Advantages of Evaluating Students by Means of Escape Rooms

Abstract

Traditionally, a wide range of evaluation systems has been used to assess students in academic contexts. However, the adoption of an active learning paradigm allows to employ alternative tools to carry out evaluations, where educational escape rooms take a prominent place. In fact, such escape rooms engage students in a game-like environment where they get embedded. This way, they are faced with a series of tests in order to advance through the path within the escape room so as to finish the escape room as soon as possible with the aim of getting higher marks than their peers.

1. Introduction

Back in 2019, the European Commission released a document called “Key competences for lifelong learning,” where a recommendation on eight key competencies for lifelong learning was proposed [1]. Those key competencies were to be acquired through a combination of knowledge, skills, and attitudes and were identified as literacy, multilingual, STEM (composed of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), digital, learning to learn, social and civic, sense of initiative and entrepreneurship, cultural awareness, and expression [2].

However, that document was based on previous works on key competencies for lifelong learning being developed in the last decades from not only the European Commission but also in the research literature. In this sense, it is to be mentioned that, back in 2002, Candy prepared a document for UNESCO called “Lifelong learning and information literacy,” where he exposed a weakness in information literacy development, which ought to be tackled by different organizations altogether [3]. Likewise, back in 2006, Lau provided a document for IFLA called “Guidelines on information literacy for lifelong learning,” where he outlined a pragmatic framework for kicking up an information literacy program, which presents information competencies as key factors in lifelong learning [4].

Anyway, information literacy may be observed from different points of view, although it is commonly seen as the ability to access, evaluate, and use information [5]. Furthermore, some researchers like Johnston and Webber consider information literacy as a soft discipline, which needs to be distinguished from information science, because the former is grounded on social sciences like sociology and psychology, whilst the latter is based on scientific and technical sciences like mathematics and engineering [6]. On the other hand, Basili proposed different perspectives to analyze information literacy discourse, such as disciplinary perspective, social/political, and cognitive, in order to study the culture of information, information literacy, and information skills, respectively [7].

Information literacy is considered the basis for lifelong learning, as the ability to collect and use information in an effective fashion may be seen as a critical skill because it supports decision-making and problem-solving, as well as knowing how to learn [8]. In other words, information literacy is key when it comes to developing lifelong learning competence, which includes both designing a learning plan and transferring the outcome to other competence areas [9].

In order to measure elements related to lifelong learning, different scales have been designed. In this sense, Uzunboylu and Hürsen developed a specific tool called Lifelong Learning Competence Scale (LLLCS), following European Commission recommendations on this issue, with the aim of assessing lifelong learning competence, where such a tool is composed of six subdimensions, which are made of 51 items overall [10]. Alternatively, Sahin et al. developed another specific tool called Scale of Key Competences for Lifelong Learning (SKCLLL), following also European Commission recommendations on this matter, targeting the same competence set, where that tool is composed of eight subdimensions, which are made of 23 elements overall [11]. In all those cases, the score of each item is five point Likert-type, meaning two utmost poles at the ends, a neutral answer along with intermediate options, where typical answers fully disagree, which is associated with 1 point, disagree with 2 points, neither agree nor disagree with 3 points, agree with 4 points, and fully agree with 5 points. It is to be noted that the reliability of the scales used has been calculated through the Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient, resulting in high enough values in all cases, thus revealing the internal consistency of the items in the scale.

Anyway, it is considered that the key element for developing lifelong learning competences is the teachers, as they can better guide their students to become lifelong learners [12]. Different features may induce lifelong learning competences in a teacher, although studies point out that the best regression models consider that some characteristics are critical, such as teaching experience, perception of lifelong learning, and learning strategies [13]. Likewise, other features seem to be relevant as well, such as their academic background [14], as well as their attitude toward information literacy skills [15].

On the other hand, information-seeking behavior of students is geared toward three targets, such as scoring higher marks, being informed about what is going on with their studies, and interacting with people near and far [16]. Focusing on acquiring better information literacy skills, some useful tips for students to get it done are task breakdown, guided repetition and ordering activities based on their difficulty level [17], as well as taking lessons on learning strategies and techniques [18]. Also, the improvement of information literacy increases the readiness for self-directed learning, along with the readiness to overcome any kind of deterrents to their participation [19]. Furthermore, other important skills will also be empowered by information literacy, such as critical thinking, informed decision-making, and independent, self-directed lifelong learning [20].

