Abstract
A constant challenge for faculty is to gain and to hold student interest so that substantive learning can occur. One way to achieve this is through the use of games. This article describes an escape room activity for the classroom that is modeled after commercial escape rooms. This fun, single-session team dynamics exercise can be used in an organizational behavior class or be easily adapted to other disciplines and courses. Research shows—and our survey results confirm—that games capture student attention, motivate them, and support learning when connected to specific outcomes. Furthermore, both the competitive element of the activity and the offer of a reward produced a stronger motivation for students to prepare for class and engage with the content. The additional preparation time required to create this novel activity will engage students, anchor class learning, and create readiness for understanding course concepts.
Student engagement is a critical component of effective learning environments (Lund Dean & Fornaciari, 2014). A constant challenge for faculty is to gain and to hold student interest so that substantive learning can occur (Culatta, 2018). One way to achieve this is through the use of games.
This article describes an escape room exercise to create readiness for learning in the area of team dynamics. With some modifications, it can also be used across a range of disciplines and courses. We modeled this exercise on commercial escape rooms and then adapted it to cultivate student engagement in the classroom (Garretson, Krause-Phelan, Siegel, & Thelen, 2014), assist with knowledge acquisition and retention (Pitt, Borman-Shoap, & Eppich, 2015), and improve problem solving (Elder & Paul, 2008). This activity uses a novel approach to review course content and anchor class concepts (Cowen & Tesh, 2002).
Theoretical Foundations for Game-Based Learning
Research shows games capture our attention, motivate us, and support learning (Bergin & Reilly, 2005; Farkas, 2014). Kapp (2012) finds that for educational games to be successful, they need the right context, cognitive activities, challenges, and feedback. Games that meet these criteria generate the quintessential flow activity. Flow is the optimal psychological state of complete cognitive immersion in an activity (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975). It occurs when a person with sufficient skills to meet a challenge is given a clear goal and a demanding task.
Burguillo (2010) recommends layering in an element of competition for experiential exercises, such as games, to produce stronger motivation for students to increase their performance. Escape room games capture all of these elements and allow students to move through the learning process of “experiencing, reflecting, thinking, and acting” (Kolb & Kolb, 2005) in a single-session activity.
Background of Escape Rooms
Escape rooms are live-action games in which people work together—usually in groups of three or more people, some of whom they may know and some they may meet for the first time when they enter the room—to discover clues, solve puzzles, and complete tasks to “escape” a room within a certain time and accomplish a specified mission (Brockuvideo, 2017). The venue may consist of a single room or span several rooms. Stone (2016) describes escape rooms as “an innovative way to bring technology and critical thinking into the classroom . . . promoting engagement in a learning environment.” These games have grown exponentially over the past 5 years with almost 5,000 games being played globally in 75 countries (Stone, 2016). This escape room video from Hungary (Great Big Story, 2018) provides an introduction to the game concepts.
While escape rooms have grown in popularity for entertainment purposes and team-building activities, they have rarely been used in higher education. This article examines how instructors can adapt recreational escape rooms to create a unique learning exercise for the classroom.
Intended Audience and Suitability for a Broad Spectrum of Courses
Escape room exercises are suitable for use across a broad spectrum of courses and disciplines. We have used our escape room exercise in five university courses (organizational behavior, management, business law, contract law, and communications), with both undergraduate and graduate students, and across two different schools (business school and arts and sciences). While the overall design remains the same, the questions used to uncover clues and solve puzzles can be adapted to any subject matter content. An educational escape room can be used to review a theory (i.e., the clues and problem-solving challenges relate to course concepts) or introduce a topic (i.e., using problem-based learning ideas to create learning readiness). Similarly, the size of each cohort, the time permitted, and the number of puzzles can all be adapted to accommodate different class sizes and to achieve different learning objectives. This article presents a design specific to teams concepts as presented in the popular introductory organizational behavior textbook, Organizational Behavior: Essentials for Improving Performance and Commitment (Colquitt, LePine, & Wesson, 2009).
Although beyond the scope of this article, we have used escape rooms in other courses. For example, we designed an escape room for a business law class to acquaint students with tort concepts. We used the well-known McDonald’s hot coffee case as the backstory for the room and then designed clues and hints around the case to introduce tort law. Similarly, in a contract law course, we designed the classroom after a law firm conference room and used a meeting between a prospective client (i.e., professor) and the law firm’s associates (i.e., students) as a backstory. Students had to meet with the prospective client, solve puzzles involving identification of contract issues, provide legal advice to obtain clues from the client, and convince the client to utilize their services before time elapsed and another law firm tried to win the client’s business.
Learning Objectives
The learning objectives for an escape room experience reflect the content emphasized in the exercise. In this case, since we are focused on team concepts from our selected textbook, the learning objectives mirror those of the chapter (Colquitt et al., 2009, p. 193). After completing the exercise, students should be able to
Define team process and discuss how team process can result in process gain or process loss
Define taskwork and describe examples of team activities that fit into this process category
Define team states and describe concepts that fit into this process category
Explain how team processes affect team performance and team commitment
Escape Room Instructions
Step 1: Design the Escape Room
Preparation for this exercise requires a significant, but worthwhile, time commitment. The setup and clues can be used for the same course in another semester, and the general design elements can be easily adapted to different courses.
