Educational Escape Room Research Articles

Prospects for the use of educational escape room in training psychologists to provide help in crisis situations

Introduction. Training psychologists to provide help in crisis situations should include the formation of not only a high level of professional skills (hard skills), but also a range of social skills (soft skills), including skills of creativity, critical thinking, effective communication, time-management, flexibility and stress resistance, which requires to implement the advance forms and methods of learning. One of such innovation, which is actively implemented in higher education for the development of flexible skills in specialists in various specialties, is the use of educational escape room (EER) as a new form of game learning. That is why to analyze the feasibility of introducing a new form of education into the training of practical psychologists is very relevant. Aim. To identify prospects for use of EER to train psychologists to provide help in crisis situations, as well as for their professional and personal development. Results. A significant number of publications on the researched problem testifies to the high interest of the educational community in the implementation of new intellectual forms of game learning in higher education institutions. The article reveals the meaning of the concept of "educational escape room", as well as the importance of use EER for development of social skills (soft skills) in future psychologists. The expediency and possibility of using EER to train psychologists to provide help in crisis situations are analyzed. The authors of the article see the expediency and prospects of using EER for professional development of psychologists in such fields as organizational psychology, economic psychology, business psychology, conflict psychology, health psychology, educational psychology and others. Conclusions.The information presented in the article can be useful in the implementation of quest technology for the professional and theoretical training of future psychologists, as well as for the development of their social skills.

Educational escape rooms in pharmacy education: A narrative review

Background: The pharmacy profession has evolved tremendously, assuming important roles in patient care and often working in multidisciplinary healthcare teams. Educational escape rooms are team-based games delivered in active learning environments that address educational objectives by developing necessary competencies and skills for future pharmacists. Methods: This narrative review synthesises current practices and outcomes of educational escape rooms in pharmacy education with the primary aim of helping educators in developing and implementing escape room games. A database search of Web of Knowledge, Scopus, ScienceDirect and Google Scholar identified 1,057 studies. Results: After article screening, twenty studies were included. The majority of the studies (85%) reported the development of escape room games for pharmacy practice and professional development. Conclusion: Educational escape rooms were positively perceived by students, enhancing knowledge and serving as a platform to foster teamwork, communication, and problem-solving skills while applying clinical skills deemed essential in producing competent pharmacists in the 21st century.

A Web-Based Escape Room to Raise Awareness About Severe Mental Illness Among University Students: Randomized Controlled Trial

BackgroundPeople with severe mental illness (SMI) face discriminatory situations because of prejudice toward them, even among health care personnel. Escape rooms can be a novel educational strategy for learning about and empathizing with SMI, thus reducing stigma among health care students.ObjectiveThis study aimed to examine the effect of the Without Memories escape room on nursing students’ stigma against SMI.MethodsA pre- and postintervention study was conducted with a control group and an experimental group. A total of 306 students from 2 Andalusian universities participated in the study. Data were collected through a pre-post study questionnaire, consisting of an adapted version of the Attributional Style Questionnaire and a questionnaire on motivation for cooperative playful learning strategies. The control group carried out an escape room scenario without sensitizing content, whereas the experimental group carried out an escape room scenario on SMI, with both escape rooms being carried out in a 1-hour session of subjects related to mental health. To answer the research questions, a 2-way analysis of variance with repeated measures, a linear regression, and a 2-way analysis of variance were performed.ResultsAfter the intervention, a significant reduction (P<.001) was observed in the experimental group in stigmatizing attitudes compared with the control group, in which no statistically significant changes (P>.05) were observed. In contrast, the linear regression (t195=−22.15; P<.001) showed that there was an inverse relationship between flow and the level of reduced stigma. When controlling for having or not having a close relative, the intervention was also shown to be effective (P<.001) in reducing the stigma displayed, both for people with affected and unaffected relatives.ConclusionsOur findings suggest that the Without Memories escape room can be used as an effective tool to educate and raise awareness about stigmatizing attitudes toward SMI in university students studying health care. Future testing of the effectiveness of educational escape rooms should be designed with new programs through playful strategies of longer duration to evaluate whether they can achieve a greater impact on motivation, acquisition of knowledge, and awareness. In addition, the feasibility of implementing the Without Memories escape room in other careers related to health and community should be investigated.

