Background: Continuous didactic instruction in health professions curricula presents cognitive challenges that lead to attentional decay and increased cognitive load. To counteract classroom fatigue, active micro-interventions have gained attention in nursing education. This study evaluated the effectiveness of a structured, four-phase ice-breaking intervention on improving learning concentration among first-year undergraduate nursing students.

Methods: A single-arm, quasi-experimental pre-test/post-test study was conducted among 53 first-year B.Sc. Nursing students taking the Nursing Foundations course at a college of nursing in Puducherry, India. The intervention was delivered across 12 50-minute lecture sessions over four weeks. Each session incorporated two 5-minute validated ice-breaking activities embedded at the mid-session and terminal points. Student concentration was measured at baseline and after a one-week washout period using the validated Mizan-Meta Concentration Scale (score range: 4–20). Pre- and post-intervention scores were compared using a paired Student's t-test.

Results: At baseline, the mean concentration score was 13.40 ± 1.94, with 73.6% (n = 39) of participants categorized as having adequate concentration and 26.4% (n = 14) as moderate. Following the four-week intervention, 100% (n = 53) of students achieved adequate concentration levels, with the mean score increasing to 17.94 ± 1.25. The absolute mean improvement of 4.54 points was statistically significant (t (52) = -16.05, p < 0.001).

Conclusion: Embedding brief, structured ice-breaking activities within traditional lecture blocks significantly improved self-reported learning concentration among undergraduate nursing students. This low-resource pedagogical approach serves as an effective cognitive reset to mitigate attentional decay in dense healthcare curricula.

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