Ensuring Quality in Professional Education Volume I by Karen Trimmer & Tara Newman & Fernando F. Padró

Author:Karen Trimmer & Tara Newman & Fernando F. Padró
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030010966
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Knowledge Within the Nursing Curriculum

The knowledge contained within the nursing curriculum is multi-faceted and is drawn from many disciplines. Some of that knowledge is unique to nursing whilst the rest can be categorised as adopted and adapted (McKenna, 1997) depending upon whether it is applicable in its original state or has to be modified or changed to ensure an adequate fit with the individual’s experience and expectations. Knowledge is used by students to make sense of their world and is constantly modified in that regard. Within this chapter the knowledge used by the individual student to underpin or explicate their practice is the main concern. This is comfortably conceptualised using the work of Von Glasersfeld (1989) generally and his concept of viable knowledge particularly.

Viable knowledge, we are told, ‘is used to navigate the world’ and ‘is a viable way of dealing with some sector of experience’ (ibid., p. 15). It is asserted that such knowledge is constructed by the individual and relies upon an internalised conceptual framework and a match or correspondence between that cognitive structure and what it is supposed to represent. What is presented within the curriculum therefore, must fit the experience of the student and viable facts must not clash with what is experienced in professional practice.

The work of Von Glasersfeld (ibid.) can be used to substantiate the claim that whilst students are undertaking professional placements their viable knowledge remains dynamic, as each time there is a mismatch between their internalised cognitive framework and their experience, the individualised cognitive structure has to be modified and as part of that process knowledge becomes more complex and extended. This is recognised as a product of reflection, and whilst not always observable it can be inferred from subsequent behaviour. Von Glasersfeld’s conception of reflection is however different from that developed by Schön (1987, 1988), being an ability of mind rather than one concerned with action and behaviour. His key concept here is operative knowledge which is defined as that that not associated with the retrieval of a particular answer but rather the knowledge of what to do in order to produce that answer.

The value of an internalised cognitive framework is in its adequacy to support experience and the validity of that knowledge with reference to solving the problems encountered by the practitioner. Famously Von Glasersfeld tells us that ‘A student’s ability to carry out certain activities is never more than a part of what we call competence. The other part is the ability to monitor the activities. To do the right thing is not enough; to be competent, one must also know what one is doing and why it is right’ (ibid., p. 13).

Another useful author here is Mezirow (2000) who refers to transformational learning or a change in one’s frame of reference. The concept of transformational learning has much in common with viable knowledge, although the focus is the act of learning rather than the resulting knowledge. A highly individualised frame of reference is acquired early in life, via

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