Shocking Escape: A Cardiac Escape Room for Undergraduate Nursing Students

Abstract

Background. Cardiovascular content is challenging for students to master in the undergraduate nursing curriculum. Educational escape rooms have been shown to be useful in increasing student knowledge, immersing students in the learning process, and facilitating the growth of soft skills among learners. Aim. This article details a cardiovascular educational escape room in an undergraduate nursing course, including educational objectives, design considerations, and all materials for seamless transferability into other curricula. Methods. Faculty designed, implemented, evaluated, and revised a nursing cardiovascular escape room over three years. In this sequential-style escape room, junior-level students worked together in groups to complete nine puzzles and activities. The student teams solved puzzles during the allotted 60 minutes to save a fictional patient at risk for further clinical deterioration related to cardiogenic shock. Participants complete activities including drug dosage calculations, rebus puzzles, multiple choice items, and clinical reasoning activities based around course and licensing objectives for the content area in nursing education. Upon game conclusion, faculty lead a guided debriefing to close the loop of learning. The escape room has been implemented for groups ranging from 31 to 68 students in each cohort. Results. Previously published results on this topic indicate that student content knowledge improved after the event. Students also reflected growth in confidence, critical thinking, and teamwork and also appreciated the real-life nature of the activity. The educational game can be adapted and transferred to other schools of nursing or clinical sites.

Digital Escape Rooms as Innovative Pedagogical Tools in Education: A Systematic Literature Review

“…In recent years, EERs have become increasingly popular educational activities with the ultimate aim of engaging students in learning environments, encouraging collaboration, cultivating soft skills of the 21st century, and their intellectual development [34]. Utilizing EERs, where students are challenged to solve problems and enigmas, leads to the promotion of exploratory learning and achieves the development of certain skills [48], as well as immersing students in the learning process [8]. In parallel, by using these tools for educational purposes, students are transformed from passive receivers of knowledge into active participants in the procedure of learning [34], as they are invited to explore new data, accept new challenges, and solve problematic conditions and mysteries.…”

“…In today's educational landscape, ER scenarios are promising trends and can be integrated into many academic disciplines, such as healthcare [7][8][9], STEM subjects [10], computer science [11], chemical engineering [12], pharmacy [13], physics [14], mathematics [15], radiology [16], biology [17] and many others. The protagonists of EERs are usually secondary or higher education students, tutors, professionals, designers, and researchers.…”

An Escape Room to Orient Preclinical Medical Students to the Simulated Medical Environment

“…They have also become more commonly used in medical education over the past 3 years. 14 – 28 Other escape rooms that have been described in the literature are of varied design, ranging from immersive 20 , 21 to tabletop 22 to virtual. 23 …”

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

“…The literature revolving around gamification is abundant on the grounds of the interest it generates in educators as a new area to explore; however, escape rooms have received scant attention in arts and humanities (Fotaris & Mastoras, 2019;Spreen & Vu, 2013). Even though studies on the application of escape rooms to educational contexts are burgeoning (Kinio et al, 2019;Taraldsen et al, 2020), research on escape rooms as a teaching technique has been limited to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, that is STEM disciplines, and medical sciences (Ang et al, 2020;Baker et al, 2020;Borrego et al, 2017;Cain, 2019;Cózar-Gutiérrez & Sáez-López, 2016;Eukel et al, 2017;Fuentes-Cabrera et al, 2020;Guckian et al, 2020;Jiménez Sánchez et al, 2017;Kinio et al, 2019;Lior, 2020;Morrell & Eukel, 2021;Vörös & Sárközi, 2017;Walsh & Spence, 2018). Notwithstanding, the escalating trend of escape rooms has reached other social spheres, for instance, the cultural domain with their implementation in museums such as the Palthehuis Museum in the Netherlands (Vriens, 2019).…”