In order to see the development of nursing related research activities in Korea over the last three decades, abstracts of almost all of the Masters and Ph. D. theses that had appeared from 1961 up to August 1991 were collected. Number of theses amounted to 1779(76%) out of a total of 2354 theses. We analysed the papers research patterns, which are research problem, research design, population, place. Here is what we have found. 1). The types of research problems were as follows. 58.0% papers did factor-analysis, 29.1% studied factor~relations, 11.4% situation relations and 1.5% did situation~creations. With respect to the years, we found that the factor-analysis papers decreased with time but the factor~relating, the situation -relating, and the situation~creating papers were increased. Especially the situation-creating paper increased notably since the 80s'. Relating to the kind of degrees, we found that for M.S.theses 60.2% of the papers did factor-analysis, 29.0% the factor-relating studies, 10.4% the situation-relating studies, and 0.4% the situation -creating studies. For the Ph.D. theses 30.5% did the factor~relating, 30.5% the situation-relating. and 20.0% the situation-creating papers. Considering the graduate schools, we found that the regular graduate schools and the graduate school of education produced about the same number of papers of each kind, but 81.2% and 64.6% papers produced by the graduate school of public health and the graduate school of public administration, respectively, did the factor-analysis thus taking majority of the papers. 2). Research designs were as follows : 10.8% experimental studies, 89.0% non experimental studies, and 0.2% quality studies were found. So the majority of the research designs were nonexperimental. We see a meaningful difference between the M.S.theses showing 9.8% experimental studies and 90. 1% nonexperimental studies. and Ph.D. theses showing 28.4% experimental studies and 68. 4% nonexperimental studies. Relating to the graduate schools, we find that the regular graduate schools and the graduate school of education with 15.8% and 10.6% experimental studies respectively, did a little more experimental studies than other schools. but still the regular graduate schools, the graduate school of public health, and the graduate school of education each show 83.8%, 97.4%, and 89.4% nonexperimental studies, so most schools are concentrating on nonexperimental studies. 3). On the relation between research problem and research design, experimental studies show 88.0% of situation-relations and 6.8% of factor-relations. Nonexperimental studies had factor-analysis taking the majority by 64.4% and 31.9% were factor-relations. 4). On the research subjects, we have 90.8% of the papers dealing with a single subject and 9.2% of the papers dealing with two or more subjects. Most of the research subjects are patients or nurses for the regular graduate schools and the graduate school of education, but for the graduate school of administration as much as. 60% of the studies took nurses as subjects. Subjects taken were patients, nurses. and students in decreasing order for the M.S. theses and for patients, women, and nurses again in decreasing order for the Ph.D.theses. 5). On the places of study, we've had 47, 8% of the studies done in hospital rooms, 15, 1% in schools, and 9, 6% in the local community, With respect to the years, we found 36.7% in the hospital rooms, 22.4% in the schools, and 14, 8% in the local communities in the 1970's and 50.1%in the hospital rooms, 13.4% in the schools. and 9, 2% in the local communities in the 80's.