Finnish nurse teachers' perceptions of their 'scientific thinking' and itsdevelopment during Master's-level teacher education at university

There are very few studies on nurse teachers' education, since the main int erest has been on the demanding nature of a teacher's work. In Finland, the educational system of nursing care is developing rapidly and nurse teacher s' education is changing as well. However, there is no research into academ ic nurse teacher education, even though this can be seen as important with regard to the educational system as well as to the nursing discipline. In t his study, the objective was to describe 45 nurse teachers' perceptions of the development of their scientific thinking during Master's-level studies at the university. Open-ended questions were used in collecting the materia l with a questionnaire. The results of this phenomenographic research show that the need to increase one's scientific knowledge, as well as external d emands, were the reasons for applying for admission to the university. Conc eptions of the development of scientific thinking differed with regard to t he processing of knowledge and to changes or developments in scientific thi nking. The teachers' conceptions of the use of scientific nursing knowledge Varied as well. The results challenge Future teacher education and how it is arranged and developed. Further research, utilising different research m ethods, is needed into the development of scientific thinking.