<![CDATA[Introduction: Clinical decision-making is a fundamental competency for post-baccalaureate nursing students to ensure patient safety and quality care in a clinical setting. However, the effectiveness of instructional strategies applied in the professional education stage remains inconclusive. This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of adaptive learning and mind mapping in improving clinical decision-making ability among post-baccalaureate nursing students. Method: A quasi-experimental study with a two-group pretest–posttest design was conducted involving 46 post-baccalaureate nursing students at a nursing education institution. Participants were assigned to either an adaptive learning group or a mind-mapping group, non-randomly. Clinical decision-making ability was measured before and after the intervention using the Nurse Decision Making Instrument–Revised 2014 (NDMI-R 2014). Data was then analyzed using N-Gain analysis and paired t-tests. Most participants demonstrated an intuitive level of clinical decision-making at baseline. Results: The results showed no statistically significant differences in clinical decision-making scores before and after the intervention in either group. N-Gain analysis indicated low to ineffective improvement, suggesting a ceiling effect due to relatively high baseline competence. Although the adaptive learning group exhibited a slightly greater increase in descriptive measures than the mind-mapping group, the difference was not statistically significant. Conclusion: These findings indicate that adaptive learning and mind mapping did not produce significant improvements in clinical decision-making ability among post-baccalaureate nursing students. The results suggest that both strategies may be more appropriate as preparatory learning approaches during undergraduate education, while clinical decision-making development at the post-baccalaureate nursing level should prioritize authentic clinical experience and supervision.]]>
