Design and Evaluation of an Athletic Training Educational Escape Room

Abstract

Context: The educational escape room is an innovative teaching strategy, and the use of this technique is gaining popularity in some health care disciplines. It is believed to promote acquisition of knowledge and skills, increase motivation, and encourage engagement, critical thinking, collaboration, and problem-solving. Objective: To describe the use of an innovative educational escape room in a master's-level athletic training course and to examine learning effectiveness and students' perceptions. Design: Quasi-experimental. Setting: A Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education--accredited master's-level athletic training program. Patients or Other Participants: A convenience sample of 14 students enrolled in a master's-level professional athletic training program participated. Intervention(s): Educational escape room. Main Outcome Measures(s): A paired-samples t test was used to determine differences between preactivity and postactivity knowledge-assessment scores. Measures of central tendency were used for survey questions related to student perceptions of the activity. Student perceptions were assessed after the intervention. Results: All participants completed the preactivity and postactivity knowledge assessments. The difference in scores was found to be statistically significant (t[subscript 13]=4.502, P = 0.001), with a large effect size (Cohen d= 1.32). Participants thought the escape room was an effective way to improve their knowledge of course materials (mean ± SD = 5.0 ± 0.0) and encouraged them to apply course material in a new way (mean 6 SD ± 4.9 = 0.27). Participants reported that they had fun (mean = SD = 5.0 ± 0.0) and felt that the activity was immersive (mean ± SD = 5.0 ± 0.00). Qualitative elements from the postactivity survey corroborated the data. Conclusions: The education escape room described in this study promoted learning while providing a fun and engaging learning experience with positive perceived value.