Let's play and learn: Educational escape room to improve mental health knowledge in undergraduate nursing students

Innovative teaching methods have become increasingly important in higher education. Through these methods, gamification in general and educational escape rooms in particular are becoming more important.

The dual aim of this study was first, to describe an on-site educational escape room, assessing students' motivation and satisfaction, and second, to compare the declarative knowledge obtained and anxiety levels by applying two teaching-learning strategies.

The study sample consisted of 108 nursing students from northern Spain. Participants were divided in two groups: the experimental group and the control group. The experimental group took part in an educational escape room activity while a case-based learning method was used with the control group. After the activities, both groups were asked about their anxiety levels (STAI) and the declarative knowledge they had obtained (ad hoc questionnaire). In addition, satisfaction (ad hoc questionnaire) and motivation (GAMEX) were measured in the experimental group. Gender differences and group differences were explored applying the Mann Whitney U test.

Students from the escape room obtained higher declarative knowledge on average compared to participants from the control group. Regarding escape room methodology, participants demonstrated high motivation and satisfaction rates on average, although this was negatively related to declarative knowledge.

These results showed that educational escape room can increase the participants' knowledge level although it was negatively correlated with motivation (GAMEX). These findings corroborate previous researchers´ conclusions which highlighted the importance of transcending simple student perception when assessing the effectiveness of educational practices.

The on-site educational escape room is therefore innovative when teaching the course subject of mental health. Further studies are required, comparing the effectiveness of on-site and virtual escape rooms and these methods should be contrasted against other teaching practices, thus promoting research in nursing education.