Does Constructivist Epistemology Have a Place in Nurse Educa

University of the East
Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Medical Center Inc.

Matt Peters, BSc, BPhEd, PG Dip Tech Ed, Dip Tchg

The article teach us “Educators” to let our students construct their own concepts, expound and give them autonomy to develop self-directed learning as we believed that the adult students have a vast knowledge in which they can explore, evaluate, critique, and apply reflective practice the knowledge and skills they have already posses. Indeed, Candy (1989) stated that "constructivism is particularly congruent with the notion of self-direction in emphasizing active enquiry, independence in the learning task, and individuality in constructing meaning".

The advancement and progression of nursing education needs to be more flexible in its paradigm from traditional style of teaching to prepare and train students to enhance critical analysis, learning with understanding which are important components of metacognition and constructivist approach of learning. According to Matt Peters, as students develop their use of meta-cognitive skills, their ability to work and learn from a constructivist perspective will be enhanced. Their own appreciation of how they construct their knowledge will increase and perpetuate itself. This will also lead to greater independence in learning and problem-solving ability for the students, and therefore, be more conducive to enhancing the skills of self-directed and constructivist learning Peters(2000).

The question, Does constructivist epistemology have a place in nurse education? Definitely yes. The students and constructivist educators’ knowledge, skills and collective experiences are sufficient to facilitate constructivist learning. Moreover, constructivism augment or intensify the effective learning process of both the students and the educator by discussing what they have already known in a given subject or prospectus. In addition, voluminous benefits and life long acquisition of effective learning will be attained by the student utilizing and practicing Metacognitive and constructivism skills of learning.

Quotations:

“If students become more aware of how they come to know and how their learning happens and progresses, then it is likely that they will be better equipped to modify and enhance learning“.

“Constructivist learning frameworks provide learning skills that enhance knowledge acquisition with understanding“.

“Metacogniton is about learning with understanding and the quality of learning“.


Reference

Matt Peters (2000)Does Constructivist Epistemology Have a Place in Nurse Education? Journal of Nursing Education, Voi. 39, No. 4

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Constructivist pedagogy enables a learner to use the knowledge he have obtained thru informal and formal education to allow him to better understand concepts that he is expected to learn. The article suggests that the constructivist method of teaching is better than the traditional pedagogy on the premise that the traditional pedagogy forces new information and negates the previous knowledge that the learner have gathered through the years before entering the college level.
According to the authors, the pedagogy is better than the pedagogy used in the current nursing curriculum for it enhances empowered learning for the students are viewed as mature individuals that have considerable life experience and have acquired significant bodies of knowledge on many different things. With the constructivist pedagogy, a framework that is parallel with andragogy (adult learning theory), self-directed learning and active learning process such as metacognition.

On the constructivist pedagogy of learning, the learning is expected to understand a concept by making sense of what they already know. The learning is both objective and subjective for the learner views the concept objectively and understands it using his experience. It was also argued in the article the social constructivist perspective which suggests that knowledge known by an individual will only be considered viable based on the culture that the individual is involved in.
Adult Education
The learner is viewed as a mature individual capable of forming his own direction in learning. Constructivist learning was said to be an important factor in the adult learning process. The author suggests that knowledge is based on the individual’s judgements and his personal interpretations of the concept. With constructivist pedagogy, the learner actively participates in the learning process unlike in the traditional pedagogy where the teacher is expected to be an expert on the concept and is responsible to provide all the knowledge to the students.

Metacognition refers to the active, self-managing, conscious act of thinking about thinking and learning.(White & Mitchell, 1994). Metacognition refers to the active learning process where the learner is able to identify the knowledge that he is acquiring and that he is able to process that knowledge using his experiences. Metacognition is related to constructivism in terms of being able to reflect on past experiences and knowledge and applying them to the learning process.

*** I agree with the authors that constructivist pedagogy should be applied especially in the nursing profession. The learning process should always be active and the knowledge obtained from the past should not be negated and forgotten, hence, it should be applied and constantly be extracted from the learner’s memory. According to a study conducted by Mota, da Mata and Aversi-Ferreira (2010), constructivist pedagogy made the learners perceive the learning process more significant as compared to the traditional pedagogy.