The Safety Showdown: Perceptions and Practice Change of Inpatient Caregivers After a Patient Safety Escape Room.

Educational escape rooms actively engage learners and foster teamwork. It is unclear if they result in nursing practice change. Three hundred ninety-eight nursing and ancillary caregivers participated in an escape room involving patient safety and fall prevention concepts. An average rating of 4.3 out of 5 on the escape room perception scale was obtained via a postsurvey, showing positive perceptions of the event. In a delayed postsurvey, participants discussed resultant patient safety practice changes.

Gamification: A pedagogical strategy for generation Z nursing students

Background: Nurse educators must develop teaching strategies to meet the growing needs of healthcare and engage Generation Z nursing students. Gamification based learning activities, such as educational escape rooms, combine multiple modalities that appeal to the current generation of nursing students. Educational escape rooms have the potential to improve teamwork and achievement of learning outcomes among nursing students. However, few studies have been done to identify nursing student perception of the educational and teambuilding value of these activities. Methods: A longitudinal exploratory study was conducted to determine baccalaureate nursing student perceptions of the value of team-based escape rooms as an educational tool and compare self-reported teamwork scores after completing a series of escape activities. Students were recruited from a baccalaureate nursing course to participate in five escape room activities and asked to complete anonymous online surveys to determine perceptions of educational value and teamwork after each activity.Results: A total of 33 participants responded positively to educational escape rooms with 100% of participants stating they would recommend this activity to others. Teamwork assessments were also positive with improvement as the study progressed.Conclusions: Educational escape rooms are an appropriate tool for nurse educators today that students value and enjoy. The use of escape rooms in nursing education engages students in learning while also improving teamwork.

Teacher Perceptions on Virtual Reality Escape Rooms for STEM Education

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is a meta-discipline employing active, problem-centric approaches such as game-based learning. STEM competencies are an essential part of the educational response to the transformations caused by the fourth industrial revolution, spearheaded by the convergence of multiple exponential technologies. Teachers’ attitude is a critical success factor for any technology-enhanced learning innovation. This study explored in-service teachers’ views on the use of a digital educational escape room in virtual reality. Forty-one (n = 41) K-12 educators participated in a mixed research study involving a validated survey questionnaire instrument and an online debriefing session in the context of a teacher training program. The key findings revealed that such alternative instructional solutions can potentially enhance the cognitive benefits and learning outcomes, but further highlighted the shortcomings that instructional designers should consider while integrating them in contexts different than the intended. In line with this effort, more systematic professional development actions are recommended to encourage the development of additional teacher-led interventions.

You escaped! How did you learn during gameplay?

AbstractThis 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.

A learning analytics perspective on educational escape rooms

ABSTRACT Learning analytics methods have proven useful in providing insights from the increasingly available digital data about students in a variety of learning environments, including serious games. However, such methods have not been applied to the specific context of educational escape rooms and therefore little is known about students' behavior while playing. The present work aims to fill the gap in the existing literature by showcasing the power of learning analytics methods to reveal and represent students' behavior when participating in a computer-supported educational escape room. Specifically, we make use of sequence mining methods to analyze the temporal and sequential aspects of the activities carried out by students during these novel educational games. We further use clustering to identify different player profiles according to the sequential unfolding of students' actions and analyze how these profiles relate to knowledge acquisition. Our results show that students' behavior differed significantly in their use of hints in the escape room and resulted in differences in their knowledge acquisition levels.