Decide on the activity’s purpose (e.g., ice breaker, introduce a topic, reinforce or review content knowledge, or facilitate discussion). In this case, the purpose is to teach the content of the designated chapter on teams.
Establish learning objectives matched to the chapter being studied.
Plan your escape room. For design tips, see Clare’s (2015) site, which has useful step-by-step instructions and room photographs. The instructor must decide what types of clues to use. Clues can be questions, pictures, objects, QR codes, or maps. The clues often contain letters, numbers, or words that fit together to solve larger puzzles (e.g., the letters or numbers of each clue combine to unlock a combination or provide a computer password).
Step 2: Fill in the Details
These items enhance the learning experience and facilitate the operation.
Determine whether and how to assess student performance (e.g., a letter grade, participation points, or extra credit).
Decide on an external reward, if any, for the winning team (e.g., gift card, extra credit points, or extra time on an assignment).
If you use multiple rooms, elicit a volunteer to supervise each room.
Construct a backstory to provide context for clues and to incorporate a room theme (e.g., business office). See Appendix A for a sample backstory.
Create hint cards. Hint cards allow teams to “buy” a hint. The cost is a time penalty added to the team’s total minutes.
Prepare road blocks. We use road blocks when multiple groups compete simultaneously. We hide road blocks in the room. When they are discovered, other groups must stop all activity for a specified number of minutes. See Appendix B for a list of sample clues, hints, road blocks, and rules.
Consult Appendix C when preparing to order supplies.
Review Nicholson’s (2015) explanations and instructions on escape rooms.
Step 3: Introduce the Activity
A week before the escape room, explain the general nature of the exercise, the way it will be assessed, and any reward for the winning team. Also, inform students what course material will be the basis for the escape room clues to encourage preparation before class.
Step 4: Escape Room Activity (Based on a 75-Minute Class)
Team Formation and Guidelines (5 minutes): Divide students into teams of two to eight players and explain the following: (a) general rules (e.g., what areas or objects are off-limits and how hint cards and road blocks work); (b) goal; and (c) time limit. Encourage students to explore the room and to be respectful of their peers (i.e., do not hijack the activity or loaf).
Escape Room (30 minutes): The teams explore the room simultaneously. If more rooms are available, you may decide to use multiple rooms at the same time. If working with one room, divide the room into four quadrants—one for each team—and place identical materials in each quadrant.
Awards and Pictures (5 minutes): Announce the winning team (i.e., the team that “escapes” the room by solving all the clues in the shortest time), the team’s time, and the team’s reward. Give students time to take pictures with premade signs such as We Escaped the Classroom, Success, Escape Room Masters! So Close, or We Broke Out.
Debrief (35 minutes): As with any good experiential activity, the debrief exercise should be developmental. We suggest starting by encouraging students to talk about their experience: What was interesting, unexpected, frustrating, or fun? Then the substantive debrief should be organized around the learning objectives. Based on the objectives outlined in this article, we frame the discussion around concepts such as team characteristics, team interdependence, and team processes, team states, and taskwork processes (see Appendix D for specific debrief questions and connection to learning objectives). Finally, learning can be anchored with a writing assignment using questions similar to those in Appendix E.
Student Feedback
We collected student feedback over a period of 3 years using an anonymous questionnaire with a 5-point Likert-type scale (see Appendix F for the 10-question survey). Of the 134 students surveyed, the results demonstrated near universal support for the activity.
The escape room exercise was a positive experience. Students reported that the escape room activity held their attention (89%), was relevant to the course material (97%), helped them learn (85%) and retain (85%) the material, required active participation (94%), and fostered collaboration with classmates (98%). Faculty, volunteers, and students anecdotally noted that it allowed for broader student participation, provided alternative participation methods, and imbued the class with energy. Finally, because the students reported being motivated to read (57%) and learn (77%) the material before class to prepare for the activity, we observed that students were better equipped to engage with the content. In this case, the escape room activity incentivized student preparation allowing faculty to conduct learning at a more advanced level (Taft, 2016).
Conclusion
Ultimately, any experiential exercise should have the following outcomes: create a more engaged learner through the amplified flow of the exercise, support the content of the course, and create a bridge to deeper learning. Gamification of learning increases student engagement by appealing to all students, combining a collaborative learning environment with healthy competition (Kapp, 2012). Although some research (Bergin & Reilly, 2005) concludes that certain academics see little scholarly merit in games, our experience with the escape room activity defied this notion. The focus on discovering clues, answering content-specific questions, and solving puzzles motivated students to prepare before class, captured their attention during class, and helped them retain the material after class. It also allowed a larger percentage of students to actively participate, and to do so at the same time.
Moreover, escape rooms offer the opportunity not only to assess students’ conceptual understanding of course content but also to support the construction of new knowledge by requiring students to link information together to solve more complex problems (Stary & Weichhart, 2012). With intentional design and preparation, escape room exercises can provide engaging environments that support learning, foster active participation, and add energy to the classroom.
Footnotes
Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C
Appendix D
Appendix E
Appendix F
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.