Escape Room Game Research Articles

Positive Effects of an Escape Room Game on Members of a Pharmacy Department.

Positive Effects of an Escape Room Game on Members of a Pharmacy Department.

Web Based Escape Room Game “La Cosa Nostra” Using WebGL

"La Cosa Nostra" is a two-dimensional website-based escape room game that can be accessed using 
 internet browser. This game was developed with Unity Game Engine. The player will play as a 
 detective investigating the case of a missing woman. Testing methods was done by Blackbox testing, Alpha 
 testing by lecturer and Beta Testing will be using survey form.

Implementation of a hepatitis-themed virtual escape room in pharmacy education: A pilot study

As we enter a world of blended learning in higher education, an increased need for adaptation of teaching strategies to enhance engagement has been recognised to amplify learning outcomes online. Gamification has been identified as a creative tool to engage the current cohort of learners who are also characteristically tech-savvy. To this end, escape room games have gained considerable traction in medical and pharmacy education to promote learning, critical thinking and teamwork. In this pilot study we describe the implementation of a 60-minute, web-based hepatitis-themed escape room game within a Year 3 Pharmacotherapy unit at Monash University. A total of 418 students participated in this activity. Students’ knowledge gain on the topic was assessed through a pre- and post-intervention assessment, whereby a statistically significant improvement was seen in the knowledge score following implementation of the gaming activity (58.66% pre-intervention vs. 72.05% post-intervention, p < 0.05). The innovative learning activity was also well perceived by the students. Virtual escape room game is a viable pedagogical approach to teach and reinforce clinical concepts among pharmacy students. With the evolving landscape of education and learner demographics, investment in technology- enhanced game-based learning is a promising trajectory to support students’ growth in a learner-centered environment. A comparison between virtual escape room game and traditional teaching will further inform effectiveness of the gamification on long term knowledge retention.

Designing and Evaluating Aventura Marina: A Serious Game to Promote Visitors’ Engagement in a Science Museum Exhibition

Abstract Museums have employed video games in their exhibitions to foster visitors’ participation and improve their learning process through a positive experience. In this work, we present Aventura Marina, a serious video game inspired by escape room game mechanics, composed of an app and an authoring tool, which aims to promote visitors’ engagement with the new exhibition Sea Hall of the Caracol Museo de Ciencias, a Mexican museum in the northwest of Mexico. To design Aventura Marina, we followed a user-centered design approach, based on the design thinking methodology. We evaluated the high-fidelity prototype of the game and the low-fidelity prototype of the authoring tool with museum staff and potential visitors. Our results indicate that Aventura Marina has the potential to promote visitors’ engagement with the Sea Hall exhibition as participants indicated having a positive experience, recognized that they were more interested in and less bored by the topics of the exhibition and that they were eager to play the game again. In relation to the authoring tool, museum staff mentioned how this project could be implemented in other halls of the museum. Finally, we discuss the improvements for a future iteration of the prototypes and how this kind of technology can complement the content of museum exhibitions.

Escaping the Privacy Paradox: Evaluating the Learning Effects of Privacy Policies With Serious Games

Privacy Policies inform users about how their personal data is managed while fulfilling the obligatory requirements. Past studies have shown that users often do not read privacy policies, cannot comprehend the long and complex policy documents, and resort to providing their consent without knowledge. To enable users to make an informed decision, we explored serious games as a new medium to improve their understanding of privacy policies. In a mobile escape room game, users engage with the data collection and processing by solving different puzzles. We validated the game concept in a user study by comparing it to a conventional textual policy. Our findings show that the game promoted greater information recall in users. However, a trade-off seems to exist between frustration, duration and understanding. We show strategies for turning a privacy policy into game elements for a mobile escape room game and incorporating privacy information into different puzzles. We recommend that the choice of a privacy policy format should vary in a case-by-case scenario and should accommodate different target audiences.

