Solving the Chemistry Puzzle : A Review on the Application of Escape-Room-Style Puzzles in Undergraduate Chemistry Teaching
department or school: Science, Faculty of
department or school: Non UBC
department or school: Chemistry, Department of
data provider: DSpace
identifier citation: Education Sciences 14 (12): 1273 (2024)
creator: Clapson, Marissa Lorrene
creator: Schechtel, Shauna
creator: Davy, Emma
creator: Durfy, Connor Skye
issued: 2025-01-03T15:08:03Z
issued: 2024-11-21
description: Active learning techniques are taking the classroom by storm. Numerous research articles have highlighted the benefits of active learning techniques on student understanding, knowledge retention, problem solving, and teamwork. One avenue to introduce active learning into the classroom is the gamification of course learning content. Educational escape rooms are one such example in which students solve a series of puzzles related to course content to “escape” within a set time frame. Escape games play an interesting role in motivating students, building communication skills and allowing for multimodal learning, having been shown to increase students’ test results and enjoyment of the course content. In lieu of the traditional escape room format, a fully immersive room(s) with classical escape room puzzles (finding items, riddles, alternative locking mechanisms) is used alongside learning activities, and educators have begun to develop truncated activities for easier applications in larger classrooms. In this review, we explore several escape room activities: immersive, paper-based, Battle Boxes, condensed escape activities, and online/virtual, providing examples of the types of puzzles included therein. We similarly discuss the creation of escape room materials and recommendations for the interested educator, as well as the learning benefits of engaging in puzzle development. Finally, we provide an overview on methods to assess active learning through escape rooms, establishing an overview of empirical evidence towards their effectiveness as a learning tool.
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/90021
note: Citation: Clapson, M.L.; Schechtel, S.;Davy, E.; Durfy, C.S. Solving theChemistry Puzzle—A Review on theApplication of Escape-Room-StylePuzzles in Undergraduate ChemistryTeaching. Educ. Sci. 2024, 14, 1273.https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14121273Academic Editor: Darina DichevaReceived: 1 October 2024Revised: 4 November 2024Accepted: 15 November 2024Published: 21 November 2024Copyright: © 2024 by the authors.Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.This article is an open access articledistributed under the terms andconditions of the Creative CommonsAttribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).ReviewSolving the Chemistry Puzzle—A Review on the Applicationof Escape-Room-Style Puzzles in UndergraduateChemistry TeachingMarissa Lorrene Clapson 1,* , Shauna Schechtel 2, Emma Davy 3 and Connor Skye Durfy 31 Department of Chemistry, University of Prince Edward Island, 550 University Ave,Charlottetown, PE C1A 4P3, Canada2 Department of Chemistry, Queens University, 90 Bader Land, Chernoff Hall, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada3 Department of Chemistry, University of British Columbia, 2036 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1, Canada* Correspondence: mlclapson@upei.caAbstract: Active learning techniques are taking the classroom by storm. Numerous research articleshave highlighted the benefits of active learning techniques on student understanding, knowledgeretention, problem solving, and teamwork. One avenue to introduce active learning into the classroomis the gamification of course learning content. Educational escape rooms are one such example inwhich students solve a series of puzzles related to course content to “escape” within a set timeframe. Escape games play an interesting role in motivating students, building communication skillsand allowing for multimodal learning, having been shown to increase students’ test results andenjoyment of the course content. In lieu of the traditional escape room format, a fully immersiveroom(s) with classical escape room p…
has type: Article
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0448001
language: eng
peer review status: Reviewed
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
publisher DOI: 10.3390/educsci14121273
rights: CC BY 4.0
rights URI: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
scholar level: Faculty
subject: gamification
subject: escape room
subject: humor/puzzles/games
subject: active learning
subject: chemistry education
subject: undergraduate/general
subject: applications of chemistry
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/90021