title: Imagination: The What-if in Thinking.
abstract: Teaching-learning environments in nursing education encourage students to think and recall hordes of factual information while checking off a skills list too numerous to mention. In efforts to impart all of this information to students, has the use of imagination been ignored? The author in this column presents a discussion on imagination. First, there is a discussion of the literature, followed by a discussion of imagination in light of the humanbecoming school of thought. A glimpse at the presence of imagination in qualitative research methodologies is also highlighted. The author also presents the limits of imagination, and perhaps, its fading existence in current teaching-learning practices. The column concludes with encouragement toward a greater utilization of imaginative thought in nursing pedagogies.
authors.affiliation: Professor of Nursing, Briar Cliff University barb.condon@briarcliff.edu.
authors.forename: Barbara Backer
authors.initials: BB
authors.lastname: Condon
keywords: humanbecoming; imagination; nursing education; teaching-learning; thinking