Bandura's self-efficacy, carried from psychology into a composite cardiac rehabilitation case and judged part by part for fit: the borrowed theory critique MN502 asks for in Unit 7, completed. Searches like "mn 502 unit 7 assignment example", "mn502 unit 7 sample" and "mn502 unit 7 example" land here.
Does Self-Efficacy Survive the Trip to the Cardiac Rehabilitation Gym? A Borrowed Theory Critique
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Purdue University Global
MN502: Theoretical Foundations of Advanced Practice Nursing
Unit 7 Assignment
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The patient is a composite written for this critique. No real patient or program is described.
The Question
Nursing uses many theories developed in other disciplines. This critique asks whether one of them, self-efficacy, keeps its meaning when a nurse uses it in a cardiac rehabilitation gym, and what must be added for it to serve nursing's purposes.
The Theory at Home
Bandura (1977) introduced self-efficacy within social cognitive theory as a person's belief in their capability to carry out the specific behavior required to produce a given outcome. He distinguished efficacy expectations, beliefs about whether one can perform a behavior, from outcome expectations, beliefs about whether the behavior will lead to a result. A person may believe that walking on a treadmill improves heart health and still doubt that she can do it. Bandura identified four sources of efficacy information: performance accomplishments, the most powerful, based on one's own successes; vicarious experience, seeing similar others succeed; verbal persuasion, being told one can succeed; and physiological states, the interpretation of bodily arousal such as a racing heart as a sign of capability or incapacity.
Uptake in Nursing and the Borrowing Debate
Nursing research has used self-efficacy widely, in studies of chronic disease self-management, smoking cessation and exercise after cardiac events. Its popularity raises an older question. Johnson (1968) argued that nursing would need both theories unique to the discipline and theories borrowed from others, and that borrowed knowledge must be examined for its fit with nursing's purposes before it is used. The question for this critique is whether self-efficacy passes that examination in a setting psychology did not design it for. The concept's appeal to nursing is easy to see. Self-efficacy is specific to a behavior, so it points to a target a nurse can work on, and it is changeable, so it suggests interventions rather than fixed traits. It is also measurable: Bandura's approach calls for rating confidence in a specific task, such as walking on a treadmill for five minutes, rather than general confidence. Those features fit nursing's orientation toward teaching and supporting people through health behavior change. Whether the concept's assumptions fit as well as its features is a separate question, and it is the one this critique takes up.
The Case
A composite 58-year-old woman is six weeks past an anterior myocardial infarction treated with a stent. She attends every session of a hospital-based cardiac rehabilitation program, completes the stationary bicycle and the resistance exercises, but refuses the treadmill. Asked why, she says, "The last time I walked fast, I ended up in an ambulance." Her exercise stress test before enrollment showed no ischemia at the workload the program prescribes, and her ejection fraction is 50 percent. Cardiac rehabilitation programs are expected to address psychosocial barriers to exercise as one of their core components (Balady et al., 2007).
Four Sources, Four Verdicts
Performance accomplishments: good fit. Her success on the bicycle is a performance accomplishment the nurse can build on. A graded plan, one minute on the treadmill at a slow pace with a nurse beside her, then two minutes, gives her successes in the specific behavior. Bandura's prediction that mastery experiences are the strongest source applies directly.
Vicarious experience: good fit. Other patients in her group, several also post-infarction, walk on the treadmill. Pairing her with a woman of similar age who had a similar event offers the model of a similar other succeeding, as the theory describes.
Verbal persuasion: partial fit. Being told she can do it is likely to have little effect by itself, as Bandura predicted. It becomes more credible when the nurse links it to her stress test result and her ejection fraction, which adds clinical information the theory does not require.
Physiological states: strained. In psychology, reinterpreting a racing heart as normal arousal is a way to build efficacy; in cardiac rehabilitation, chest sensations are clinical data that may signal ischemia and must not be explained away. A nurse who encouraged this patient to reinterpret chest discomfort as anxiety could delay recognition of a real event. The transfer carries a safety question psychology never faced.
