Despite the new wave of diverse philosophical thoughts in nursing, the criteria for theory evaluation rarely incorporate the new thoughts in its realm. Especially, feminist thoughts, which have contributed to the development of nursing knowledge through incorporating diversities and complexities of nursing phenomenon and reflecting social, cultural, and historical contexts surrounding nursing encounters, were rarely incorporated into the evaluation criteria. In this paper, a feminist approach to theory evaluation is proposed based on a critical analysis of the existing evaluation criteria. First, a historical review of feminist thoughts is provided, and feminist principles across diverse groups of thinking within feminism are discussed. Then, theory evaluation criteria are historically analyzed and critiqued while considering the feminist principles. The critical points found in the currently available theory evaluation criteria include: (a) the evaluation criteria are based on objectivity, (b) they are ignoring gender differences; (c) cultural differences tend not to be seriously considered; and (d) contexts surrounding nursing phenomenon are rarely considered. Based on the critical points, four additional components for theory evaluation are proposed. The components are: (a) respect for subjectivity; (b) historical and sociopolitical contextual considerations; (c) gender sensitivity; (d) cultural competence; and (e) blueprint for action.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the revised curriculum of the college of nursing, Seoul National University. This curriculum was consisted of three conceptual framework: health promotion, illness care and professional development. Especially it is intended to enhance the ability in solving health problem by focusing on the topic of health promotion. Further, the curriculum is strengthening on the professional development through encouraging scholarly inquiry of students. The result of survey was as follows: 1) Is the curriculum focusing on the health promotion generally? - 81.2% of graduates answered positively. 2) Is the curriculum reflecting on the six aims of the education for the college if nursing? - 64.6% of graduates answered positively. 3) Is the curriculum reflecting on the concept of health promotion properly? - 72.8% of faculty answered positively. 4) Did the curriculum achieve the six aims of college of nursing effectively? - 82.6% of faculty answered positively. 5) Was the lecture of each subject in the new curriculum given with focus on the concept of health promotion? - 60.9 % answered affirmatively 6) Did the optional subjects achieve the goal of professional development effectively? - 83% of faculty answered affirmatively.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify the trend of nursing research by analyzing doctoral dissertations of nursing college at Seoul National University. Method: The doctoral dissertations used in this study were 69 thesis from 1989 to 2001. The methodological characteristics, theory, philosophy and world view in these thesis were explored. Key words were classified according to metaparadigm and were compared with MeSH term. Result: There were 54 dissertations of quantitative research and 12 dissertations of qualitative research. Most of subjects of the thesis were patients with 20~65 years old. The written consent to participate in research was not described in great part of thesis. As to measurement, questionnaire was most frequent used. In independent variables cognitive nursing interventions were used frequently. Psychosocial variables as a dependent variable were used mainly. In theory level of research, situation-producing research was performed. In type of nursing knowledge according to Caper many dissertations studied about empirical knowledge. More than half of doctoral dissertations used borrowed theory from nursing related disciplines. Most of studies were done within empirical positivism and organic viewpoint. Key words related to the concept of environment among four metaparadigm has been insufficiently studied. English key words in doctoral thesis were out of accordance largely with MeSH term English. Conclusion: These results show that it is necessary to develop the nursing theory for nursing knowledge body.