Benner’s Theory of Novice to Expert

Hi fellows today I am going to share my knowledge about the Benner’s Theory of Novice in detail:

Background:
For the aim of the maximization of the staff at hand at a hospital or a clinic, the management of nursing always reallocate the staff from one unit to the other, without keeping in mind the experience and the skill they possess, or whether they need the basic orientation or not. For instance the nurses who are inexperienced and have no experience are placed at the neonatal section and they are assigned for the look after of the neonatal which have possible disease outcomes. This is an issue for the safety of the patient as well as the nurse who is inexperience. Hence inexperience is the major issue that is faced by the nurses.
Healthcare organizations are being stressed upon with the challenges of aiming and providing nursing care which should be high quality, and focus primarily on the care of the patient, the care provided by the nurse should be safe enough that would not compromise the integrity and safety of the nurse. The issues faced by the nurses are further complicated and complex depending upon the situation of the patient. Hence there is a constant need and demand of the professional as well as experienced nurses who provide top class nursing services without compromising anything. Within any healthcare system, the nursing care requires extremely high cost budget. .
Introduction:
Since the past many decade, the education for nursing has changed and shaped a lot. Nursing students and the training provided to them have evolved a lot into proper nursing education, the nursing education is no longer being controlled by the hospitals but there are separate nursing schools and training centers for such, and due to lack of practice some nurses aren’t even allowed to visit a patient unless and unless they are properly trained and have maximum knowledge regarding the situation. There have been many changes in the nursing education and training which are mostly positive and towards the better understanding of the profession and obviously the patient.
Need of scientific research and theories for nursing:
Being a profession which is related to science, nursing also needs scientific foundations as well as theories to support the practice. The theories allow this profession goals as well as frameworks for the assessment as well as recognition of the practices of the nurses. The importance of such theories can be explained from various points of views of various scientists. The theories help the practitioner to analyze the various situations in a way which is more effective, based on scientific study and which help in the organizational behavior further. With respect to the surveillance of the patient, such theories as well as frameworks could be highly effective in improving the surveillance standards, reduction of the costs of the healthcare, and thus enhancing the life quality of the patient. In the same line, the usage of the theories of nursing in both the clinical as well as research can help in the expansion of the sciences involved in nursing. .
Dr. Benner Theory of Novice to Expert:
The famous Dr. Patrica Benner gave rise to the concept of how to become an expert nurse back in the days in the early 1982. This idea revolves around the concept that the skill and the understanding of the patients history as well as the complex case is understood over the passage of time and through a strong educational foundation experience and theoretical knowledge can be gained as well. Her theory known as from novice to expert is the widely used theory in the scientific study of the nursing. Through extensive researches, assessment and evaluation of the intra professional in the year 1999, she further explained that the knowledge in the medical profession as well as nursing profession is a continuous process, and it should be acquired and expanded continuously.. Dr. Benner was also of the view that the nurses who are skilled and expert should target and aim at the improved clinical judgment then before, acuity of the perception, skilled intellect and should learn the experiential learning. Today the Benner’s model construct the philosophical foundations of the nursing profession. The philosophy starts with the practice of the nursing as well as the practical implications of the theory.
Heidegger’s approach was used by Dr. Benner in her researches to explain and describe the interviews, observations as well as experiences of the nurses. Proficiency as well as experience is extremely necessary for the practice of the nursing. The experience related to intuition would ultimately lead to personal knowledge as well as the moral reasoning. The expertise was further described by Benner as five sections which should be excelled by the practitioner for becoming a skilled clinical nurse. Theses stages begin with novice, then advanced beginner, followed by competent, then proficient and lastly the expert.
Equivalent to the progression of the practitioner which starts from the novice level and ends at the expert level, the mind of the nurse would be developed and more advanced in the following four areas: the practitioner will pay more attention to the empirical experiences in their practices as compared to the abstract principles in their practices; intuition would work best for them, instead of decision making or analytical thinking; the expert practitioner would be able to grasp the complete knowledge of the entire situation; the role of the practitioner would be no longer just observing and passing judgment, but an expert practitioner would be fully engrossed in the situation of the patient provided at hand.
In the current research, the aim of the paper is to examine the applicability of the Dr Benners theory in the scope of the nursing management which include: education, practice, research, management.
Aim of the research:
Proficiency as well as experience is extremely necessary for the practices of nursing. Experience would ultimately shape intuition, personal knowledge as well as moral reasoning. Dr. Benner as a nursing therapist as well as theorist emphasized greatly on gaining the correct experience as well as knowledge which is gained through experience. The aim of the current research is to address the implications of Benner’s theory of novice to expert in the nursing management and to improve the practice of the nursing.
Methodology:
The research was carried out by reviewing the journal papers which were indexed by google scholar as well as the databases including SID, Pubmed, Matlab etc. After this the desired papers were selected and chosen. Hence open papers associated with the theory and nursing scopes were studied and researched. The papers were included and researched which were published from January 2006 to January 2017. The keywords which helped in the research of the desired articles from the mentioned databases were Benner’s theory and Novice to expert theory. Almost 988 articles were collected which had the two phrases in common. Out of these 32 were relevant to the study, and the rest had other broad subject beyond the scope of this research. These 32 articles were studied and research thoroughly, and out of these 12 were related to the subject and aim of the current research, and they were included for review in this paper.
The application of Dr. Benner’s expert theory in clinical issues as well as nursing practice:
In the studies related to nursing practice, the studies are aimed in explaining the manner in which the five steps from novice to expert is attained by the practitioner and the studies aimed at finding and investigating the various steps in which these theory can be put to practice. The role of decision making as well as intuition are the many topics which have been described by these studies.
The novice to expert theory of Benner can be taken as a strong foundation for improving the nursing profession in the clinical issues as well as practice. The purpose of this model is to promote the reflective thinking, creating a system with which the performance of the nurses can be evaluated and marked, which promote the reflective thinking and thus incentives can be applied for the experience as well as expertise of the professional and skilled nurses. .
The application of Dr. Benner’s novice to expert theory in nursing education:
As per the theory of Dr. Benner, the practical knowledge and skill of the nurse can be expanded and gained only by the facing actual experience. According to this model the gradual movement and the up gradation of the novice steps to the higher level would require time and a lot of experience, which includes many patients and various complex situations. However in such conditions where experience is also needed and complex situations also need to be mastered, simulators are a very useful training tools which could be adopted in nursing education, and giving proper situation and experience which might purify the knowledge as well of the practitioner. According to Dr. Benner the up gradation from novice to the expert level is a journey of increasing the self-esteem and self-confidence of the skilled practitioner, which is gained and attained by the practitioner by encountering various situations and set of complex cases of clinical issues and hence the emergence of the confidence by the practitioner that they can overcome such situation on the basis of the educational theories as well as the experience encountered by them.
Hence as per Benner’s theory the instructors and educators should use simulators for facilitating the progression of the novice level nurses to gain competencies in this field. Clinically, the simulators can be found in various forms and types which might include the written scenarios and forms, patients who are simulated for the sake of educating the practitioners, maquette, and lastly role playing of a complex imaginary situation.
It should be keep in mind that the simulators used are efficient, strong tools which can be used solely for the educational process and to overcome complex situation which are usually faced by the practicing nurses.
The application of Dr. Benner’s novice to expert theory in nursing research:
Huge body of literature is available in the mentioned databases regarding the main concepts of the Benners’s theory which include, proficiency, competency, and intuition in the researches which are conducted in the domain of the nursing profession. There are many studies which have designed and developed new tools based on this theory. One of such tools is the self- reporting competency tool for the nurses at practice, which was deviced in early 1995 by Gardland. Another scale was also developed keeping in mind this theory which was the nurse competency scale. Psychometric test was established by Ritta whose basis was the novice to expert theory, and this test devised the level of the competency of the practicing nurses.
The application of novice to expert theory in nursing management:
Keeping in mind this theory of novice to expert, there are many articles which took Benner’s theory as a base for assessing and explaining how the practitioners as well as managers can get the competencies in the tasks they perform. The main area of highlight of these studies is mainly the concept of competency which is provided by the theory put forward by Dr. Benner. A study has been formulated which has kept an aesthetic management style especially designed for the clinically related environments.
Aesthetic management is a style which is not in contradiction to other management styles. This management is indicative of how aesthetic and art is perceived by a nurse in general nursing. This management style has an idea which is similar to the Benner’s theory which includes the five steps, and hence it can be used for determining the managers who are novice with those who have a higher competency level.

