Competent professionals need continuing education by decision-making games and simulations that practice planning and coordinating multiple, complex, and contextualized needs or demands. The competent professional can cope and manage many situations but lacks the speed and flexibility of a more advanced practitioner.

Can note recurrent meaningful situational, components, but not, prioritize between them

Perceives situations as wholes, rather than in terms of aspects

BEGINNER

PROFICIENT

“Proficient performers are best taught by use of case studies where their ability to grasp the situation is solicited and taxed. Providing proficient performers with context-free principles and rules will leave them somewhat frustrated and will usually stimulate them to give examples of situations where, clearly, the principle or rule would be contradicted” (p. 405).

Has intuitive grasp of the situation and zeroes in on the accurate region of the problem

Benner, P. (1982). From novice to expert. American Journal of Nursing, 82(3), 402-407.

Novice professional students, due to their limited experience, must use context-free rules to guide their work. However, according to Benner, “Following rules legislates against successful task performance because no rule can tell a novice which tasks are most relevant in a real situation” (p. 403).

Begins to understand actions in terms of long-range goals

NOVICE

Experts still need skilled analytical ability for new situations. “Analytical tools are also necessary when the expert gets a wrong take or a wrong grasp of the situation... When alternative perspectives are not available to the experienced clinician, the only way out of the wrong grasp of the problem is analytical problem solving” (p. 406). Experts can sometimes have trouble describing their decision making process because it spans from a deep, intuitive understanding of the situation.

Has no professional experience

“Advanced beginners need help in setting priorities since they operate on general guidelines and are only beginning to perceive recurrent meaningful patterns in their clinical practice” (p. 404). Limited prior experience means advanced beginners tend to treat all aspects as equally important.

EXPERT

COMPETENT

From Novice to Expert – Patricia Benner

"Pedagogical Needs and Limitations" by Vanderbilt CC-BY-NC https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/?s=benner Animation by