Women's ways of knowing in nursing and critical thinking

The purpose of this longitudinal qualitative study was (1)to extend the wor k of Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule by interviewing female univer sity nursing students to determine their "way of knowing" according to the Women's Ways of Knowing( WWK) schema and (2) to determine what relationship this way of knowing might have with critical thinking when accumulating a specific body of knowledge such as nursing. Interviews were conducted with 21 sophomore nursing students. Fourteen were reinterviewed their junior yea r, and 10 were interviewed or participated in a focus group their senior ye ar. The procedural knowledge categories of separate and connected knowing b ecame the focus of data analysis through the constant comparative method. P rocedures for connected knowing were illuminated. Connected knowing was fou nd to be congruent with nursing and the ways these women wanted to be as nu rses. Separate knowing was found to be incongruent with nursing except for critical thinking purposes. Contrary to the notion that critical thinking i s principled rather than procedural, procedural knowing, according to WWK, became the principle on which these women based their nursing actions, movi ng them to constructed knowers and caring, critical thinkers as they experi enced nursing education.