SIGNIFICANCE OF THE THEORY
These levels reflect movement from reliance on past abstract principles to the use of past concrete experience as paradigms and change in perception of situation as a complete whole in which certain parts are relevant.
Each step builds on the previous one as abstract principles are refined and expanded by experience and the learner gains clinical expertise. This theory changed the profession's understanding of what it means to be an expert, placing this designation not on the nurse with the most highly paid or most prestigious position, but on the nurse who provided "the most exquisite nursing care. It recognized that nursing was poorly served by the paradigm that called for all of nursing theory to be developed by researchers and scholars, but rather introduced the revolutionary notion that the practice itself could and should inform theory.