I am currently teaching a project-based work integrated learning subject, Arts Industry Project. In this subject industry partners provide projects for students to work on, but students don’t intern in the traditional sense of working at the industry partner’s workplace instead the work is conducted on campus, in and out of class times. The students in the subject are all third year Faculty of Arts students at an Australian university, from a variety of different disciplinary backgrounds. I am planning on introducing a digital escape room activity into the next iteration of the subject in 2023.[1]

What are escape rooms:

Escape rooms have become popular team-based recreational activities.[2] Physical escape rooms lock players into a room,[3] and are designed to test the participants’ analytical, and puzzle solving skills as well as the players’ ability to work as a team to escape the room within the set time constraint.[4]

Why I am considering an escape room:

A key factor to student success in the industry project subject is teamwork, as with most subjects, industry project only runs for 12 weeks so teams need to be functioning and working well together as quickly as possible. The literature demonstrates that physical escape rooms have been successfully used to develop teamwork skills in healthcare professionals working in high stress environments,[5] and they have also been used to develop confidence in medical students.[6]

Research conducted into the use of physical escape rooms to enhance teamwork in interprofessional healthcare teams clearly demonstrates that teamwork measures (belonging and morale) significantly improved immediately after the participants completed the activity and that this positive effect was still evident 1 month after completion of the room.[7] Unfortunately, due to the turnover of staff, evidence beyond the first month was not recorded. However, the data does suggest that the escape room activity did help with rapid team formation.[8] It will be interesting to see whether a similar increase in teamwork measures will be noted when students are asked to participate in a digital escape room rather than a physical one.

Why a Digital escape room?

Firstly, as is often the case resources dictate that the escape room activity will have to be digital but just as importantly we are still teaching in a BSL (blended synchronous learning) mode due to Covid, with students electing to attend in person or online based on their own circumstances, and I don’t see that changing in the near future.

The escape room for this subject will not necessarily need to include subject specific or related content because the learning outcome I am trying to achieve is one of increased/enhanced teamwork rather than any increased content knowledge. Additionally, the subject content is largely focussed on the process of forming and working in a team and on the host provided projects themselves. It is important to note that the game isn’t intended to frustrate students and teaching staff will be present throughout the activity to provide clues if students become irrevocably stuck an almost universal mechanic in traditional escape rooms.

Post game reflection

I plan to bring Students together into a larger group at the end of the exercise to relax and discuss the activity after its conclusion. I will manage elements of the discussion to focus on which aspects of the way each team performed were positive and what positive traits did individuals note from others within their team. I would like the escape room to highlight different strengths of the participants, therefore I intent to use a diverse range of puzzles designed to test/demonstrate different strengths of individual students to their teammates. Who naturally took a leadership role? Who communicated well? and so on. The hope is that through the post-game guided discussion, group members will consider the strengths demonstrated by their teammates and that understanding will help inform the assignment of appropriate team roles during the team formation phase.

In a future post when I have started developing the escape room I will discuss tools that I am using and the puzzle design process itself so stay tuned, in the meantime:

Have you used escape rooms in your teaching?

Do you have suggestions for how I can best implement an escape room into my subject?

Please comment below. I’d love to hear from you.

Image credit: Zgoza, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International.

[1] The original intent was to introduce a unique escape room game this year (2022), but due to contracting Covid 19, I was unable to follow through with this plan.

[2] Tara N. Cohen et al., “Using Escape Rooms for Conducting Team Research: Understanding Development, Considerations, and Challenges,” Simulation & Gaming 51, no. 4 (2020): p.443.

[3] Rui Pan, Henry Lo, and Carman Neustaedter, “Collaboration, Awareness, and Communication in Real-Life Escape Rooms” (Proceedings of the 2017 Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, Association for Computing Machinery, 2017).

[4] Cohen et al., “Using Escape Rooms for Conducting Team Research: Understanding Development, Considerations, and Challenges,” 443.; Pan, Lo, and Neustaedter, “Short Collaboration, Awareness, and Communication in Real-Life Escape Rooms.” p.1353.

[5] Tara Cohen et al., “Advancing team cohesion: Using an escape room as a novel approach,” Journal of Patient Safety and Risk Management  (04/14 2021),https://doi.org/10.1177/25160435211005934., Xiao Chi Zhang et al., “Trapped as a Group, Escape as a Team: Applying Gamification to Incorporate Team-building Skills Through an ‘Escape Room’ Experience,” Cureus 10, no. 3 (2018).

[6] Cohen et al., “Advancing team cohesion: Using an escape room as a novel approach.”

[7] Cohen et al., “Advancing team cohesion: Using an escape room as a novel approach.”

[8] It is worth noting that the escape room used in this instance was a traditional physical room not a digital room.

Reference List:

Cohen, Tara, Andrew Griggs, Falisha Kanji, Kate Cohen, Elizabeth Lazzara, Joseph Keebler, and Bruce Gewertz. “Advancing Team Cohesion: Using an Escape Room as a Novel Approach.” Journal of Patient Safety and Risk Management  (04/14 2021).

Cohen, Tara N., Andrew C. Griggs, Joseph R. Keebler, Elizabeth H. Lazzara, Shawn M. Doherty, Falisha F. Kanji, and Bruce L. Gewertz. “Using Escape Rooms for Conducting Team Research: Understanding Development, Considerations, and Challenges.” Simulation & Gaming 51, no. 4 (2020): 443-60.

Pan, Rui, Henry Lo, and Carman Neustaedter. “Collaboration, Awareness, and Communication in Real-Life Escape Rooms.” Proceedings of the 2017 Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, Association for Computing Machinery, 2017.

Zhang, Xiao Chi, Hyunjoo Lee, Carlos Rodriguez, Joshua Rudner, Teresa M. Chan, and Dimitrios Papanagnou. “Trapped as a Group, Escape as a Team: Applying Gamification to Incorporate Team-Building Skills through an ‘Escape Room’ Experience.” [In eng]. Cureus 10, no. 3 (2018): e2256-e56.