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CHAPTER 9 Patricia Benner 133

concludes that nursing education is in need of a major scholars. Benner (1994) edited and contributed to
transformation to close the practice—that is, an edu- Interpretive Phenomenology: Embodiment, Caring, and
cation gap. An education gap is developed from the Ethics in Health and Illness, a collection of essays and
difficulty of addressing competing demands and studies selected from the community of interpretive
keeping pace with the increasing complexity of phenomenological researchers that she has inspired
practice driven by research and new technologies. and taught during her career. The book offers a philo-
The authors recommend that nurse educators make sophical introduction to interpretive phenomenology
four major shifts in their focus: (1) from covering as a qualitative research method, a guide to under-
abstract knowledge to emphasizing teaching for par- standing the strategies and processes of this approach,
ticular situations; (2) from separations between clini- and a varied selection of studies that convey its
cal and classroom teaching to integration of these resemblances and variations. Interpretive phenome-
components; (3) from critical thinking to clinical nology cannot be explained as a set of procedures and
reasoning; and (4) from emphasizing socialization techniques. Instead: “each interpreter enters the inter-
and role-taking to professional identity formation. pretive circle by examining preunderstandings and
These findings and recommendations have been pre- confronting otherness, silence, similarities, and com-
sented at national and international conferences, and monalities from his or her own particular historical,
to faculty at many schools of nursing. cultural, and personal stance” (Benner, 1994, p. xviii).
McNiesh, Benner, and Chesla (2011) studied how A second volume of interpretive phenomenologi-
students in an accelerated master’s degree entry pro- cal readings and studies edited by Chan, Brykczynski,
gram experientially learned the practice of nursing. Malone, and Benner (2010) arose from a Festschrift
They found that independent care of a patient was (retirement celebration for a scholar) honoring the
pivotal in the development of students’ identity and impact and significance of the research tradition Ben-
agency as nurses. Crider and McNiesh (2011) incor- ner established. This book presents the interpretive
porated a three-pronged apprenticeship approach phenomenology philosophy and research approach
(Benner, Sutphen, Leonard, & Day, 2010) that inte- that continues to evolve. The first section explores
grates intellectual, practical, and ethical aspects of the theoretical and philosophical discourses and issues
professional role in teaching students in psychiatric within the interpretive phenomenological tradition,
nursing to develop practical reasoning skills. while the second section is a collection of studies that
exemplify the similarities and variations in the ap-
Research proaches across studies.
Benner maintains that there is excellence and power
in clinical nursing practice that can be made visible
through articulation research. Intricate nuanced de- Further Development
scriptions of situational contexts (clinical narratives) Benner’s current research involves a large-scale collab-
are the essence of this research approach, which dic- orative study with The Tri-Service Military Nursing
tates that data be collected through situation-based Research group (De Jong, Benner, Benner, et al., 2010).
dialogue and observation of actual practice. The situ- They are investigating knowledge development and
ational context guides interpretation of meanings experiential learning from nursing practice during the
such that there is agreement among interpreters. This Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.
is a holistic approach that emphasizes identification Benner (2012a) discussed the progress to date in
and description of meanings embedded in clinical implementing recommendations from the Educating
practice. The holistic approach is maintained through- Nurses study, reporting that several states have
out the research process. The situational context is started to implement suggested changes in nursing
maintained as narratives are interpreted through education and that many hospitals and health sci-
dialog among researchers and clinicians. ence campuses have instituted nurse residency pro-
Benner’s numerous research studies and projects grams. Two websites have been created to facilitate
with research colleagues and graduate students have the dissemination and implementation of the study
created a community of interpretive phenomenological recommendations as follows: Educating Nurses.com