Strengths of the theory
This theory is not complex, it is rather based on clear logical reasoning. This theory captures the aspects of development of experts quiet well, and then the explanation of progression from hesitant to confident problem resolver is essentially important and well explained. This theory gives important overview on the complexities which are faced between nursing practice and theory. The major role of emotion is also being emphasized in this theory, which is seldom used in the expertise. The concept of learning and educating no matter whatever be the stage of competency is also important aspect of this theory. Benner used interpretative phenomenology as her major agenda also refers to the measures and betterment of the patient who is being analyzed at hand.
Weaknesses of the theory:
Despite of the popularity gained by this theory there are numerous issues involved as well regarding this theory. The criteria which defines the nurse in the respective stage is however not defined completely in this research. The existence of the explanation is rather weak and not described by the theory. These stages however don’t correlate with the experience of the nurses. From empirical studies and research and study in developmental psychology the demarcation and reality of the stages is a bit troublesome and it requires extreme methodology. The status of the stages is quiet misinterpreted and unclear. There are plenty of data and literature available that individuals who are experts in one field might not be expert in another area of the same field. Hence much of the explanatory power of the theory is lost. In short it can be said that this theory requires some more research and explanation which might explain the complex patterns and stages described in this research. This theory also needs more explanation when it comes to the complex stages of expert intuition in nursing profession.
Conclusion:
In this research, there is a brief review on intuition as well as Benners theory which influences many professional. The theory has some strengths as well as the weakness, which has led to many new frameworks and theories. In short this theory has been the basis of many new scholarly scientific work in the field of nursing.
The students who have undergone the complex education of nursing are expected to be competent and engage in safe practice after they have graduated. To provide the quality care to the patients, the nurses should be able to imply the knowledge and education which they have gained. Keeping in mind the Benner’s theory, the nursing instructors should agree that simulation should be provided to the students for better understanding of the complex situations which are faced in this field. This model has helped in building many other theories and frameworks for nursing students. Such models are extremely important for ensuring the experiences of the students, and developing their knowledge..
The application of Benner’s theory in hospitals and clinics requires financial assistances as well as training sessions, which can promote knowledge. Thus the integration of knowledge which would be obtained from the nursing education as well as intuitive experiences will further improve the practitioner competency as well as the knowledge gained from this experience and hence it would lead to better practitioners which would make a difference and save many lives.