Abstract
The global increase in recreational escape rooms has inspired teachers around the world to implement escape rooms in educational settings. As escape rooms are increasingly popular in education, there is a need to evaluate their use, and a need for guidelines to develop and implement escape rooms in the classroom. This systematic review synthesizes current practices and experiences, focussing on important educational and game design aspects. Subsequently, relations between the game design aspects and the educational aspects are studied. Finally, student outcomes are related to the intended goals. Educators in different disciplines appear to have different motives for using the game's time constraints and teamwork. These educators make different choices for related game aspects such as the structuring of the puzzles. Unlike recreational escape rooms, in educational escape rooms players need to reach the game goal by achieving the educational goals. More alignment in game mechanics and pedagogical approaches is recommended. There is a discrepancy in perceived and actual learning of content knowledge in recreational escape rooms. Recommendations in the article for developing and implementing escape rooms in education will help educators in creating these new learning environments, and eventually help students to foster knowledge and skills more effectively.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 100364 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| Journal | Educational Research Review |
| Volume | 31 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Nov 2020 |
Funding
In educational ERs, various forms of puzzle structures are used, seemingly less complex than in recreational ERs. When the nature of the learned process is sequential or students are graded on their performances during the gameplay, educators choose a sequential pathway. Another rationale for the overall use of sequential puzzle paths in medical ERs is that it resembles the common practice of case and station-based education. In STEM ERs, besides sequential puzzle paths, path-based and hybrid puzzle paths are also used to create positive social interdependency and stimulate collaborative and active learning. A trend is visible in upscaling the game for more or all teams at the same time. This means that either the ?room? aspect of the ER concept is abandoned, or the ?escape? aspect, as the use of an all-inclusive puzzle box per team requires a ?break in?. A group size of 4?6 players seems most suitable for immersion, participation and group communication during game play. It seems independent of the discipline or educational setting (informal or formal). The playtime has a range between 20 and 120 min, with a median of 60 min, independent of the educational setting or discipline. This is remarkable as STEM and medical educators ascribe different roles to the restricted time in the learning process during escape games. The playtime seems more determined by available time slots and the assumed common practice in recreational ERs. Technology is implemented in educational ERs for various reasons; 1) to monitor the safety and progression of students from adjacent rooms, 2) to foster students' subject related IT skills, 3) to support the narrative and enhance immersion, and mostly 4) to structure the gameplay by verifying answers and unfolding new puzzles, codes or additional content knowledge. Educators intend to research the possibilities for the last two reasons more thoroughly, to upscale the activity for the whole class with limited staff, and to create autonomy and ownership for students. Related research in the field of educational ERs describes the development of open-source tools (?decoders?) to validate players solutions (Ross, 2019), the implementation of digitally pre-set hints and the role of technology in creating immersive authentic learning environments which confront learners with outside world problems (Veldkamp et al., 2020).The authors gratefully acknowledge Talitha Tijsterman, graduate Science Education and Communication, Utrecht University for her assisting role during the research.