This course serves as an overview to the scientific principles of nursing and the individual as a holistic adaptive system including the four concepts of nursing that make up the nursing metaparadigm. This course is designed to introduce the freshman to the language of nursing, critical thinking, the essential academic skills for incoming students and the interpersonal skills required for success in the nursing profession.

Students will investigate tasks and requirements to understand the responsibilities of health care systems, professionalism, scope and standards of practice with key concepts related to the code of ethics. Throughout the course, instructional activities emphasize the nursing philosophy, timeline of nursing, and current status of nursing. This course examines the resultant development and evolution of nursing theories and its interrelationship to research and professional nursing practice. Theoretical emphasis will be placed on critical thinking activities to conceptualize, apply, analyze, and synthesize knowledge related to specific nursing theories and their importance in nursing education, practice, and research. In addition, an assignment that incorporates the students’ knowledge of nursing theories and nursing theorists to demonstrate an understanding of the relevance of theory to practice will be provided.