A heart failure themed escape room approach to enhance pharmacy student learning

The purpose of this study was to design, pilot, and evaluate the efficacy of an educational escape room to enhance second professional year doctor of pharmacy students' knowledge of heart failure medicinal chemistry, pharmacology, and therapeutics in an integrated Modular Organ Systems Therapeutics (MOST) course and to assess students' perceptions of the game.

Heart failure pharmacology, medicinal chemistry, and pharmacotherapeutics were taught in MOST prior to the escape room activity. Students were randomized into groups of approximately eight. At the completion of the activity, students were asked to fill out a perceptions survey. A follow up survey of their perceptions was again administered four weeks after the activity.

One-hundred-ninety-three students participated in the escape room activity. Overall, performance indicated that the escape room satisfactorily reinforced students' learning of the course material. Students expressed satisfaction toward the escape room activity on both surveys, with response rates of 92.22% and 56.99% for the initial and follow up surveys, respectively. Findings revealed no statistically significant differences between the first and the second group of responses, confirming that positive attitudes toward the activity did not alter over time. Students' satisfaction levels were inversely related to their grade point average (r = -0.20, p = 0.05).

Positive student perceptions reported immediately after the completion of the escape room activity and measured in the follow-up survey demonstrated that the escape room is a satisfying learning activity that can engage all students.