Escape Rooms for Learning: A Systematic Review

Following the recent shift from traditional didactic classroom models to the adoption of active learning approaches, escape rooms and breakout games are increasingly being used in academia as a method for experiential, peer-group, game-based learning. Although they have the potential to enable new forms of teaching and transform the learning experience, escape rooms are a relatively new concept and there is not a substantial amount of work exploring their tendencies, affordances, and challenges on education. This paper addresses the lack of empirical evidence on the impact of escape rooms on educational settings by presenting a systematic review of 68 peer-reviewed studies published in scientific journals and conference proceedings between 2009 and April 2019. To analyse and critically appraise the current state of knowledge and practice in educational escape rooms, it considers aspects such as fields of education, target audience, game type and location, time limit, team size, and study results. The systematic review also highlights the advantages and challenges of these new learning activities, as well as their positive impact on student motivation and soft skills development. The analysis indicates that educational escape rooms can provide an enjoyable experience that immerses students as active participants in the learning environment. Additionally, they give learners the opportunity to engage in an activity that rewards teamwork, creativity, decision-making, leadership, communication, and critical thinking. Although instructional design for educational escape rooms is complex and time consuming, once the game has been developed it can be further applied in successive years. The results of this work aim to lay the groundwork for educators and other stakeholders by offering new insights with effective advice and recommendations for the successful incorporation of escape rooms into their teaching strategies.