For me the start place for knowledge is the live works of John Dewey. Cambridge University Press do an abridged exploration of his life works in their Cambridge Companion to Dewey.

Dear Scholar, by 'Conceptual Framework', I guess you are referring to a Scholar whose rational argument could be used as a basis for adhering to any particular ethical principle. I would love to know the particular ethical principle you are working on before ascertaining a suitable scholars whose work could make a better conceptual framework. For instance, Utilitarianism (as a ethical principle could be better viewed using Bentham and James Stuart Mill's work)....etc.

 Dear Dragos Simandan,

Thank you for the help. 

Best regards.

Dear Dr. Farinola Augustine. A,

I appreciate your contribution.

The study is on nurses knowledge towards ethical principle related to nursing practice.

Thanks and best regards. 

Ah! sorry, I thought you were interested in understanding knowledge formation more than whether nurses had awareness of normative moral principles. In essence it appears you interest lies in moral learning, rather than knowledge per se. Your question however is multi-layered. "ethical principles related to nursing practice" could refer to codes of ethics rather than normative principle. Therefore a social contract view of justice / deontological ethical principles may be appropriate. The alternative understanding is investigating how nurses learn practice based ethics, which would be a fundamentally different question. Which of these are you more interested in?

The following link might be one of the useful references about ethical principles of nursing:

http://onlinenursing.wilkes.edu/key-ethical-principles-of-nursing/

 Dear Dr. Iain Davies,

Thanks for your scholarly comments and advice.

I think,  social contract view of justice / deontological ethical principles may be more appropriate for the study.

Kind regards.

 Dear Prof. Tatsuo Tabata,

Thank you so much sir.

Definitely, i'm optimistic that the link you provided will be a useful reference to the study. 

Best regards sir.

Hope the links give some useful information

NURSE ATTITUDES IN RELATION TO HEALTH CARE ETHICS AND LEGAL REGULATIONS FOR NURSING

http://www.scielo.cl/pdf/abioeth/v20n2/art13.pdf

Knowledge of staff nurses regarding legal and ethical responsibilities in the field of psychiatric nursing

http://medind.nic.in/nad/t11/i1/nadt11i1p1.pdf

Knowledge and Performance about Nursing Ethic Codes from Nurses' and Patients' Perspective in Tabriz Teaching Hospitals, Iran

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4134161/pdf/jcs-2-219.pdf

Knowledge, attitudes and practice of healthcare ethics and law among doctors and nurses in Barbados

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1524795/pdf/1472-6939-7-7.pdf

A quantitative study of the attitude, knowledge and experience of staff nurses on prioritizing comfort measures in care of the dying patient in an acute hospital setting.

https://www.tcd.ie/Library/support/subjects/nursing-midwifery/assets/General%20Research%20Proposal_1.pdf

Ethics: The Power of One American Nurses Association

http://www.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/ANAMarketplace/ANAPeriodicals/OJIN/Columns/Ethics/Power.html

Practice Standards and Guidelines for Nurses and Midwives with Prescriptive Authority

https://www.nmbi.ie/nmbi/media/NMBI/Publications/Practice-Standards-Prescriptive_Authority.pdf?ext=.pdf

Effectiveness of ethical issues teaching program on knowledge, ethical behavior and ethical stress among nurses (this article is attached)

 Dear Jetty Ramadevi,

Thank you so much for sharing with me all the links above. Of course yes, the links will be of great help to me.

Best regards.

Thank you, Jetty! You provided very necessary information.

I would not start from theoretical concepts, that deep down we all know well (and we do not use) but I would use a research methodology which the Grounded Theory to analyze how nurses approach problems, with the aim of building a theory

Dear Giovanna Artioli,

Thank you for your contribution.

Kind regards. 

See works in Philosophical Counseling!!

You found an article which I was written for some weeks ago. You find it under my profil full text.

I'll ocate a major ethical problem and I'll set several qualitative interviews with very open questions, to understand how different professionals are moving to address the problem. From the data obtained you can arrive at a conceptualization.

Ciao

Giovanna