Special attention should be devoted to prospective teachers, as they will have to induce lifelong learning competence into their future learners in order for them to have them ready for a future characterized by change, which they need to face with a certain degree of self-confidence and self-efficacy [21]. However, information literacy and lifelong learning ought to be encouraged not only in teachers and students but also in other layers of society as creativity and work performance will also be enhanced [22].

One way of getting into information literacy is to adopt new teaching paradigms such as active learning, which is characterized by the interaction of teachers and learners. This concept is opposed to passive learning, where traditionally teachers took full responsibility for the learning process of students [23]. However, active learning puts the focus on students to acquire their own education, thus assigning them the active role in their own education, whilst letting the teachers embrace a new secondary role as kind of dynamizers of the whole learning process. In other words, the new role of a teacher turns from knowledge provider to learning facilitator [24].

One of the most popular tools of active learning is educative escape rooms, derived from a mixture of serious educational games and recreational escape rooms, where students are faced with an escape room whose theme is related to a given educational subject [25]. An escape room is composed of a series of puzzles that they need to solve, where the solution of a puzzle may contain a clue about how to resolve the next puzzle. Each solved puzzle leads the way to eventually reaching the final puzzle, which provides the solution to the escape room [26].

Puzzles contained in an escape room could be organized in different ways, forming basic and complex layouts. Regarding the former, there are some instances such as an open structure, where all puzzles could be solved in any order before getting to the last one, and a sequential structure, where puzzles must be solved one after the next until getting to the metapuzzle, or a path-based structure, where different paths of puzzles are available to get to the final puzzle. With respect to the latter, any hybrid structure could be achieved, where some of the former layouts can be combined [27].

The incorporation of the active learning paradigm into the education realm propitiates an alternative perspective on how students and teachers relate to each other, where the former play the active role. This approach could also be moved into the evaluation tasks, thus allowing the use of solutions where students get a more active position than in traditional evaluation exams. Basically, the term evaluation may be viewed as the verification and validation of the teaching-learning process in order to check whether students master the learning objectives in a sufficient manner, which may be carried out through different domains, such as knowledge, attitudes, skills, and habits [28].

Hence, the change in the learning paradigm may well lead to adapting the assessment system so as to properly evaluate the subject competencies. For instance, Alonso-Núñez et al. propose the use of project-based learning (PBL) as a convenient assessment method for active learning, as students must work in collaborative groups so as to develop a project [29]. On the other hand, Molina-Torres et al. propose the use of escape rooms as a method of evaluation for active learning, which offers similar results as traditional evaluation, even though the levels of anxiety and perceived stress are significantly decreased in the latter [30].

Focusing on the proposal of using escape rooms as evaluation tools, in this paper, we propose a scheme to design educational escape rooms in order to evaluate learners within the active learning paradigm. In order to do so, we propose a generic design of an escape room for evaluation purposes, whose size could be adapted according to the needs of the teacher and the curriculum to be evaluated.

The organization of the rest of the paper is the following: first of all, Section 2 reviews the methodology, then, Section 3 displays the escape room design, after that, Section 4 presents the discussion, and finally, Section 5 draws the final conclusions.

2. Methodology

We are teaching computer science-related subjects at college level in the current academic course and we decided to migrate from traditional learning to active learning in an introductory subject for one of our courses. Basically, we adopted the paradigm of flipped classes, where video recordings have been prepared for learners to watch before each session in order for them to dedicate such onsite sessions to resolve doubts, problem-solving, or group work.

On the other hand, we also wanted to apply the active learning paradigm to evaluation, so we planned on reserving a session at the end of each didactic unit in order to undertake its corresponding evaluation, where two different evaluation activities were to be held. To start with, in the first half an hour, we planned to carry out an individual test exam related to the contents acquired during the teaching unit. Such an exam would be a computer-based test containing thirty test questions out of a pool of more than a hundred, which would be randomly presented to each student and whose answers would be randomly shown as well to each test taker.

