The perception and judgment of senior baccalaureate student nurses in clinical decision making.

This descriptive, exploratory study sought to validate Brooks's theory of intrapersonal perceptual awareness, a middle-range theory derived from King's interacting systems framework and to extend King's work by making perception (sensory and intuitive), judgment (cognitive and affective), and decision making explicit concepts in the personal system. The results supported the theory's central premise and clarified the interaction between perception and judgment but did not support bringing perception, judgment, and decision making into the personal system as proposed. Self emerged as the core concept, and the results are used to recommend a proposed reconceptualization of King's personal system as self.