Article Critique of The Ethic of Care The purpose of this paper is to pr

Peter, E. & Gallop, R. (1994). The ethic of care: A comparison of nursing and medical students. IMAGE: Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 26(1), 47-51.

The presented critique examines several components of the Peter and Gallop research including review of information presented in the abstract and the background section of the article. Also analyzed are design and methodology. A redesign of two major problems with the research is offered.

The abstract can be considered adequate in that it presents the study's basic research problem, its purposes and methods of data collection, its findings, and its basic conclusion. However, the terminology used in the abstract is so highly conceptual that when the reader goes on to read the background section, it becomes apparent that the terms used in the abstract (e.g. "justice considerations" and "moral orientations" provided very scant information as to the concrete nature of the research that was conducted.

Significance. Peter and Gallop (1994) state that the study's investigation of the concept of caring and its association with moral reasoning is important to the field of nursing because all of the tasks, activities, and training associated with the discipline can be unified around the notion of caring. They further note that since caring is described in the existing literature as an ethic, this is a cla

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n Piaget (postulates two moral stages) and by Selman (characterizes morality in terms of role-taking behavior); however neither of these views, unlike the views of Gilligan, has already been applied to the notion of caring and nursing and to gender. Furthermore, Kohlberg's theory is considered to be similar to but much more refined and comprehensive than Piaget's theory. Research Questions This study did not test hypotheses. Rather, it looked for answers to specific research questions. Specifically, the study sought to determine whether, as reflected in their moral reasoning, care considerations differed in frequency as a function of differences in: (1) health care profession (nurses versus medical students; (2) gender (both within and between nurse and medical student groups); or (3) type of moral dilemma presented to assess moral reasoning (personal or impersonal dilemma). Also, the study sought to explore whether care considerations of nurses were more based on justice or on relational principles. Assumptions/Limitations One of the questionable assumptions of the study concerns its discussion of previous research showing care/morality differences between nurses and physicians. In the study, it was assumed that medica
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Approximate Word count = 1356
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)