Afterward, in the rest of the session, we planned to undertake an escape room organized as a sequential path to be taken in groups, where each puzzle would consist of a random exam of ten questions similar to the one exposed above, which could be repeated over and over again. Hence, according to the grades obtained by a group in each attempt at the exam, then the group would either move to a number of puzzles ahead if they pass the exam, or otherwise remain at the same puzzle if they fail it. In those circumstances, the escape room would then be considered as a competition among all groups, where the one reaching the end of the escape room in the shortest time would win the escape room, thus all its members get top marks in this activity.

This way, we implement a kind of a blended evaluation system, where learners first undertake a traditional computer-based test exam being carried out on an individual basis, whereas they in turn carry out a gamified evaluation involving an escape room to be held in groups, where they have to take multiple computer-based test exams being undertaken on a group basis.

This setup allows for a key advantage from the point of view of student’s motivation because learners are usually more fond of taking the escape room than the individual exam, but as they want to perform well in the former, they know that the best way to do it is to study more the didactic unit in order to advance faster in the escape room, which also implies that they will eventually get more prepared to the latter, which in turn will allow them to get better performance overall. Hence, it seems that allocating the escape room right after the individual test exam is a win-win situation, as the motivation of competing in the escape room leads them to study more to get more chances to win, thus getting them more prepared to face the individual exam, which will eventually get them to achieve better marks in both tasks.

In order to better clarify the methodology used herein, it is to be noted that we applied the active learning paradigm in a subject called Introduction to Computer Science within an engineering degree at College in the current academic year, namely 2023–2024, where we had 63 students registered. The course contained five didactic units, so we implemented an escape room with the same structure but different content at the end of each didactic unit in order to evaluate the knowledge, skills, and attitudes acquired by the learners.

On the other hand, we applied the traditional learning paradigm during the previous academic year, namely 2022–2023, in the same subject, where a similar number of students were enrolled, namely 61. Hence, in the former academic year, the students were instructed by means of frontal classes and they were assessed with written exams, as opposed to the current academic year, where students were taught by means of flipped classrooms and were evaluated through escape rooms along with computer-based exams.

Therefore, the purpose of this study is to compare the results obtained when students face traditional lessons and assessments, namely pen and paper exams, with the outcome attained when they carry out escape rooms and computer-based tests as an evaluation method. In this sense, we are going to confront two parameters in both academic years in the same subject, such as the variation in academic performance and the variation in the success rate.

The former is to be checked out by comparing the results achieved by the students in each of the evaluations, related to the five didactic units, in both academic years. On the other hand, the latter is to be assessed by confronting the number of students passing the subject in both academic years.

Additionally, a third parameter is going to be studied, which is the level of engagement achieved by the students in the subject due to the escape rooms. This measurement will be done through the ISA engagement scale, which presents three dimensions, with three questions per dimension, in order for students to express their degree of engagement from different points of view. However, the measurement of engagement will be only related to this current academic year because we do not have such a value referred to the previous academic year.

3. Escape room design

As stated above, the structure of the escape room proposed is a sequential path, where a string of puzzles is located in a daisy chain manner from its initial point to its end point. In a way, each of those puzzles is considered as stages making the way toward the end of the race. Nonetheless, the structure proposed is not purely linear, but it is divided into different levels, where each of which is composed of a string of stages distributed in a daisy chain fashion [31]. Hence, each level must be certainly completed in order to get into the next one. Also, the escape room proposed is intended to be faced in teams of a certain number of students to fit the active learning evaluation method described above. However, in order to stay generic, we will describe the actions within the escape room for a generic player, who may be an individual or a group formed by a bunch of players.

Initially, all players taking part in the escape room are located at the starting point of the first level. Additionally, each level has a starting point where players must be located when clearing the previous level and they have to begin moving within such a level. In fact, all stages within a level have a direct path to the starting point of the next level, which is available in case they complete the run through the current level they are in. Furthermore, it is to be noted that there is silent transition, represented by τ, between any starting point in a given level and its very first stage, thus turning the starting point into virtual spot just for organization purposes, as it does not affect in any way the movements through the escape room because reaching the starting point effectively means getting into the first stage of a given level.

