Arts Analysis in the Danish Nurse
Education
Julie Borup Jensen
Ph.d.student
Aalborg University
Department of Education, Learning and Philosophy
The idea of using arts in the nurse
education
 Not a new idea in health care and social education (Schüssler
at HIO and Berntsen’s collection of use of arts in health care
and social education in Norway)
 Supposed to support ability of observing the patient,
strengthen empathy and moral/ethic reflection in nursing
care
 The new approach is the specific focus on arts as a media for
Martinsen’s/Løgstrup’s perspective of nursing care as an
artful practice.
 Another new approach is creativity in practice learning
Questions generated by the design
 The design experiment raised the following questions:
 The relationship between the arts-analysis and learning through
problem finding
 What is the relationship between sensory awareness and
construction of meaning/learning?
 What is the relationship between perceptual/sensory awareness
and creativity?
 Why is the question raised about creativity?
Theoretical tool: Problem finding
 Stephen Wakefield: The individual’s ability of raising
questions, which are not possible to answer with the
knowledge at hand in the immediate situation.
 Didactic challenge: How to support the students’ ability of
raising questions?
 Alane J. Starko: Problem finding as a result of the concept of
wandering and the concept of wondering
 How to raise the attention when wandering and wondering?
Design tool: Arts analysis
 1) Description:What can the participants observe (what is the motive,
what elements, what colours, etc.)?
 2) Interpretation: How do the participants understand the motive?
(What symbols, metaphors, analogies in the motive/piece of music
have the participants identified, and what do they express?).
 3) Interaction:What does the artist intend to express with the
motive/piece of music?
Starko’s model/research design
Nurse’s concepts
”Heightening
anticipations”:
- narratives from practice
”Deepening expectations”:
- Look at visual arts
- Listening to music
- Analysing impressions
”Going beyond”:
- Create nurse’s concepts.
”Incubation time”:
Clinical practice
- Looking at the patient
- Listeinng to the patient
- Express impressions
towards the patient
Narratives from
practice
Findings:
 Nurse concepts:
 ’Taking snap-shots’
 ’Listening to the music of the patient’
 Self confidence of the students’ clinical observations
 Building (professional) judgement
 New practical understandings of theoretic nursing concepts such
as ‘the patient’s perspective’
 The arts analysis forced the students to transcend their immediate
interpretations and imagine how the patient is experiencing the
situation
Negotiation of meaning
 Negotiation of meaning as a sign of learning:
 Trying to imagine what the patient is experiencing
 Trying to imagine how the patient is experiencing the situation
of being bound to the bed
 Trying to put themselves in the situation of the patient
 Negotiation of meaning led to the following ‘statement’
More questions
 Create a theoretical,plausible bridge between sensory
awareness and construction of meaning.
 Consider implications for assessment:
 How do we understand the concept of knowledge when we
want to promote creative, problem finding learning processes?
 How can we assess learning processes creating something new,
raising a problem/question not raised before in the context?
 Consider implications for designs for innovation
Thank you for listening!