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Decision-Making in Nursing Students With Different Experience Levels Under Varying Task Complexities: A Pilot
Wei Luo1, Xiaoyan Jin, Weiran Xu
1Author Affiliations: Candidate (Ms Luo), Professor of Nursing, Master's Supervisor (Prof. Jin), Technologist-in-charge (Ms Xu), and Technologist-in-charge (Ms Dong), Professor of Nursing, Doctoral Supervisor (Prof. Shang), School of Nursing, Peking University, Beijing, China; Clinical Nurse (Ms Hou), Intensive Care Unit, Henan Provincial People's Hospital, Zhengzhou, China; Head Nurse of Internal Medicine (Ms Liu), Department of Internal Medicine, Peking University Third Hospital, Beijing, China.
Background:
Effective decision-making is essential in nursing but often underdeveloped in students and novice nurses. Eye-tracking offers a real-time, objective way to study decision processes.
Methods:
A pilot observational study was conducted, dividing nursing students into high- and low-experience groups based on internship exposure. Participants performed intravenous infusion preparation tasks of varying complexity. Eye-tracking and visualization techniques were used to analyze gaze patterns and decision-making trajectories.
Results:
Under low-complexity conditions, both groups showed fewer fixations and shorter durations. As complexity increased, low-experience students exhibited more and longer fixations with frequent gaze shifts, while high-experience students maintained shorter fixation times, fewer transitions, and more organized attention.
Conclusions:
Task complexity and clinical experience may influence decision-making. Higher task complexity prompted a shift from intuitive to analytical processing, occurring earlier among less-experienced students. Findings support incorporating complexity-based tasks and expanded practice into nursing education to foster efficient, patient-centered decision-making skills.
