Inductive Reasoning

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Abstract
A major problem facing practicing clinical nurses and nurse educators concerns the paucity of critical cognitive thinking skills exhibited by some novices nurses in the clinical practicum. These novices seem to lack the prerequisite procedural knowledge that would enable them to recognize conditions and in turn know when to execute the appropriate intervention. Because these are complex internal processes that must be mastered in critical cognitive thinking, deficits in this area could lead to problems in inductive reasoning. Implicit in such reasoning is information processing which allows individuals to generalize from specific experiences to form new concepts. This ability to generalize is important in the clinical practicum because it has been suggested that learning from instruction may be largely an inductive process. This article discusses the concept of inductive reasoning and focuses on the information processing approach to such reasoning, Both theoretical and practical aspects of inductive reasoning are presented, and the reasons why an awareness of this field could prove useful in planning teaching strategies for novice nurses in the clinical setting are discussed. Finally, a brief example of a teaching strategy used to facilitate the improvement of the critical thinking patterns of student nurse learners and hence sharpen their problem solving abilitics is presented. © Williams & Wilkins 1988. All Rights Reserved.

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