Refurbishing the Educational Escape Room for Programming: Lowering the Threshold and Raising the Ceiling

Programming education at university level has often been identified as problematic learning. At the same time, prognosis for future labour market is increased need for professionals with programming and related skills. To meet demands of future society, K-12 schools around the world have integrated programming in the curriculum. However, research show challenges for integrating programming in K-12 education. Challenges include students’ and teachers’ struggle with learning and teaching programming, lack of time to properly incorporate programming in existing teaching and learning, and insufficient support for teachers. This study addresses these challenges by designing, developing, and evaluating an educational game on programming that combines the idea of game-based learning with digital escape rooms. In the game, the player develops knowledge about programming concepts to escape 10 rooms. The study’s main research question was: What are K-12 students’ perceptions of the game and what do they considered to be important design factors for a digital escape room game on computer programming? A design science approach was used for designing, developing, and evaluating a web-based escape room game on programming. This was conducted in a five-step process: 1) Explicating the problem, 2) Defining the requirements, 3) Designing and developing the artefact, 4) Demonstrating the artefact, and 5) Evaluating the artefact. The game was tested and evaluated by 32 K-12 students with a questionnaire during the autumn semester of 2021 and spring semester of 2022. Collected data were then analysed and grouped into categories to answer the study’s aim and research question. Findings of the study show several suggestions for further development and important design factors to consider when developing a digital escape room game. The next steps of research are to combine these findings with evaluations from teachers, and to incorporate this in an updated version of the game.

Creating an Escape Room for Cultural Mediation: Insights from "The Archivist's Dream"

The Archivist’s Dream („Der Traum der Archivarin“) is a Live Escape Room Game that has been developed by the University of Krems’ Center for Applied Game Studies on behalf of the Archives of Contemporary Arts in Krems, Austria, which are dedicated to collecting pre-mortem bequests and post-mortem estates of outstanding artists. Located in the underground facilities of the archive, the Escape Room interweaves selected archival materials, historic media devices and archivist approaches to form an interactive puzzle experience. However, it is not an interactive exhibition showcasing the archives’ contents; and while the Escape Room incorporates elements of educational game design, it is an example for a less common application of (Escape Room) Games: the use of game design in the field of cultural mediation (Kulturvermittlung). Instead of following an educational goal in the narrower sense, the Escape Room is designed to turn aspects of cultural mediation and archival practice into gameplay principles, focusing on letting players explore the tenets of archival thinking rather than on “teachable” content. This is achieved by establishing different levels of (un-)reality players have to travers within the game: players follow a fictional archivist into her dreams, which merge with the real-life archives. In order to “escape” this dream world, players combine archival practices with dream logic to solve a secret tied to actual archival materials, while at the same time dissolving the borders between real life, dream and game.

The Impact of Escape Room Gamification Using a Teleconferencing Platform on Pharmacy Student Learning.

ObjectiveThe purpose of this study is to design and implement a virtual escape room game using the Zoom video conferencing platform to enhance third professional doctor of pharmacy students’ knowledge of self-management of sexual health and pregnancy prevention and to assess student’s perception of the activity.MethodsStudents were divided into five pre-assigned breakout rooms of five to six students each using the Zoom video conferencing platform, following the conclusion of the self-care sexual health and pregnancy prevention lecture. Once in the breakout room, students worked as a group to complete seven activities to gain access to a code needed to “escape the room.” At the completion of the activity, students were asked to fill out a perceptions survey.ResultsTwenty-six students participated in the virtual escape room activity, with all students completing the activity within the allotted time. Overall, students expressed positive attitudes toward the escape room activity, reporting it helped them check their knowledge of the subject, remain motivated, and connect with their classmates.ConclusionsOverall, the virtual escape room had a positive impact on student learning and application of subject material.

