Escaping the Laboratory: An Escape Room to Reinforce Biomedical Engineering Skills

Abstract

Commercial escape rooms have grown in popularity as an enjoyable experience that also doubles as an exercise in communication and collaboration. Educators can take advantage of these natural qualities to engage and support students in a low-stress learning environment. The primary goal of this study is to share the development and application of an educational escape room as a tool to provide biomedical engineering (BME) students with an immersive and practical experience. A BME laboratory course-specific escape room was developed and beta-tested on an initial group of BME students. The first set of feedback enabled improvements to the design and difficulty of the escape room, which was followed by the final release of the activity for the intended undergraduate BME course. Across an academic year, 74 participants agreed to provide survey feedback for this study. Despite a moderate escape rate (29%), students reported high satisfaction and enthusiasm for the activity. Student survey responses indicated that participants were engaged and empowered to successfully escape even without external motivators. Responses supported the effectiveness of the escape room as a BME learning environment, allowing students to practice and retain course-related knowledge in a challenging but low-risk activity. The foundational structure of escape rooms offers a beneficial environment for experiential knowledge application. We conclude that educational escape rooms show promise as a pedagogical tool in promoting enhanced knowledge retention through immersive, game-based learning.

Learning through Escape: Developing Collaboration, Communication, and Confidence in a Biomedical Engineering Laboratory Escape Room

“…Although setting challenging proximal goals is also useful in developing self-efficacy [11]. One goal of this escape room was to provide an additional opportunity for students to practice skills and use equipment before they begin an open-ended project at an appropriate challenge level [12]. Since self-efficacy (i.e., taskspecific and situational confidence) can be increased with authentic mastery experiences [11], the escape room provides an opportunity to practice or demonstrate mastery of laboratory skills.…”

“…As a part of the laboratory course curriculum, students gain experience in a broad range of technical and laboratory skills such as mechanical testing, micropipetting, ultrasound imaging, aseptic technique, and cell culture skills. The escape room puzzles were designed to incorporate major techniques students learned in the course [12]. Briefly, the activity was designed to be completed in groups of 8 or fewer participants and within 55 minutes.…”