The four sources also interact in this case in a way worth noting. Her refusal did not come from a lack of models, since she watches others walk every session, or from a lack of encouragement, since staff urge her on. It came from a single powerful performance experience in reverse: the last time she walked fast, she had a heart attack. Bandura's theory predicts that performance experiences outweigh the other sources, and that prediction holds here in the wrong direction. Her one vivid failure outweighs weeks of watching and hearing. The theory's hierarchy of sources therefore helps the nurse plan: only new performance experiences, arranged carefully, are likely to outweigh the old one.
Nursing's Additions
To use the fourth source safely, nursing must add something to the theory: teaching the patient to distinguish expected exertional sensations, such as breathlessness and a faster heart rate that settle with rest, from warning symptoms, such as chest pressure, radiation to the arm or jaw, or symptoms that persist, and giving her a clear plan for what to do if warning symptoms occur. With that addition, reinterpreting normal sensations builds efficacy, while warning symptoms remain clinical data. The theory also says little about the conditions around the behavior. It does not address transportation to sessions, caregiving responsibilities that compete for her time, or the cost of the program, all of which a nurse must consider in helping her continue after the program ends.
A nurse using the concept would also need a way to know whether efficacy is changing. Consistent with Bandura's emphasis on specific behaviors, she could ask the patient before each session to rate from 0 to 10 how confident she is that she can walk on the treadmill for the planned number of minutes, and record the rating alongside the minutes actually walked. A rising rating that tracks rising minutes would support the theory's prediction; a rating that stays low despite successful walks would suggest that fear of symptoms, not doubt about capability, is the real barrier, which would call for a different nursing response.
Conclusion
Self-efficacy survives the transfer to cardiac rehabilitation in three of its four sources. The fourth survives only with nursing's modification: the distinction between expected sensations and warning symptoms. With that addition, and with attention to the practical conditions the theory ignores, the concept is better described as shared than as borrowed. Nursing has not simply taken it from psychology; it has adapted it to a setting where the body's signals carry clinical meaning.
References
Balady, G. J., Williams, M. A., Ades, P. A., Bittner, V., Comoss, P., Foody, J. M., Franklin, B., Sanderson, B., & Southard, D. (2007). Core components of cardiac rehabilitation/secondary prevention programs: 2007 update. Circulation, 115(20), 2675-2682. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.106.180945
Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191-215. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.84.2.191
Johnson, D. E. (1968). Theory in nursing: Borrowed and unique. Nursing Research, 17(3), 206-209. https://doi.org/10.1097/00006199-196805000-00006
How this MN502 Unit 7 example is structured
A plain question heads the paper: does a psychological construct keep its meaning when a nurse uses it in a rehabilitation gym, and what must be added for it to serve nursing's purposes? The origin section places self-efficacy inside social cognitive theory and keeps Bandura's definitions exact. The uptake section surveys nursing research using the concept, briefly, and raises the borrowing debate with a citation to Johnson. Next the composite patient is presented without interpretation. The fit section takes the four sources in order and gives each a verdict, with physiological states the site of the sharpest strain, since encouraging a cardiac patient to reinterpret chest sensations carries a safety question psychology never faced. A section on omissions notes that the theory says little about transport, caregiving duties or cost. The conclusion calls the concept shared rather than borrowed, once nursing's modifications are named.
Get an MN502 Unit 7 example written to your instructions
Which borrowed framework is your section examining? Send its name, the practice setting you would like it tested in, the Unit 7 instructions and the rubric. In return you get a critique judging the move from its home field into nursing, source by source. Free for a first request; expect it within 24-48h. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
MN502 Unit 7 questions, answered
What counts as a borrowed theory?
Any theory developed in another discipline and used in nursing, such as self-efficacy from psychology, stress and coping models, or general systems theory. Some scholars call a borrowed theory shared once nursing research has tested and adapted it. Your critique can take a position on which label fits, as long as it gives reasons for the choice.
Does the critique have to reject the theory?
No. Most strong critiques conclude that the theory transfers partly, with specific modifications. What graders want is a reasoned judgment about each component, not a blanket verdict. Rejecting a theory outright is acceptable if the evidence supports it, but it usually signals that the case was chosen to make the theory fail.
How much of the original theory should I explain?
Enough to make the critique precise, which usually means stating the core concepts and propositions in the originator's own terms with a citation. The explanation should serve the analysis, so a page or so is usually sufficient. Save most of your length for judging how the theory behaves once it is working inside nursing.