Evaluation of an escape room approach to interprofessional education and the opioid crisis

BackgroundThe use of an escape room in education helps promote communication, teamwork, and leadership amongst interprofessional learners in a unique and engaging manner; however, it is unknown if this method can change clinical knowledge related to the opioid crisis and interprofessional attitudes. Our objective was to evaluate the use of an interprofessional escape room activity to increase clinical knowledge related to the opioid crisis and to change attitudes toward interprofessional collaboration. Interprofessional education activityThe session was developed as part of an interprofessional program at University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. In this educational escape room activity, teams of interprofessional students solved six puzzles to gain knowledge of the opioid crisis. Knowledge gains were assessed using a pretest and posttest, while changes in interprofessional attitudes were assessed using the Student Perceptions of Interprofessional Clinical Education-Revised (SPICE-R) instrument. DiscussionOf the 88 total participants, 70 students from six different health professions completed both the pretest and posttest and were included in the analysis. Knowledge of the opioid crisis improved, particularly in identifying signs of opioid overdose. Overall, SPICE-R ratings increased, which was driven by improvement in understanding professional roles and responsibilities. ImplicationsThe use of an interprofessional escape room as an educational method was effective in increasing some aspects of opioid crisis related knowledge and enhancing attitudes toward interprofessional collaboration. The educational model is applicable to various topics and interprofessional groups.

Digital Escape Rooms as Game-Based Learning Environments: A Study in Sex Education

Game-based learning is becoming increasingly popular in education. The playful experience especially promises a high degree of students’ motivation. In this research, we examine the influence of sequential scaffolding within a digital educational escape room game. Escape rooms are usually games where players have to escape from a room within a given time limit by completing different tasks and quests. Therefore, we developed an educational virtual escape room for biology classes, focusing on the topic of sex education. In an experiment, we modified this learning environment and developed two different conditions: in one escape room, scaffolding was implemented using sequential learning aids; in the other escape room, which was assigned to the control group, no additional learner support was provided. The main objective of this quantitative research is to measure the escape room’s impact on learning and cognitive load. In addition, motivation, flow experience and experience of immersion are analyzed. A comparison between the two escape rooms shows that additional scaffolding does not significantly increase cognitive load or have any effect on learning. Results show that motivation and knowledge acquisition can be successfully supported by using game-based learning with escape rooms.

Digitalno obrazovanje u sestrinstvu

The coronavirus pandemic caused unprecedented changes in all spheres of life. Education has completely shifted from the dominantly traditional to the digital framework. With that, nurse educators in higher education also started applying different models of innovative digital technologies. For example, the recreational escape room (ER) game, which has gained global popularity in the last decade, has inspired nurse educators to apply it in an educational setting. According to the definition, ER is a game in which a team of players discovers clues solves puzzles and performs tasks in one or more rooms to achieve a specific goal in a limited time, usually "room escape". In educational ER, all problems, challenges and activities are called a puzzle, while the term room means the space in which it is realized. Therefore, educational ER can be on-site and online. ER has found its place in the learning environment because it brings time-limited authentic situations from the natural professional environment. To successfully complete the mission and "escape from the room", students, in addition to engagement that encourages critical thinking, intensively communicate and cooperate with each other. This paper presents the application of online educational ER in the subject Fundamentals of Nursing.

A Virtual Escape Room versus Lecture on Infectious Disease Content: Effect on Resident Knowledge and Motivation.

