An examination of five approaches to nursing education research

This article illuminates how a new science of nursing education, one that is inclusive of not only traditional empiric-analytic research, but also alternative research approaches reflecting phenomenology, critical social theory, feminist theory, and postmodern discourse, is developing. Each of these research paradigms is reviewed and research questions are explicated in the context of research on the national licensure examination (NCLEX-RN). The author contends that research to develop the science of nursing education must be multimethod, multiparadigmatic, and multipedagogical. Implications for developing an inclusive science of nursing education toward curricular reform are discussed.