For a more specific exercise, try locating the opposites of the definitions given. For instance, given a definition for "health", you should be able to invert the terms to get a definition for "illness".
This sounds like the easiest and most fruitful of the exercises you offered. I don't really have a 'naive model'–I've never trusted my intuitions particularly, and they're mostly silent on nursing-related stuff, probably because as of yet I have hardly any clinical experience.
For a third, try listing some things that you absolutely wouldn't expect a sane Theory to lead you to do (say, tell the poor guy to "stop whining and get a job"), and based on the general idea that theories should add up to normality, ask how Roy's Adaptation Theory specifically prohibits you from doing them. (If it doesn't, that's where it's broken.)
Sounds very useful, but also exhausting on the brain. I'll see how brain-exhausted I am after studying for my upcoming exams, and how many pages I can get out of the other suggestions. (I may not be genuinely curious enough about this to keep working on it after the essay is handed in.) Thanks, though!
I'm currently writing an essay for one of my classes, 'Theoretical Foundations of Nursing.' I'm about the most 'gong-si' class I've ever taken. (That is a Chinese term for 'shit talking,' which is my boyfriend's favourite term for any field that gets into arguments over definitions, has concepts that don't correspond to any empirical phenomena, is based on ideology, etc.)
The essay involves analyzing a clinical situation (in this case a 55-year-old recently divorced, recently unemployed man, admitted to the psychiatric ward with major depression and suicidal ideation) using a theory (in this case, Roy's Adaptation Model). Done. The next step involves finding criticisms with the model...and despite the fact that I've been complaining about this class and its non-empirical nature all semester, I seem unable to come up with specific criticisms of what this nursing theory is missing.
Which is what I need your help for, because LessWrong is the best community ever when it comes to specific criticisms.
Here is a very brief overview of Roy's Adaptation Theory:
Now my question is, what is a specific criticism I can make of this particular theory in general...not "your definitions aren't specific enough" or "the whole field of nursing theory isn't reductionist enough", but something that this kind of theory should have but doesn't. Any ideas?