Imagination: The What-if in Thinking

Teaching-learning environments in nursing education encourage students to think and recall hordes of factual information while checking off a skills list too numerous to mention. In efforts to impart all of this information to students, has the use of imagination been ignored? The author in this column presents a discussion on imagination. First, there is a discussion of the literature, followed by a discussion of imagination in light of the humanbecoming school of thought. A glimpse at the presence of imagination in qualitative research methodologies is also highlighted. The author also presents the limits of imagination, and perhaps, its fading existence in current teaching-learning practices. The column concludes with encouragement toward a greater utilization of imaginative thought in nursing pedagogies.