A theoretical model of nursing practice: Implications for a competence approach to nursing education

This article puts forward a theoretical model of nursing practice, elaborating and illustrating how the model can be used by nursing practitioners, students, and educators. Experiences with using the model in a pilot study with a clinical supervisor and three nursing students is reported. Implications of the model for working with competence development is discussed, both in relation to issues raised by Weeks et al. (2017) specifically, and to competence-based approaches more generally. A key point is that a focus on competence alone may not provide students with adequate conceptual tools for interpreting and acting competently in practical situations. The proposed theoretical model is seen as providing such a tool.