Closing the theory—practice gap: a model of nursing praxis

It is suggested that the current model of viewing theory as informing and controlling practice should give way to a mutually enhancing model in which theory is derived from practice, and in turn influences future practice.

Abstract

Summary • Despite the efforts of nursing theorists, educationalists and practitioners, the theory-practice gap continues to defy resolution. This paper argues that only by reconsidering the relation between theory and practice can the gap be closed. • Drawing upon ideas from teaching and other practice-based disciplines, including nursing, the article suggests that the current model of viewing theory as informing and controlling practice should give way to a mutually enhancing model in which theory is derived from practice, and in turn influences future practice. • This coming together of theory and practice is referred to as nursing praxis, and suggests that informal theory should be unique to each individual encounter with each patient. • The clinical nurse is thus not only a practitioner, but a theorist and researcher, who responds to patients not according to some grand, inflexible theory, but by the process of reflection-in-action, drawing upon their expertise and a repertoire of past experiences and encounters.