Introduction
Seminal work in nursing describes the development of expert intuition among nurses (Benner & Tanner 1987, Benner 2001, Benner et al. 2009). Although this work has generated decades of discussion, the ideas presented are primarily descriptive, qualitative and/or theoretical (Paley 1996, Rew & Barrow 2007). The discipline of nursing has struggled to clearly articulate the complexity of the concept and has questioned the role of intuition within nursing practice (McCutcheon & Pincombe 2001). However, intuition is frequently cited as a defining characteristic of professional expertise and is gaining acceptance as a legitimate way of knowing in clinical nursing (Smith et al. 2004, Gobet & Chassy 2008).
In psychology, intuition is becoming a significant research area with a growing body of empirical evidence. For example, Hogarth (2001) defines intuition as responses ‘reached with little apparent effort and typically without conscious awareness’ and which ‘involve little or no conscious deliberation’ (p. 14). Similarly, nursing researchers Benner and Tanner (1987) define intuition as ‘understanding without rationale’ (p. 23) and ‘synthesis, not analysis… (with) a sense of certainty’ (p. 29). Although a universal definition of the construct does not exist, Gobet and Chassy (2008) conclude that most descriptions of intuition include ‘rapid perception, lack of awareness of the processes engaged, concomitant presence of emotions and holistic understanding of the problem situation’ (p. 130).