“Alone in Space” - Escape Room Game for VR

Virtual reality (VR) technology has undergone a huge breakthrough in development and distribution over the last few years. Now it is becoming an increasingly popular tool not only in the field of creating computer games but also in industry and educational process. From the beginning, VR devices were big, uncomfortable, and very expensive. For this reason, they were used mainly in research laboratories, high-tech enterprises, and military installations. Currently, leading companies in the field of new technologies, such as HTC, Google, Sony, Samsung, have filled the market with compact and accessible devices for nesting in the VR. They managed to create a completely new category of consumer goods. The paper is devoted to the study of VR technologies and their use for the development of our own free-of-charge game. The created game combines several genres, escape room with elements of the genre of Shooter (FPS) and Logic. Our game could be used to practice logic and observation.

An evaluation of undergraduate student nurses' gameful experience whilst playing a digital escape room as part of a FIRST year module: A cross-sectional study

BackgroundThe circumstances arising from the COVID-19 pandemic have accelerated the use of digital teaching and learning in health professions education. Digital gamification-based teaching and learning activities are innovative and versatile tools for the acquisition of professional competencies in higher education, which can be used on a range of topics and can be supplemental to other teaching methods. ObjectivesThis study aimed to investigate nursing students' gameful experience whilst playing a digital escape room. In addition, we aimed to analyze the students' motivation, learning experience and outcome of the activity, and the students' perception of the degree of achievement of the intended learning outcomes. DesignCross-sectional descriptive study. ParticipantsA total of 136 undergraduate first year student nurses enrolled in a “Fundamentals of Nursing” course. MethodThe digital escape room game took place online during the academic year 2020–2021. The measures included the GAMEX scale in its Spanish version and a self-reported questionnaire to evaluate the outcome of the scape room game and the degree of achievement of the intended learning outcomes. ResultsMore than 80 % of the participants were moderately to very motivated to play the game. Three GAMEX dimensions achieved a mean score of 3 or above 3, namely Enjoyment, Creative Thinking and Absence of Negative effects. The mean score for each of the outcome variables was over 3. However, the degree of achievement of the learning outcomes after exiting the digital escape room was uneven. ConclusionGamification-based teaching and learning activities, such as digital escape rooms, can be effective in fostering specific skills, including teamwork, communication and critical thinking. However, they should be designed carefully, and used as a complement, rather than a substitute, of other educational activities.

The Iterative Development of an Online Multiplayer Escape Room Game for Improving Social Interaction through Edutainment

The Iterative Development of an Online Multiplayer Escape Room Game for Improving Social Interaction through Edutainment

Nursing students' experience using an escape room for training clinical skills and competencies on emergency care: A qualitative observational study.

Game-based learning is increasing in nursing education. Also, the assessment of the utility of the escape room game is growing. To explore nursing students’ opinion about the escape room as an evaluation game, a qualitative observational study with nursing students was carried out. An ad hoc questionnaire with open questions was sent after the game learning experience. The escape room included knowledge and techniques from different specialties. The escape room learning game was a positive experience for the students. The main highlighted characteristics were fun, dynamic, and motivating way to study and learn. Other interesting variables were: “Working as a team and under pressure” (It’s a group activity in which everyone must work together. It is a good challenge to learn how to work in urgent situations) and “Different way to assess students´ learning” (In this type of game, I can show more things and not only theoretical knowledge). Game-based learning is increasing in nursing education, as well as the assessment of the utility of the escape room game. Using an escape room for assessing nursing students’ knowledge is a positive experience. This learning experience can be also used with nurses in different specialties to promote teamwork and working under pressure.

Zombie Cruise Ship Virtual Escape Room for POCUS Pulmonary: Scan Your Way Out.

