English language revision through the application of learning stations and educational escape rooms: The impact on 8th graders’ motivation and engagement

Educational escape rooms (EERs) are gamified teaching and learning tools increasingly used in nursing education. This study aims to compare undergraduate nursing students’ gameful experiences (GEs) across three EER models: face-to-face, hybrid, and online. A cross-sectional study was conducted with 136 first-year students in a Serbian undergraduate nursing programme. All models EERs had the same narrative, which included several topics from the Fundamentals of Nursing course. Face-to-face and hybrid EERs were implemented in faculty skills laboratories, while the online model used the Zoom® platform. Face-to-face EERs were conducted in 2021/2022. and hybrid and online in the 2022/2023 school year. Immediately after the EER activity, the Gameful Experience Scale (GAMEX) assessed students’ GE across six dimensions (Enjoyment, Absorption, Creative Thinking, Activation, Absence of Negative Effects and Dominance). All students solved the puzzles in the allotted time and ‘escaped from the room.’ Median escape time from face-to-face EER was 39.2 (IQR = 2.1), from online 37.4 (IQR = 4.1), and hybrid 37.2 (IQR = 3.5) minutes. By comparing GE students in three EER models, significant differences were found in five dimensions of the GAMEX scale. Students in face-to-face EER enjoyed significantly more (p < 0.001) and thought more creatively (p < 0.001), while the GE of online model students indicated significantly higher levels of activation (p < 0.001), dominance (p < 0.001), and negative effect (p < 0.001). In the face-to-face and hybrid models, students’ GE were more moderate in these dimensions. All EER models can generate positive emotions with moderate negative effects, aligning with the goals of EERs as educational games. Further research is needed to identify the most effective EER model for different areas of nursing education.

Educational escape rooms within health sciences education are gaining traction as a unique and engaging game-based strategy for reviewing instructional content. Educational escape rooms cultivate valuable skills such as teamwork, communication, creativity, attention to detail, and the ability to apply knowledge under time pressures. While several studies have independently assessed learners' knowledge gains after educational escape room interventions, the present work meta-analyzes the efficacy of educational escape rooms across studies and student learners within health sciences education. A systematic search across seven databases was performed by a health sciences librarian from inception to March 24, 2023. Record screenings, full-text reviews, and data extractions were managed within Covidence. MERSQI criteria were used to assess study quality. Pooled effect sizes (Standardized Mean Differences = SMD) were estimated through meta-analysis to summarize learner performance outcomes after educational escape room interventions. Eleven studies followed a longitudinal pretest-posttest design, and five studies followed a control-treatment group design. Learners' posttest scores after participating in an educational escape room were statistically higher than their pretest scores as indicated by a large positive summary effect size (SMD ≥ 0.893; p <0.001). Educational escape rooms were also effective for treatment group participants (n = 508), who significantly outperformed (SMD = 0.616; p <0.001) control group participants (n = 555). Most escape rooms were employed as a mechanism for reviewing educational content. This meta-analytic review suggests escape rooms are effective educational interventions for increasing knowledge gains among health sciences learners and highlights common implementation practices to help guide educators interested in this game-based learning approach.

We present a literature review that aims to understand the role of the Educational Escape Room (EER) in improving the teaching, learning, and assessment processes through an EER design framework. The main subject is to identify the recent interventions in this field in the last five years. Our study focuses on understanding how it is possible to create an EER available to all students, namely visually challenged users. As a result of the implementation of new learning strategies that promote autonomous learning, a concern arose in adapting educational activities to each student’s individual needs. To study the adaptability of each EER, we found the EER design framework essential to increase the student experience by promoting the consolidation of knowledge through narrative and level design. The results of our study show evidence of progress in students’ performance while playing an EER, revealing that students' learning can be effective. Research on Procedural Content Generation (PCG) highlighted how important it is to implement adaptability in future studies of EERs. However, we found some limitations regarding the process of evaluating learning through the EERs, showing how important it is to study and implement learning analytics in future studies in this field.

