Online Escape Rooms

With COVID 19 pandemic and all nursing theory classes being online, we were interested in exploring online teaching modalities to engage our students. As we researched different options, we became very interested in online gaming. Gaming has become more popular in higher education because games, by their very design, are fun, pique interest, encourage thinking, and demand active involvement, all key components of motivation and learning (Morrell & Ball, 2020; McEnroe-Petitie & Farris, 2019). Games, because they make learning exciting and motivating, they have the potential to increase students' knowledge retention, problem-solving and critical thinking skills (Morrell & Ball, 2020; McEnroe-Petitie & Farris, 2019. Our particular interest was in online escape rooms. Escape room games are built on theories of constructivism and adult learning theory (Morrell & Ball, 2020; Reed, 2020) and can provide immediate feedback. As a result, we designed a pilot study in which online escape room games were created to cover course content related to care scenarios in one nursing course to help students review their knowledge for their final exam. 

The pilot study implementation will begin in April 2021 in which we will recruit students to participate in and engage in the online escape rooms prior to their final exam. Students will be asked to complete a short online survey to explore their perceived usefulness, ease of use, and attitude towards the online escape rooms.  The underpinning for the survey questions were developed from the Technology Acceptance Model (Davis, 1989; Masrom, M., (2007). Students who participated in the online escape rooms final exam grades will also be compared to those students who chose not to take part in the online escape rooms to see if there is any relationship. 

The outcome of this pilot study will provide insight into students’ perception of using online gaming that can be utilized to improve and enhance the online escape room games for future use across all sites and consider integrating into other nursing courses.  We will also discover resources required to create and implement this type of online teaching modality as well as challenges to overcome.