Targeted audience could be learners in medical field with basic knowledge of point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS), pulmonary and emergency medicine for example, medical students, emergency medicine residents (1st-3rd year), emergency physicians at all level of trainings, or emergency medicine physician's assistants. Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) is rapidly becoming an essential part of emergency medicine and patient care .1,2 POCUS can provide more detailed clinical information when used in conjunction with a physical examination, overall aiding clinicians' decision-making capacity.3 POCUS also proves a cost-effective tool in reducing the number of advanced imaging studies ordered and unnecessary patient radiation exposure.3,4 Performing POCUS has also proved beneficial for patient satisfaction because it increases the amount of face-to-face time spent with the patient while also providing live imaging interpretation during the emergency department visits .3,5,6 POCUS-Pulmonary can also create a safer environment for both medical staff and patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.6 Performing POCUS-Pulmonary on suspected COVID-19 patients can limit the number of patients receiving thoracic CT studies to confirm COVID-19 related pneumonia.6,7 Performing POCUS-Pulmonary reduces the number of patients transferred between the radiology department and the emergency department, significantly reduces overall possible COVID-19 exposures, and reduces equipment cleaning time.6 Given the overall reduction of advanced imaging studies ordered, CT scanners would be more readily available for critical care patients, such as trauma or other hemodynamic instability.6 Emergency providers practicing in rural areas with limited resources may benefit from the use of POCUS -Pulmonary, facilitating better patient care at decreased exposure-rate, cleaning cost, and overall increase in patient satisfaction given more bedside patient-provider communication.6-8 POCUS-Pulmonary is a crucial clinical skill for emergency medicine providers everywhere.6,8 Clinicians should be able to perform POCUS-Pulmonary, interpret image findings, and develop a treatment plan promptly.9. By the end of performing the Zombie Cruise Ship Virtual Escape Room, learners will be able to: 1) recognize sonographic signs of A-line, B-line, Barcode sign, Bat sign, Seashore Sign, Plankton sign, Jellyfish Sign, Lung point, lung lockets, and Lung pulse; 2) differentiate sonographic findings of pneumothorax, hemothorax, pneumonia, COVID 19 pneumonia, pulmonary edema, and pleural effusion from normal lung findings; 3) distinguish pneumonia from atelectasis by recognizing dynamic air bronchogram; and 4) recognize indications for performing POCUS pulmonary such as dyspnea, blunt trauma, fall, cough and/or heart failure. This group-based learning program was designed for use in virtual meetings, lectures, and in small-group learning activities, such as didactic and EM conferences. A Google form was used to create a virtual escape room for learners in which they had to take quizzes to advance to the next level. Learners may enact teamwork through discussion and group effort, or respond individually to ultrasound pulmonary questions. Learners will take pre and post-test assessment to compare the learners POCUS-Pulmonary knowledge before and after small group, virtual escape room learning. All participants in the virtual escape room game are given a pre and post-test assessment comprised of seventeen total questions: two questions asking the participant's training level, and fifteen POCUS-Pulmonary questions. Pre and Post-test questions are identical; however, the participants' answers to the pre-test assessment are not revealed to them on completion. Instead, participants receive a letter grade on completing the pre-test assessment. Participants complete the pre and post-test assessments over fifteen minutes allotted before and after the virtual escape room. Upon completing the post-test assessment, a letter grade and the correct answers were given to the participants. Twenty-four emergency medicine resident physicians (PGY 1-3)) participated in the Zombie Cruise Ship Escape Room pre-test, while a total of twenty-three resident physicians participated in the post-test assessment. The pre-test data showed an average of 10.33 points, compared to post-test data, which showed 11.91 points. There was an improvement of two points on the median score with a median pre-test score of 10 vs. the post-test median of 12. The virtual zombie cruise ship experience proved a practical and useful tool in increasing overall participants' interest in POCUS pulmonary during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants had higher retention after actively discussing and researching the most up-to-date clinical information during the virtual and inperson small group meetings. The game encouraged participants to make decisions quickly. This pace created a fun competition between participants who genuinely enjoyed the learning experience even during the COVID-19 pandemic via Zoom/Google Meet virtual conferences. By creating a virtual escape learning tool, learners can experience teamwork-based learning without concern for group size limitations during the pandemic. Sonographic findings of pneumothorax, hemothorax, pneumonia, COVID-19 pneumonia, pulmonary edema, pleural effusion, normal lung, A-line, lack of A-line, presence of B-line, Lung sliding, M mode, dynamic air bronchogram, lung rockets, Bar code Sign, Bat Sign, lung pulse, lung point, hepatization, Seashore Sign, Plankton Sign, Jellyfish Sign, and subpleural pulmonary consolidation.

