NURS 500 EXAM 1 STUDY GUIDE
2025/2026QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
100% PASS
What is a paradigm?
Paradigms are schools of thought or shared assumptions that guides our expectations to help
sort, organize and classify information
"societal norms"
Personal or Cultural
Paradigms incorporate all of the knowledge and experience we have had since birth
Examples
1) What kind of food is appropriate for breakfast?
2) What side of the road is correct to drive on?
3) How hungry would you have to be to be acceptable to eat a family pet?
Paradigm Shift
A major event that changes the way you view the world
Examples
1) Becoming a parent
2) CRNA school
What do paradigms have to do with science?
-> what we see depends on what we expect to see and our senses are affected by our state of
mind, experiences, or mood
-> senses can easily be fooled
1 @COPYRIGHT 2025/2026.
, ***overreliance on paradigms can lead to stifled thinking and make it difficult to "unsee" things
or view things from another perspective
Example
1) You are more likely to notice an ad for food when you are hungry
2) You are more likely to see a beautiful sunset when relaxed and not stressed
3) Eye-witness testimony is not always reliable
What are the three factors in Nursing's meta-paradigm?
1) person
2) environment
3) health
Some debate on caring (Newman) and nurse (Fawcett) not being included as factors in
Nursing's metaparadigm
What are the three evolving paradigms identifid by Newman (1991)
1) Particulate-deterministic: health and caring are understood through their components or
parts; there is an underlying order, predictibility of antecedents and consequences that can be
uncovered by knowledge, reduction and causality is the focus.
***good for empericial research
2) Interactive-integrative; acknowledges contextual, subjective and multidimensional
relationships among phenomena.
***good for dealing with abstract concepts like grief and love
3) Unitary-transformative: person environment unity is patterned and self organizing field
within larger fields. Change is characterized by fluctuating rhythms of organization or
disorganization.
***used in system research like research on organization
Who was the first nurse theorist?
Florence Nightingale who believed the environment could help shape health
-> wash hands
-> adequate lighting
-> clean environment
What is epistemology?
2 @COPYRIGHT 2025/2026.
2025/2026QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
100% PASS
What is a paradigm?
Paradigms are schools of thought or shared assumptions that guides our expectations to help
sort, organize and classify information
"societal norms"
Personal or Cultural
Paradigms incorporate all of the knowledge and experience we have had since birth
Examples
1) What kind of food is appropriate for breakfast?
2) What side of the road is correct to drive on?
3) How hungry would you have to be to be acceptable to eat a family pet?
Paradigm Shift
A major event that changes the way you view the world
Examples
1) Becoming a parent
2) CRNA school
What do paradigms have to do with science?
-> what we see depends on what we expect to see and our senses are affected by our state of
mind, experiences, or mood
-> senses can easily be fooled
1 @COPYRIGHT 2025/2026.
, ***overreliance on paradigms can lead to stifled thinking and make it difficult to "unsee" things
or view things from another perspective
Example
1) You are more likely to notice an ad for food when you are hungry
2) You are more likely to see a beautiful sunset when relaxed and not stressed
3) Eye-witness testimony is not always reliable
What are the three factors in Nursing's meta-paradigm?
1) person
2) environment
3) health
Some debate on caring (Newman) and nurse (Fawcett) not being included as factors in
Nursing's metaparadigm
What are the three evolving paradigms identifid by Newman (1991)
1) Particulate-deterministic: health and caring are understood through their components or
parts; there is an underlying order, predictibility of antecedents and consequences that can be
uncovered by knowledge, reduction and causality is the focus.
***good for empericial research
2) Interactive-integrative; acknowledges contextual, subjective and multidimensional
relationships among phenomena.
***good for dealing with abstract concepts like grief and love
3) Unitary-transformative: person environment unity is patterned and self organizing field
within larger fields. Change is characterized by fluctuating rhythms of organization or
disorganization.
***used in system research like research on organization
Who was the first nurse theorist?
Florence Nightingale who believed the environment could help shape health
-> wash hands
-> adequate lighting
-> clean environment
What is epistemology?
2 @COPYRIGHT 2025/2026.
