Overview

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Understanding the Epistemic Space of Nursing Theories

This dashboard visualizes the findings from Beckstead & Beckstead’s (2006) paper “A multidimensional analysis of the epistemic origins of nursing theories, models, and frameworks.” The research positioned 20 influential nurse theorists in a three-dimensional “epistemic space” based on their patterns of citing scholars from different disciplines.

The Three Dimensions:

  • Dimension 1 (Psychology): Higher values indicate greater influence from psychology, particularly personality theorists.
  • Dimension 2 (Biology): Higher values show greater influence from biology and general systems theory.
  • Dimension 3 (Philosophy): Higher values reflect greater influence from philosophy, especially existential philosophers.

Theorist Groups:

  • ● Existential-Phenomenologists: Theorists like Newman (NW), Paterson & Zderad (PZ), and Parse (PR) who were heavily influenced by existential philosophy.
  • ● Systems Theorists: Theorists like Neuman (NU), Johnson (JN), and King (KG) who were influenced by general systems theory.
  • ● Personality Psychology Influenced: Theorists like Hall (HL) and Orlando (OR) who were influenced by personality psychology.
  • ● Anthropology/Sociology Influenced: Theorists like Leininger (LN) whose work was influenced by anthropology and sociology.

Use the tabs to explore different visualizations of this epistemic space.

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Citation and References

Original Publication

Beckstead, J. W., & Beckstead, L. G. (2006). A multidimensional analysis of the epistemic origins of nursing theories, models, and frameworks. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 43(1), 113-122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2004.09.021

Abstract:

The purpose of this article is to introduce our notion of epistemic space and to demonstrate its utility for understanding the origins and trajectories of nursing theory in the 20th century using multidimensional scaling (MDS). A literature review was conducted on primary and secondary sources written by and about 20 nurse theorists to investigate whether or not they cited 129 different scholars in the fields of anthropology, biology, nursing, philosophy, psychology, and sociology. Seventy-four scholars were identified as having been cited by at least two nurse theorists (319 citations total). Proximity scores, quantifying the similarity among nurse theorists based on proportions of shared citations, were calculated and analyzed using MDS. The emergent model of epistemic space that accommodated these similarities among nurse theorists revealed the systematic influence of scholars from various fields, notably psychology, biology, and philosophy. We believe that this schema and resulting taxonomy will prove useful for furthering our understanding of the relationships among nursing theories and theories in other fields of science.

Keywords: Nursing theory; Multidimensional scaling; Epistemic space

About this Data Visualization Project

Martin-Schreiber, V. (2025). Nursing Theories Epistemic Space Data Visualization. University of Ottawa. 10.5281/zenodo.15466227

ORCID iD 0000-0002-2006-6598

GitLab Repository Code Repository

Nursing Theories Epistemic Space Data Visualization © 2025 by Vincent Martin-Schreiber is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Technical Information

This interactive data visualization was created using:

  • R (R version 4.5.0 (2025-04-11))
  • tidyverse (version 2.0.0)
  • rmarkdown (version 2.25)
  • flexdashboard (version 0.6.2)
  • plotly (version 4.10.4)
  • DT (version 0.31)
  • htmltools (version 0.5.7)
  • kableExtra (version 1.4.0)
  • ggrepel (version 0.9.5)

Development assistance was provided by Claude 3.7 Sonnet, an AI assistant from Anthropic.

2D Visualization

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Psychology (D1) vs Biology (D2)

Psychology (D1) vs Philosophy (D3)

Biology (D2) vs Philosophy (D3)

3D Visualization

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Complete 3D Epistemic Space

Data Explorer

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Nurse Theorists Data Table

About the Data

This table presents the data from the multidimensional scaling analysis in Beckstead & Beckstead (2006).

  • theorist: Full name of the nursing theorist
  • symbol: Abbreviation used in the visualizations
  • group: Classification based on citation patterns
  • Psychology (D1): Position on Dimension 1 (Psychology influence)
  • Biology (D2): Position on Dimension 2 (Biology/Systems Theory influence)
  • Philosophy (D3): Position on Dimension 3 (Philosophy influence)

Key Findings

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Summary of Key Findings from Beckstead & Beckstead (2006)

This dashboard visualizes the multidimensional scaling (MDS) analysis that revealed patterns in how nursing theorists have been influenced by scholars from different disciplines.

Major Findings:

  1. Three-Dimensional Structure: The analysis revealed a three-dimensional structure where:

    • Dimension 1 corresponds to influence from psychology, particularly personality psychology
    • Dimension 2 corresponds to influence from biology and general systems theory
    • Dimension 3 corresponds to influence from philosophy, particularly existential philosophy

  2. Theorist Groupings: The analysis revealed clear groupings of theorists:

    • Existential-phenomenologists (Newman, Paterson & Zderad, Parse) positioned high on Dimension 3
    • Systems theorists (Neuman, Johnson, King) positioned high on Dimension 2
    • Personality-influenced theorists (Hall, Orlando) positioned high on Dimension 1
    • Anthropology/sociology-influenced theorists (Leininger) positioned low on Dimension 1

  3. Temporal Pattern: Earlier nurse theorists tended to cite a greater proportion of psychologists than did theorists publishing later in the century (higher on Dimension 1).

  4. Disciplinary Breadth: Theorists positioned near the center of the space (coordinates close to 0,0,0) cited scholars from a wider range of disciplines, while those on the periphery were more influenced by specific disciplines.

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Psychology Influence

Biology Influence

Philosophy Influence