challenges nurse educators to examine, with students, their nursing actions from a philosophical, theoretical, and practical point of view.  They provided this message about their work as nurse educators in Sweden:

Our interest in the concept of praxis was aroused some ten years ago when we noted that the concept was used in completely different ways in nursing. Sometimes one was referring to routines, sometimes to the tangible reality (as practice), sometimes to the connection between theory and practice. To deepen and clarify the meaning of the concept of praxis, in order to use praxis as the knowledge created in the

Sandra Pennbrant

meeting between theory and practice, we have used work integrated learning. University West is responsible on the national level in Sweden for developing work integrated learning. It is therefore important for teachers in the nursing program to use work integrated learning as a tool for developing praxis.

While their article is featured on the ANS web site, you can download it free of charge!  We welcome your comments and responses; read the article and return here to share your ideas!