Since the first escape room opened in 2007, the industry has grown to attract people from all over the world and is expected to continue to grow. This trend of rising social and recreational interest has, in turn, being introduced in the education sector in many countries. The use of escape rooms for educational purposes has become increasingly popular across different levels of education, including higher education institutions. This innovative and ludic approach involves students in their learning environment, encourages the use of numerous soft skills (creativity, problem solving, teamwork, etc.), and provides opportunity to escape the ‘routine’ of traditional and less student-centered learning methods. Although Educational Escape Rooms (EER) are becoming more prevalent in formal education, initiatives related to the topic of energy transition are scarce. As a result, there is limited information on the impact of these strategies to promote youth motivation and learning towards the energy transition. Exploring this issue is particularly relevant as young people have the potential to play an active and important role in achieving a sustainable future. This case study employs a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design with mixed data. The sample consist of 32 students playing an EER, designed by higher education students, on energy transition. The study aims to assess the quality of the resource design and its impact on students’ knowledge, motivation to learn, soft skills utilization, and engagement. The study results show a noteworthy improvement in self-perceived knowledge regarding the energy transition after playing the EER. This increase is associated with new knowledge gained by the players about energy consumption, production and transformation. The results indicate that the EER is ineffective in increasing or decreasing motivation to learn among players. Engagement is perceived as positive with respect to the experience of playing the EER. However, there is no correlation between motivation to learn and engagement. The study also suggests that the EER has the potential to improve various soft skills, especially teamwork, communication, and problem-solving. Finally, the EER was generally praised by the players for its engagement, on both quantitative and qualitative data in the study. On the other hand, the thematic analysis revealed some design issues that may have affected the players' experience and learning outcomes. These included excessive difficulty in some puzzles, lack of guidance, and insufficient time to complete. These issues need to be addressed in order to improve the overall impact of the EER, despite players' generally positive perceptions of it. In relation to the four puzzles that compose the EER (which relate to energy consumption, production, storage and transformation), they were generally positively rated by the participants, with the energy consumption puzzle being the highest rated for its practical application.

Educational escape rooms (EERs) are increasingly used in education as learning innovations for non-digital and game-based learning (GBL) since EERs positively influence student motivation. They are common in educational fields where skills developments are vital such as STEM subjects and healthcare. However, EERs are marginally implemented in entrepreneurship education (EE) because there is a lack of evaluated design elements to guide the creation of EER in this context, which hampers their wider adoption. Therefore, in this study, we evaluated design elements for EERs in EE. We are particularly concerned with experiential EE since EERs are well suited for experiential learning. We used a research-through-design approach and created an EER based on 11 design elements derived from the literature on social cognitive theory, entrepreneurship competence, and gamification. We created and evaluated the EER in two cycles with two diverse groups of students at a university of applied sciences in the Netherlands. We contribute to the literature and practice of experiential EE by presenting evaluated design elements for EERs. We show which design elements work well and which do not. We also present a comprehensively designed EER that educational professionals can implement in their experiential EE programs.

This study investigates the influence of the educational game design elements immersion, collaboration and debriefing, on fostering learning with educational escape rooms. We based the design of the escape room on an educational game design framework that aligns the learning goal and the game goal, that is, escaping from the room. One‐hundred‐and‐twenty‐six students, aged between 16 and 20 played the escape room. Measures for learning were pre‐and post‐tests. The game experience was measured through questionnaires, classroom observations and interviews with students and teachers. The results show a knowledge gain between pre‐and post‐test. Correlational analysis showed that all three design elements contributed to students' appreciation of the escape room, whereas only immersion had a direct contribution to knowledge gain. Based on the qualitative data it appeared that the used escape boxes contributed most to perceived immersion. Immersion helps students focus on each other and the tasks. Also, a narrative with distinct roles for each student helped to evoke immersion. Unexpectedly, these roles also scaffolded collaboration except for students in the school that engaged in a collaborative learning pedagogy. The study confirms the usability of the framework for game designs, based on theories for the design of physical and hybrid educational games. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic The escape room as a learning environment appeals to teachers of different disciplines, ages, gender and teaching experiences. Teachers implement escape rooms to create active (hybrid) learning spaces, where learners need a combination of knowledge and skills to solve the subject‐based activities. Students and teachers perceive that while participating in escape rooms, students are more engaged, active and learn more compared to regular classes. The assumption is that escape rooms support collaboration and automatically collaborative learning. Review studies on educational escape rooms show that a systematic evaluation is usually absent, disputable or indicates no knowledge gain. Teachers design their educational escape rooms based on digital escape games and/or their experience as players of escape rooms. For digital educational games, important game design aspects are researched. Three main challenges in designing educational games are (1) the participants' transition from the real world to the game world, (2) the alignment of game design aspects and educational aspects and (3) the transfer from attained experiences and knowledge back into the real world. What this paper adds This paper evaluates an educational game design framework for escape rooms, focussing on the above‐mentioned main challenges in designing educational games. It investigates the influence of the educational game design elements immersion, collaboration and debriefing, on fostering learning with a hybrid educational escape room. It informs that all three design elements contributed to students' appreciation of the escape room, whereas only immersion had a direct contribution to knowledge gain. The used hybrid escape boxes contributed most to the immersion; scaffolding students to focus on each other and the tasks. Students' collaboration was successfully fostered. However, it scarcely led to collaborative learning during gameplay, due to lack of discussion and reflection needed for deeper understanding. Implications for practice and/or policy The educational escape game framework would help educators creating immersive games, which not only confront learners with meaningful contexts but also give learning gains. The educational escape game framework would help researchers focussing on important and difficult aspects of designing and implementing educational escape rooms to develop and research more effective escape rooms. In guidelines on creating immersion in educational escape games, the notion of physical objects is lacking. In this hybrid escape room, the physical objects such as escape boxes were the most powerful in creating immersion. In addition, the use of sound design in escape games in classrooms seems overrated. Debriefing after the gameplay is perceived necessary to discuss common misunderstandings, to make connections between the topics in various puzzles and to add more content to interest high‐achieving students.

