Strengths and Limitations

Strengths of the Theory

One of the greatest strengths of Benner’s theory is that it focuses on the behavior of nurses depending on their level of understanding with nursing practice – novice, advanced beginner, competent, proficient, expert. Her theory highlights the importance of clinical experience in developing expertise. As observed today, her theory is widely used as it provides a foundation to use for assigning clinical competence. 

Limitations of Patricia Benner's Nursing Theory

Benner’s theory proposes that the road from novice to expert nurse encompasses five stages (novice, advance beginner, competent, proficient, and expert). However, these stages are poorly defined in the literature, and some of the evidence from nursing practice presented to support their existence is weak.  

In addition, the criteria used for assigning nurses to stages (number of years of experience and supervisors’ judgements) are not reliable and in fact have been shown to not always correlate with expertise.

Moreover, establishing the reality of stages is a difficult matter, requiring a wealth of quantitative data, which are lacking in this case.

Also, the very status of these stages is unclear. If they are meant to imply that individuals can be categorized in one stage, there are plenty of evidences showing that individuals, while fluent in one sub-field, may perform much less fluidly in another sub-field of the same domain.