Spiritual_Wellness_Holistic_Health_and_the_Practic

76 Philosophical Foundations of Health Education
other fields and advance from a developing field to a more established one. This
research approach would demonstrate a new direction and new perspective while not
duplicating related professions. Instead of mimicking other respective support fields, a
self - established theory for health education would allow the development of real and
functional applications in and for the health education field. If a theoretical basis for
health education research becomes available, health education researchers will explore
new hypotheses about phenomenon and issues important to the advancement of health
education and health promotion. Questions concerning the advancement of health
education and health promotion, which otherwise would have been glossed over,
would never be asked. As research is pondered, it would be able to cut through the
jungle and develop a true health education research basis. If such accomplishments
occurred, the profession would move beyond simplistic, superficial, obvious, and
trivial research questions to more inquisitive, profound, and important hypotheses.
Accepting pragmatic aspects of the current profession ’ s theoretical status, it is wise to
accept the research as it is done and utilize it to the best advantage of health education.
Since the field is still in the developmental stage of theory development, it must use
whatever approaches and sources that are appropriate. From the Role Delineation
Project one can realize that many disciplines can and do use health education skills,
methods, and approaches. Health education pulls together an amalgamation of skill
development from many supportive fields so it can be applied to health education
efforts.
Health education theory does not stop with mere analysis of findings and crunching
of data, nor with ideas which originally gave birth to the research. It goes further
by offering tentative inferences, profound observations, and predictions about how
findings impact health education theory and relate to future implications.
Without a theoretical foundation for health education research, we get lost in its jungle
since little direction is offered as to what to study, how to study it, or how to make
inferences from it that contribute to the theoretical body of knowledge. If the health education
researcher really wants to advance the field and have it recognized and accepted
by the world and other professions, he or she must first operate in the conceptual world,
using sound assumptions and logic, then arrive at effective yet pragmatic conclusions
about the relationships of health education variables to the information and data it relies
on. The informal theoretical state of health education needs organizing, summarizing,
and guiding functions as a formal theory. The need for integrating a theoretical conceptual
framework, a framework that links processes and activities is an essential tool for
health education and health promotion and should not be discounted.
Health education and health promotion need to continue efforts toward further
developing health education theory. Meanwhile, gathering and recognizing research
appropriate for the use of health education also must be furthered.
A final belief that some professionals in the field hold is that health education lacks
in a uniqueness that will allow the field to be divorced from the supportive disciplines.
Our uniqueness, when it does occur, is in the application and process of theories and
knowledge from other fields. As an eclectic discipline, we do represent an amalgamation