Mirror Mirror on the Wall: Escape a Remote Virtual Stereochemistry Lab Together

The quest in the “Mirror Mirror on the Wall, Which Chiral Drug Is the Fairest of Them All?” escape room activity was to find an enantiomer drug that cures a “sleeping sickness”. Based loosely on the story of Snow White, first-year pharmacy student pairs had 50 min to solve gamified stereochemistry quizzes (tasks 1–4), collect four letter clues to unlock the final puzzle, and escape the lab. The escape room activity was held after a synchronous instructor-led lab briefing. Guided by the revised Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework, the synchronous practical session leveraged a combination of three online platforms: Miro Board, Quizizz, and Google Forms in the Cisco Webex virtual environment. The Cisco Webex’s breakout room feature helped facilitate teamwork and communication during the escape room game. Students’ responses during the debriefing session indicated enhanced students’ interactions and remote learning experiences throughout the virtual stereochemistry practical during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Escape room: using a simple text-based game to promote business undergraduates’ digital self-reliance

This case study aims to highlight the ease of use and effectiveness of an escape room game by describing how it was implemented in an undergraduate business course. The case study demonstrates the simplicity of a straightforward text-based game and how this was used in a large course of online students. Our case study aims to present our experience of implementing the escape room game from a practical perspective. We add to our narrative some descriptive statistics from a student survey conducted after the game. The case study builds on existing work in this field by extending its use beyond small face-to-face sessions to a technique suitable for far larger classes in an online format.

Learning with a digital escape room game: before or after instruction?

In this study, we investigated whether playing an escape room game after explicit instruction (instruction-first group, N = 20) is more effective to learn about copyright and media law than playing the game before explicit instruction (problem-solving-first group, N = 21). This is an important question as escape room games are complex, problem-based learning environments that can overwhelm learners and thus hinder the acquisition of knowledge and skills. According to cognitive load theory, preparing learners with explicit instruction before problem-solving activities can overcome this problem leading to better learning. However, in the productive failure paradigm problem-solving before explicit instruction is seen as more effective, especially when it comes to the application of newly acquired knowledge to solve novel problems. Based on these two theories, we conducted an experiment and found that playing the developed digital escape room game after explicit instruction was more effective for knowledge retention and domain-specific self-efficacy with at the same time lower cognitive load. However, we found no differences regarding the application of knowledge as both groups scored equally high on transfer tasks. The result is discussed considering previous productive failure studies mostly conducted in the science and engineering domain. In sum, the instruction first approach proved to be effective for both knowledge acquisition and knowledge application, leading to higher domain-specific self-efficacy and lower cognitive load. Therefore, we conclude that the implementation of escape room games after instruction is an effective instructional approach and better suited to promote learning than playing escape room games before instruction.

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 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.

Design, development, and evaluation of a serious video game to promote visitors' engagement in a museum exhibition context

Museums have different challenges form a lack of funding and staff to a decrease in visitors. Due to the lack of interest from visitors, museums have created more enjoyable experiences for the public. The literature has shown that serious games are beneficial to visitors, as they can both encompasses entertainment and learning. On the other hand, this technology is mainly designed without the opportunity to allow for constant changes, resulting in a short life span. In this research, we propose the design and development of a serious video game for Caracol Museo de Ciencias, inspired by escape room game mechanics, which aims to promote visitors' engagement and to provide them with a different game experience every time they visit the museum, through the continuous updating of the game by museum staff with the help of a web authoring tool.