IntroductionMedical educators are constantly seeking methods to increase engagement in the era of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) where virtual and blended learning formats are increasingly common. Educational escape rooms have previously been used to motivate learners, enhance communication skills, and cultivate teamwork. However, it is not known whether escape rooms increase learner knowledge as compared to a lecture format.MethodsThis quasi-experimental study included 30 emergency medicine residents at two programs who participated in both a virtual escape room and a lecture on infectious disease content. Learners completed a pre- and post-quiz and a tool to gauge resident motivation for each activity (the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory [IMI]). The primary objective was to determine a change in knowledge as a result of the activities, and a secondary objective was to determine resident motivation for each format.ResultsAt both programs learners demonstrated a significant improvement in their pre- vs. post-quiz scores for the escape rooms (University of California Irvine [UCI]: 77.8% to 88.9%, p = 0.028, Prisma: 73.81% to 89.68%, p = 0.002), whereas the lectures did not impact a statistical improvement (UCI: 73.8% to 78.6%, p = 0.460, Prisma: 85.71% to 91.27%, p = 0.236). Learners at UCI noted equivalent results on the IMI for both formats, while residents at Prisma noted they were more motivated by the escape room.ConclusionEmergency medicine residents at two programs participating in a virtual escape room demonstrated a statistical increase in knowledge on infectious disease content as compared to a lecture format and reported positive motivation ratings for both formats, with one program preferring the escape room.

Acquisition of Learning and Empathy Towards Patients in Nursing Students Through Online Escape Room: An Exploratory Qualitative Study.

BackgroundCurrently, there are still prejudices and negative beliefs towards people with severe mental disorder. The stigma of healthcare professionals can affect both recovery time and patients’ own self-stigma. In universities, it is necessary to reduce these prejudices through training on mental health.PurposeThe purpose of this research has been to assess the use of educational escape rooms as a learning and awareness strategy on stigmatizing attitudes towards people with serious mental disorders in university students.MethodsAn online escape room has been designed whose narrative shows the daily life of a person with a serious mental illness. An exploratory qualitative study has been carried out to explore the perception of 44 university students from two Andalusian universities about this escape room.ResultsThe results of the study show that most of the interviewed students consider that the educational escape room has been a fun and motivating learning strategy, which has allowed them to learn cooperatively and empathize with the protagonist with a mental disorder.ConclusionOnline escape rooms can be a useful strategy for teaching health sciences students. Considering it a fun activity, students are more participatory and engaged to the curricular content, in our case, stigmatizing attitudes towards people with serious mental disorders.

A How to Guide and Template for Designing a Puzzle Based Escape Room Game

Educational games are one active and effective way of engaging students with material while also providing additional motivation to tackle challenging concepts. A particularly popular game concept is the escape room, where students need to work in groups to solve a series of puzzles to prevent disaster from occurring in an imaginary universe, all within a specified amount of time. This paper presents a general guide to constructing an escape room for undergraduate classrooms. Unlike many recently published educational escape rooms, this template does not use any laboratory-based components, making it widely applicable to any class and any level, although it will be most easily adapted to classes that do include analytical components. The puzzles in the game escalate from remembering and understanding concepts to applying and evaluating techniques and data. Unlike many other games and puzzles, an escape room does not reveal the final answers until the allocated time is up, which forces students to work through challenging questions and find solutions within their group to advance in the game. The game provides students many instances for formative assessment and encourages helpful discussions surrounding misconceptions and core course content while they escalate through the challenges.

The experiment in mathematical education: the escape room

In this article the use of the educational escape room in the process of teaching mathematics is presented.

Design and Evaluation of an Athletic Training Educational Escape Room

Context The educational escape room is an innovative teaching strategy, and the use of this technique is gaining popularity in some health care disciplines. It is believed to promote acquisition of knowledge and skills, increase motivation, and encourage engagement, critical thinking, collaboration, and problem-solving. Objective To describe the use of an innovative educational escape room in a master's-level athletic training course and to examine learning effectiveness and students' perceptions. Design Quasi-experimental. Setting A Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education–accredited master's-level athletic training program. Patients or Other Participants A convenience sample of 14 students enrolled in a master's-level professional athletic training program participated. Intervention(s) Educational escape room. Main Outcome Measures(s) A paired-samples t test was used to determine differences between preactivity and postactivity knowledge-assessment scores. Measures of central tendency were used for survey questions related to student perceptions of the activity. Student perceptions were assessed after the intervention. Results All participants completed the preactivity and postactivity knowledge assessments. The difference in scores was found to be statistically significant (t13 = −4.502, P = .001), with a large effect size (Cohen d = 1.32). Participants thought the escape room was an effective way to improve their knowledge of course materials (mean ± SD = 5.0 ± 0.0) and encouraged them to apply course material in a new way (mean ± SD = 4.9 ± 0.27). Participants reported that they had fun (mean ± SD = 5.0 ± 0.0) and felt that the activity was immersive (mean ± SD = 5.0 ± 0.00). Qualitative elements from the postactivity survey corroborated the data. Conclusions The education escape room described in this study promoted learning while providing a fun and engaging learning experience with positive perceived value.