Traditional large lecture classes can be passive experiences for students. Instead, imagine that several of those learners work at a sleep laboratory and admit four new patients. Within hours, the entire facility is on lockdown, and a mysterious voice on the intercom proclaims that all researchers will lose their ability to sleep within the next hour. This story is the plot of an interactive educational escape room (EER) where students work together and apply concepts related to the history of sleep research, circadian rhythms, and neurological concepts of sleep to solve puzzles. Conventionally, escape rooms are an entertainment experience that requires participants to escape a room in a limited timeframe. We have created a neuroscience EER designed to educate students about the neural basis of sleep, while providing small groups of students with an immersive and interactive experience. Students follow a specially designed digital escape room framework to review sleep pathways, researchers, and brain regions involved with sleep. Unlike conventional escape rooms that can accommodate a limited number of participants, this sleep lab EER is scalable to hundreds of students without the need for a specialized room. Puzzles are enhanced by digital technology that allows instructors to track the progress of every team and note how the entire classroom is doing. Students and teaching assistants had very positive experiences with this EER activity, reporting that the EER solidified course concepts while using creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking skills. We find that EERs are an easy, useful tool to increase engagement and boost inclusivity within large classroom settings, with potential to also be used as an assessment tool.

As educators seek innovative ways to engage students in the learning process, educational escape rooms have emerged as a promising motivational learning strategy. This paper presents a study on the design and playing of such escape rooms by pre-service secondary mathematics and informatics teachers using online tools. The study involved students collaboratively creating their escape rooms and introducing them to their peers. We gathered data through observation, questionnaires, evaluation cards, and their webpages regarding their opinions on the potential of these rooms as a teaching tool. Results indicate that most students found the educational escape rooms to be highly engaging and useful in promoting collaboration, and problem-solving skills. Therefore, they are open to using educational escape rooms in their future teaching. The study sheds light on the potential of student-led design of educational escape rooms as a means of preparing future teachers to incorporate this motivational tool into their teaching practice, with implications for teacher education programs and classroom practice.

Escape rooms have been proven to be a functional game-based approach to teach a variety of subjects. Teachers as well as students are eager to play escape rooms in the classroom; field studies have demonstrated how escape games are a memorable activity with a high retention rate, especially if followed by a proper debriefing session, in which learnings emerged and are made consistent. In recent years literature on educational escape rooms has grown, yet there is little body of research on educational escape rooms on music education. In this paper we present an educational escape room about Afro-American music at the beginning of the past century. The players are asked to solve a murder case happened in the backstage of a jazz club in New Orleans. Such scenario gives the players/students the opportunity to "experience", within the escape room context, cultural and historical details and characteristics related to this musical genre. The puzzles within the escape room are formally related to jazz and Afro-American music, giving players/students the possibility to learn and have a "first-hand" experience with concepts that would otherwise remain purely theoretical within a normal classroom environment. Learning has been measured by the means of a 3-step test design: the pre-test was administered before playing the escape room, the first post-test was administered right after playing the escape room and before the debriefing, while the second post-test was administered two weeks after the debriefing phase. From a qualitative point of view the teacher has noticed high motivation while playing the game, with respect to a normal classroom activity. The quantitative results of the second post-test have shown students have retained many of the concepts presented within the escape room and this highlights the importance of a debriefing phase to consolidate learning after playing an educational escape room.

