Strategies in solving and talking about an educational science escape room game
Strategies in solving and talking about an educational science escape room game
Escape rooms are a popular genre of physical games. Following the surge in their popularity as recreational games, the genre has made its way into a variety of educational settings with the aim of introducing specific knowledge, content related skills, general skills or fostering affective outcomes. Yet there is limited evidence whether and how escape games achieve these aims. This study attempts to take a deeper look into the learning experience of participants by investigating strategies adopted by different groups of players, the extent to which subject knowledge is discussed within each group and whether these are affected by the types of puzzles. To do this, an educational science escape room game called “Con-Science Escape” consisting of six scientific puzzles was played by 24 MSc students in a university in the UK. The puzzles focused on chemistry and physics: Four were ‘wet’ puzzle consisting of hands-on lab activities and ‘two’ puzzles were ‘dry’ requiring no lab work. Students were split into groups and each group was video-recorded during their game. The video data were analysed to investigate strategies used by each group and the amount of utterance about the subject knowledge of science during the puzzle solving. Analysis revealed five types of strategies: seeking, individual leadership, doing, collaborating and working with a lack of clear strategy. None of the groups seemed to have exhibited a lot of talk about science. ‘Doing’ seems to have led to the fastest time solving the puzzles but collaborating led to the most science talk. We discuss the implications of these findings and what future directions we believe research on educational escape rooms should take. We will aim to bring some of the puzzles to the summer school presentation to allow participants to experience the escape room firsthand.
Peleg, Ran
99135615-235e-4bd3-a58e-12bab19fdd8c
Shaby, Neta
8e27d9f4-f99e-4fae-8f5a-bfb59b67f0e5
4 July 2024
Peleg, Ran
99135615-235e-4bd3-a58e-12bab19fdd8c
Shaby, Neta
8e27d9f4-f99e-4fae-8f5a-bfb59b67f0e5
Peleg, Ran and Shaby, Neta
(2024)
Strategies in solving and talking about an educational science escape room game.
In Beyond the Lock: Innovative Approaches to Escape Rooms in Education, Culture, and Organisational Development.
Record type:
Conference or Workshop Item
(Paper)
Abstract
Escape rooms are a popular genre of physical games. Following the surge in their popularity as recreational games, the genre has made its way into a variety of educational settings with the aim of introducing specific knowledge, content related skills, general skills or fostering affective outcomes. Yet there is limited evidence whether and how escape games achieve these aims. This study attempts to take a deeper look into the learning experience of participants by investigating strategies adopted by different groups of players, the extent to which subject knowledge is discussed within each group and whether these are affected by the types of puzzles. To do this, an educational science escape room game called “Con-Science Escape” consisting of six scientific puzzles was played by 24 MSc students in a university in the UK. The puzzles focused on chemistry and physics: Four were ‘wet’ puzzle consisting of hands-on lab activities and ‘two’ puzzles were ‘dry’ requiring no lab work. Students were split into groups and each group was video-recorded during their game. The video data were analysed to investigate strategies used by each group and the amount of utterance about the subject knowledge of science during the puzzle solving. Analysis revealed five types of strategies: seeking, individual leadership, doing, collaborating and working with a lack of clear strategy. None of the groups seemed to have exhibited a lot of talk about science. ‘Doing’ seems to have led to the fastest time solving the puzzles but collaborating led to the most science talk. We discuss the implications of these findings and what future directions we believe research on educational escape rooms should take. We will aim to bring some of the puzzles to the summer school presentation to allow participants to experience the escape room firsthand.
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Published date: 4 July 2024
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Beyond the Lock: Innovative Approaches to Escape Rooms <br/>in Education, Culture, and Organisational Development, , Donau, Austria, 2024-07-03 - 2024-07-05
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Local EPrints ID: 492459
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/492459
PURE UUID: 8794e3d9-7784-4f2d-8995-d1dc6796f39f
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Date deposited: 29 Jul 2024 16:37
Last modified: 10 Aug 2024 02:02
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