situation’ (p. 130).
This study pursues two primary research questions: (1) Is preference for intuition a construct that transcends all domains and areas of life or is it a more domain-specific construct? and (2) Is preference for intuition strengthened with increased experience in the domain? A tertiary goal of this study is to add to the literature on the measurement of nursing intuition by replicating earlier work.
Background
Only recently have nursing researchers (King & Clark 2002, Gobet & Chassy 2008) begun to empirically explore intuitive aspects of decision making. Given the increased emphasis on evidence-based practice, a critical step in the study of intuition among nurses is to employ reliable and valid measures of the construct. Miller (1995) and Rew (2000) have developed self-report measures of intuition for use with experienced nurses and Smith (2006, 2007) has created a measure of intuition for use with student nurses. These domain-specific measures gauge nurses’ use of intuition in nursing settings. Each nursing intuition instrument remains under development and additional psychometric testing is warranted. To date, no publications have examined the relationship among these measures of nursing intuition, nor has their relation to existing global measures of intuition from the psychological literature been thoroughly investigated.