Mathematics is one of the school subjects where demotivation, dislike and failure are frequent concerns. To address this, it is important to actively engage students in the classroom and employ resources that make math classes more appealing and captivating, leading to meaningful learning experiences.&#x0D; Active, cooperative, and participative learning methods should be prioritized over traditional didactic teaching and the mere transmission of knowledge. Active learning methods offer alternative approaches to the conventional lecture format, actively involving students in the learning process. The concept of an escape room, a gaming experience where participants must solve challenges to escape from a locked room, has gained popularity in educational contexts. The educational escape room is an extension of this concept, aiming to promote real-time problem-solving, teamwork, and discovery of clues and mysteries to facilitate active learning. By engaging in various tasks within a room, students work together in teams, fostering an active learning environment. The educational escape room offers several benefits, including the enhancement of problem-solving skills, student performance, and motivation. By incorporating gamification strategies into teaching and learning processes, this approach proves to be an effective way of promoting active learning in mathematics.&#x0D; In this paper, we present a case study that explores the use of an educational escape room with first-year undergraduate students from a Portuguese higher education institution, with the goal of improving their mathematical problem-solving skills. The study aims to evaluate how escape rooms can contribute to increased student motivation.&#x0D; To assess the perception of students regarding this escape room methodology, a quantitative survey was conducted. The findings indicate that using the escape room as an educational approach effectively increased student interest and improved learning outcomes in mathematics.

The curricular perspective based on teaching processes which takes formal mathematical knowledge as a starting point has been severely criticized. This traditional perspective considers that the formal mathematical knowledge has to be taught prior to the application so, once taught, it can be used to solve problems. Along with this criticism, curricular alternative proposals that have focused attention on the learning process (rather than in the teaching one) have been developed. Recently, game-based learning has been developed as a problem-based learning methodology, able to achieve a deeper implication of the students. In line with this approach, the main scope of this paper is to provide evidence of the learning process in game-based learning environments. To do this, student teachers have designed an educational escape room that fits curricular learning outcomes. This manuscript reports on an educational escape room experience that was implemented in three different Primary Education Schools (total student population of 117 students, while here we present a fragment of 5 participants). In order to evaluate the development of certain knowledge, a transcribed fragment is presented and analyzed. In the reported experience, evidence of learning processes and horizontal mathematization are reported in the frame of an educational escape room. This constitutes an evidence of learning processes in gamified environments.

Implementation of educational escape rooms in a nurse practitioner doctoral curriculum.

Let's play and learn: Educational escape room to improve mental health knowledge in undergraduate nursing students

Theoretical foundations and approaches in research on educational escape rooms: A systematic review

Background: As STEM education evolves, there is an increasing demand for innovative pedagogical tools that not only engage students but also enhance their learning experiences. Educational escape rooms (EERs) have shown promise in meeting these demands by combining enjoyment with effective educational strategies. Purpose: This paper introduces the CREATE framework, a novel approach designed specifically for developing EERs in STEM education. The framework aims to integrate core pedagogical principles with the engaging mechanics of escape rooms to enrich learning outcomes. Sample: While this paper does not focus on a specific sample in empirical research, it addresses the broader academic community involved in STEM education, including educators, curriculum designers, and educational researchers. Design and Methods: The CREATE framework is described through its six key components: Content Integration, Real-world Engagement, Educational Alignment, Adaptability and Accessibility, Teamwork and Communication, and Evaluation and Feedback. Each component is supported by relevant educational theories which guide the design and implementation, ensuring the EERs align with educational standards and learning objectives in STEM. Results: The framework was conceptualised to facilitate the creation of EERs that are theoretically sound and pedagogically effective. The paper provides a theoretical basis and design methodology expected to enhance the educational impact of escape rooms. Conclusion: The CREATE framework offers a scalable and theory-based approach to enhance STEM education through EERs. It holds significant potential for educators seeking to innovate and improve student engagement and learning outcomes. Future research should focus on empirical validation of the framework across various educational settings to substantiate its effectiveness and adaptability.