Abstract
A descriptive study was undertaken to explore the philosophical and educational beliefs of graduate faculty teaching advanced nursing with families. Data from 177 faculty representing 107 graduate nursing programs accredited by the National LeagueforNursingwere used in the analyses. Descriptive data were gathered on program and faculty demographics, conceptual frameworks that faculty identified as influencing their teaching offamily content, and faculty beliefs about concepts central to family nursing. A Family Nursing Belief Inventory (FNBI) was developed to elicit faculty beliefs. The FNBI consisted of 14 item pairs of dichotomous statements reflecting divergent nursing paradigm (totality and simultaneity) beliefs about thefamily. Results show thatfaculty clearly preferred statements that reflect the beliefs of the simultaneity worldview, whereas most nursing models that influenced their teaching reflect the beliefs of the totality worldview. Less than 1% of respondents taught a corefamily course in graduate programs and the majority offaculty usedfamily rather than nursing frameworks. Seventy-nine percent offaculty reported that a diagnostic taxonomy is not essential in family nursing practice. Continuing dialogue between nursing theorists and educators is necessary.
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