A collaborative escape room as gamification strategy to increase learning motivation and develop curricular skills of occupational therapy students

BackgroundThis study presents an experiment regarding the introduction of gamification strategies in occupational therapy courses. Based on previous studies, the objective is to adapt the idea of recreational escape rooms to educational environments of health sciences like occupational therapy to increase student motivation and promote game-based learning and key skills, such as teamwork.MethodsComputer software was created for a collaborative escape room which allows on-line simultaneous play of up to 24–30 students. It was tested three times in an occupational therapy degree program with 75 students and it was based on two different subjects, although it can be adapted to others. The escape room was evaluated using feedback surveys and comparing students’ performances before and after the game. Descriptive exploratory statistical analysis was performed using SPSS version 24.ResultsAn appropriate use of educational escape rooms can have significant positive impacts on students’ engagement and learning. Students were found to prefer using gamification tools in their learning. Their degrees of satisfaction exceeded their expectations.ConclusionsEducational escape rooms may have a positive impact on students’ motivation and a statistically significant improvement of test scores after playing was found. Comments from the feedback surveys were used to improve successive versions of the software and design of the game.Trial registrationT.F.G. n° 2020.038 (Research Ethics Committee of the Principality of Asturias).

How do educational Escape Rooms help in improving Soft Skills?

Over the past 20 years, work, play, and learning have changed dramatically through technology. Today, we need different skills than in the 20th century, and educational institutions have a key role to play in developing skills. Unfortunately, schools are unable to keep pace with the development of skills that are essential elements of student success. Educators around the world are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of soft skills and play a huge role in ensuring that students are properly prepared for the world of university and work. In contrast, traditional education does not always provide the right tools to improve student success in this area. Following the recent shift from traditional didactic classroom models to the adoption of active learning approaches, escape rooms are increasingly being used in academia as a method for experiential, peer-group, game-based learning. Educational escape rooms are emerging as a new type of learning activity under the promise of enhancing students’ learning through highly engaging experiences. The paper aims to present opportunities to develop soft skills in the school setting using educational escape rooms. The study also reports on testing the self-developed escape room environment for educational purposes.

Educational Hall Escape: Increasing Motivation and Raising Emotions in Higher Education Students

Educational Escape Room is an innovative method used in classrooms to motivate students. This article describes a version of Educational Escape Room applied to undergraduate students. Specifically, this work presents an adaptation of the method called Educational Hall Escape, characterized by the resolution of challenges in a game-adapted room in which several student groups compete to finish the activity in the least amount of time. To date, the Educational Hall Escape method applied to the field of business economy has not been reported in the literature. The objective of the study is to analyze the influence of the Educational Hall Escape method on the learning processes and emotions of students during the activity and its impact on their motivation and the reinforcement their competences and knowledge. An experiment was designed in which the class was divided into a control group and an experimental group. To measure the impact of the experience in the students, two tools were used: an exam and the Gamefulquest survey. Despite the fact that the results obtained show that the students perceived the experience as a game, it improved their motivation and increased their proclivity to have an emotional bond with the subject, the academic results remained steady.

A flexible customizable virtual escape room approach for interprofessional learners

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.