A flexible customizable virtual escape room approach for interprofessional learners

Abstract

While educational escape rooms are a novel way to stimulate collaboration and enhance team learning, this approach has only been described a few times in the health professions and interprofessional education literature and has tended to be resource intensive. In this report, we describe two educational escape rooms built using freely available technology and implemented with two different cohorts of interprofessional learners in large-scale courses of over 500 students. We sought to demonstrate that a screen-based or virtual escape room approach was feasible, flexible in terms of content and format, and engaging for learners collaborating in small group teams. Cohort 1 of students from the Interprofessional Quality Improvement and Patient Safety course included 510 students on 88 teams. The activity was completed in person as a tabletop exercise utilizing a shared computer. Most students indicated the exercise was worthwhile and posttest scores on a subset of measures of patient safety learning (APSQ-III) were significantly higher than retrospective pretest scores with moderate effect size. Cohort 2 included 523 students in the Foundations of Interprofessional Collaborative Practice course. This cohort completed the activity asynchronously and virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Reactions were generally positive though limited in number. An interprofessional educational virtual escape room proved to be feasible and well-received across two different learner groups, two sets of content, and two modes for group collaboration: in person versus remote. Piloting this approach required only resources that are freely available online and a sustainable level of faculty engagement, enabling implementation at any program size. Similarly designed educational escape rooms may be a worthwhile approach for interprofessional educators across many instructional contexts hoping to increase student engagement and collaboration.