Escape room in education: a bibliometric study

Abstract

The impact of technologies in all areas is one of the main points that characterize the current society. In the educational context, recently, great efforts are being made to adapt the system to characteristics and needs of the students of the 21st century. Gamification in education consist on the use of structures, characteristics, dynamics and aesthetics of games for educational purposes, to increase students participation and motivation. The escape room is a gamified activity in which one or more teams must leave a place during a limited time solving a challenge whose goal is learning. This study pretends to analyze research trends through a bibliometric study of scientific production deposited in Scopus. 32 articles were obtained for the analysis. The results indicate an increase in scientific publications in last decade, and the main mean of dissemination are journals, specially in Social Sciences field. In addition, data shows the low impact and the absence of medium and large producers. Finally, the weight of Spain highlights and the implementation of escape rooms in the Higher Education stage stands out too.

Opresión o liberación: Las salas de escape como herramienta de motivación en el aula universitaria de AICLE en historia

“…These games are on the rise in the education arena because several studies have reported increased academic performance and knowledge acquisition (Brusi & Cornellà, 2020;Sánchez Lamas, 2018). Gamification is a blanket term used to refer to playfulness in non-game contexts, such as education (Contreras Espinosa, 2016;Manzano-León, Camacho-Lazarraga, et al, 2021;O'Brien & Pitera, 2019;Rutledge et al, 2018;Subhash & Cudney, 2018;Suelves et al, 2020) with clear learning objectives to pursue less traditional forms of teaching and learning that engage learners in the learning process. For instance, a study by Carrión Candel et al (2021) analysed the effectiveness of gamification strategies in a CLIL context, where both content and a foreign language are practised simultaneously (Coyle et al, 2010).…”

“…The EFL classroom, and more broadly, education in general, have traditionally been considered a non-game context (Contreras Espinosa, 2016;Manzano-León, Camacho-Lazarraga, et al, 2021;Rutledge et al, 2018;Suelves et al, 2020). Nevertheless, game-based learning practices have been picking up speed in the last two decades, especially those approaches adopting the use ICTs to transmit moral and social values (Bellés-Calvera, 2018;Bellés-Calvera & Bellés-Fortuño, 2018;Bellés-Fortuño & Bellés-Calvera, 2017;Bellés-Fortuño & Martínez-Hernández, 2019, 2020Clarke et al, 2017;Dichev et al, 2020).…”

“…One budding form of gamification is escape rooms inside and outside the classroom. The prime focus of this paper is on the use of escape rooms as a gamification technique (Suelves et al, 2020) to boost learner motivation in the online classroom.…”

“…Such studies have pro vided important information over the past two decades on improved content retention, higher participation rates, an increase in motivation, concentration, and attendance rates (Bellés-Fortuño & Bellés-Calvera, 2017;Cain, 2019;Dichev et al, 2020;Fotaris & Mastoras, 2019;Girón-García, 2015;López-Pernas et al, 2019;Mystakidis et al, 2019). Gamification approaches apply aesthetics and dynamics endemic to traditional games to learning (Suelves et al, 2020). When applied in the classroom, the principles of gamification allow for, on the one hand, positive reinforcement and incentives, which trigger extrinsic motivation in learners (Brown, 2014).…”