Teaching research utilization to baccalaureate nursing students.

This article describes an undergraduate nursing research course that focuses on research utilization Critical appraisal skills were used to critique articles that formed the bases of a research utilization project. Groups of students formed research utilization teams and developed proposals for identifying, initiating, and evaluating a clinical innovation.

Research utilization, a type of knowledge utilization (Loomis, 1985), has been defined as "concerned with the processes by which new knowledge is converted into practical innovations" (Feldman et al., 1993, p. 4). In 1983, the American Nurses Association (ANA) Commission on Nursing Research set forth Guidelines for the Investigative Functions of Nurses (ANA, 1983) in which it stated, "To maximize the benefits of developing a scientific base for use in practice, mechanisms are required that ensure that scientific knowledge contributes to practice and in turn that the problems encountered in practice have an impact on the focus of the knowledge generated. " At this point in nursing's history, there is a critical mass of both knowledge and scientists that makes possible the realization of research-based practice; however, we must prepare the …