Research as a goal to construct and deconstruct knowledge

Resumo

Researching means to be anxious, to question and doubt facts that arise in the world, instigating man in search for means to uncover them as well as for answers to his questionings.

Researching scientifically is a challenge that consists of knowledge that is currently true, but that can be reconstructed along time, that is, it is a continuous construction and reconstruction process. Knowledge is not static. What is considered right or wrong today, may well be changed. Research can develop new knowledge, corroborate or refute some pre-existing knowledge, and at each discovery, knowledge may be deepened and transformed. Thus, research never has an end in itself, its results do not belong to anybody and there will always be a universe to be investigated.

However, as a research is carried out it is necessary to take everything and everybody into consideration, that is, what exists, what was fulfilled and by whom. History cannot be simply deleted, for it is in it that the bases of any future are found.

Research has a unique role for society, for it is through it that knowledge is socialized and a qualified professional exercise is promoted. However, the path to be followed by Research is hard and demands dedication, passion and courage, among other attributes of the researcher, in his critical dialogue with reality.

As for Nursing, research is a necessary and essential practice, for the knowledge produced is fundamental to the scientific advance, with social impacts in the several scopes that Nursing achieves. The qualitative-qualitative methodological approaches reflect the search for the completeness of the researched phenomenon and the concern with the care for the person as well as for life.

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) play an essential role in the production of the Nursing scientific knowledge, mainly through postgraduate courses. Nevertheless, in order to incorporate research definitely as one of the university tripod, it is essential to search for integration between the teaching, the extension, the service and the society, together with the undergraduate and graduate students. The requirement for end-of-term-papers in the Nursing undergraduate courses and the incentives of the scientific initiation, have been a promising way to consolidate research in Nursing.

Another important factor is that research is no longer considered an exclusive activity of nurses from the academy/professors. More and more, nurses from hospitals, health basic units, industries, among other sectors, have searched for the necessary professional qualification, incorporating research into their activities. This change has interrupted a paradigm that was constructed and assimilated for decades and has enabled more research which emerges from practice. It has also increased the number of research consumers. It does not mean that everything has already been overcome. More challenges still need to be overcome.

In this context, aware of the mission of characterizing the diversity of subjects in the Nursing area and the importance of the scientific knowledge dissemination, REUOL has tried very hard to publish scientific papers of quality, written with methodological rigor and submitted to the consultants’ approval. Therefore, it has made the discussion and reflection possible, concerning Nursing in all the fields of action and it has also contributed to the scientific and technological advance nationally and internationally. It is a relatively new magazine, but it is already considered an instrument of space delimitation and recognition of the Nursing area in Brazil and abroad.

This issue presents to the reader a richness of several themes which are shown in different paradigms of investigation, restating that the differences complement and are added to each other in the research world. We wish REUOL’s readers an excellent use of this issue and invite them to send their production to be submitted and thus, share with us and with the other readers their knowledge and scientific anxieties.