Blooms Taxonomy of Education and its use in Nursing Education - Essay Example

Running Head: Nursing Applying Bloom’s Taxonomy of Education to Nursing Education Essay As agents in an evidence-based, caring profession, nurses depend greatly on their capacity to gain cognitive, affective, and psychomotor skills. Bloom’s taxonomy of education can therefore be applied by nurses in dealing with chronically ill patients to build and support these patients’ self-efficacy. The ‘cognitive domain’ denotes the psychological/mental mechanisms exercised to gain and apply knowledge (Larkin & Burton, 2008).

Nursing education places emphasis on a broad range of cognitive knowledge, such as how to correctly manage chronic illness. It is apparent that chronic illness is naturally incurable. The indications of these chronic disease factors are constant and unremitting; thus, as regards cognition, the emphasis of nursing should be on care, supportive, and preventative procedures when a patient undergoes unavoidable disease deterioration. The nurses and other health care providers have to learn how to manage chronic diseases in order for them to be able to help chronically ill patients attain independence.

An appropriate self-management plan for chronic disease is one of the major cognitive challenges to nurses (Larkin & Burton, 2008). In order to successfully accomplish this, health care professionals should be able to recall information about the patient (knowledge), understand the issues confronted by the patient (comprehension), apply the knowledge gained from interacting with the patient and the other medical staffs (application), differentiate assumptions from facts (analysis), develop a comprehensive care plan (synthesis), and evaluate the value and quality of the care plan (evaluation).

On the other hand, the ‘affective domain’ focuses on feelings, core intentions, and attitudes, and thus is strongly applicable to the caring profession of nurses (Emerson, 2007). It is vital that chronically ill patients are empowered and inspired to help themselves. Therefore, nurses should learn to listen attentively and sincerely to their patients (receiving), to show eagerness to respond (responding), to express commitment and develop individualized treatment plan (valuing), to embrace professional ethical codes as regards management of chronic illness (organization), and to work in a team (internalizing values).

The third domain—the ‘psychomotor’—involves exercise of motor skills, coordination, and physical aspects (Quinn, 2000). Within this domain, the nurse should learn to observe and compare the behavior of a chronically ill patient to another patient (imitation). In this way, the nurse would have an idea about the needed care management plan. But this should be performed with extreme caution as patients, although manifesting the same symptoms, usually have individual needs. Second, the nurses should be capable of carrying out particular actions by obeying guidelines from physicians (manipulation).

For instance, the nurse should learn how to improvise, especially in the absence of a physician. Third, nurses should also learn to be accurate (precision). Medical errors are very dangerous especially concerning chronically ill patients. Fourth, nurses should be able to coordinate sequences of actions (articulation). They should learn to develop a treatment plan that equally considers the patients’ needs, availability of resources, and capacity of the medical team. And lastly, nurses should eventually become experts in managing chronic illnesses (naturalization).

This expertise is possible through extensive experience with chronically ill patients.ReferencesEmerson, R. (2007). Nursing Education in the Clinical Setting. St. Louis, Missouri: Elsevier Health Sciences.Larkin, B. & Burton, K. (2008). Evaluating a Case Study Using Bloom’s Taxonomy of Education. Association of Perioperative Registered Nurses, 88(3), 390-402.Quinn, F. (2000). The Principles and Practice of Nurse Education. UK: Nelson Thornes.