Abstract
The purpose of this research is to clarify the beginner nurses ' learning process of the nursing art by taking notice of their bodily senses during their practice of changing the body positions of their patients. This is qualitative descriptive research conducted through participation observation and half-structured interviews. The research participants were five nurses new to the job who had started their working lives in 2009 or 2010. The research was conducted between May and August of 2009, as well as the period between May and August of 2010. After the beginner nurses were assigned to wards in May, they repeatedly provided their patients with assistance for their activities of daily living while teaming up with nurses senior to them. At the beginning they felt as if they could not keep up with the senior nurses. They gradually learned the knack of learning the nursing art by repeated practice. By June, they felt the effect of theacquired learning, and started to move in unison with the senior nurses. By July or August, the beginner nurses started to decipher the physical conditions of their patients based on their bodily senses that were activated when they touched their patients. They could then provide assistance in tune with the physical condition of their patients.