As we pointed out above, the way to move through the puzzles of the escape room proposed is by taking test exams with a number of questions, where the marks obtained will result in the magnitude of the movement they will make within the current level at that time. In order to better illustrate this, let us consider a grading system where the top grade of an exam is β, whereas the passing grade is α, whilst the minimum grade is considered to be 0. This way, the escape room proposed makes use of a generic grading system, which may be adapted to the marking systems being used in any particular country.

On the other hand, the number of stages in each level is given by $\sigma =\beta -\alpha +1$, such that the first stage in any level is labeled as stage α, the second one is branded as α + 1, and so on, until reaching the last one, which is referred to as σ. However, we could tune up the number of stages within a level to a particular number in order to control the number of stages so as to make the escape room faster or longer, even though this action would force us to apply a normalization factor δ to the outcome of the test exams, such that the term +1 would really mean +δ.

Therefore, after applying the normalization factor δ, if it is necessary, if the score resulting out of one attempt of the exam test, namely γ, does not reach the lowest passing grade, namely α, then the player will remain in the same stage until the next test exam is taken. This condition is mathematically represented by $\gamma \in$ and is displayed as a loop. On the other hand, if the score is equal to or higher than α, but at the same time, it is lower than α + 1, then the player will move one stage ahead. This condition is mathematically represented by $\gamma \in$ and is displayed as a directed edge to the following stage ahead. Likewise, if the score is equal to or higher than α + 1, but at the same time, it is lower than α + 2, then the player will move two stages ahead. That condition is mathematically represented by $\gamma \in$ and is displayed as a directed edge two stages ahead. And the remaining marks are dealt with analogously. Furthermore, each time an exam test is completed, a mark is obtained from it, so the player will be able to move through its current level according to that mark. Hence, the faster an exam test is taken, the more often the player will be able to move through a level, and obviously, the faster will run through all levels.

It is important to reiterate that each level must be completed on its own, so the fact that overpassing the last stage of the current level implies the movement to the starting point of the next level, which in turn implies moving on to the first stage of such a level, regardless of the grades obtained when overpassing the last stage stated. Moreover, after overpassing the last stage in a particular level, then the player is moved to the starting point of the next level, which applies a silent transition to move ahead to get to the first stage of such a level, as stated above. Eventually, when a player is located in the last level, namely ρ, the conclusion of the escape room is attained when clearing that level.

Figure 1 exhibits the escape room proposed, where the features exposed above are shown, although only some of the movements are displayed for clarification purposes, because if all arrows are depicted, then the figure would be illegible due to the number of arrows portrayed. Furthermore, a cup is exposed after the final stage in order to state the end of the escape room. The nomenclature of this picture contains a collection of levels represented by $p_i$, such that $i\in \left[0\text{, }\rho \right]$, thus resulting in $\rho +1$ levels overall. Moreover, each level contains a string of stages $s_j^i$, where $i$ represents the level where the stage is located and $j$ indicates the order of that particular stage within its level, such that the order is established as $j\in \left[\alpha \text{, }\sigma \right]$, which is equivalent to $j\in \left[\alpha \text{, }\beta -\alpha +1\right]$ if no normalization factor has been applied to the outcome of the test exams taken during the escape room.

Figure 1.

Generic layout of the escape room proposed.

This type of design facilitates the implementation of strategies when taking the test exams because if the player is at the initial stage of a level, it is obvious that the best target is to try and achieve the highest possible grade. However, getting higher marks may imply spending more time to take a test exam, as questions usually need to be thought over. Hence, if the player is located near the end of a level, it might be a good idea to try to just pass an exam test instead of achieving higher marks, as the outcome, in any case, would lead to the same place, which is the beginning of the following level.

Therefore, it could be more convenient to take the exam quicker in this case by just answering the necessary questions, which obviously would not take as much time as getting the exam done by answering all of the questions. At the end of the day, the faster a test exam is completed, the faster a movement is made in the escape room if the marks overcome the passing grade, and the main mission in the escape room is to arrive at the end of it in the shortest possible time. However, taking an exam with the minimum necessary amount of questions to get to the following level in the shortest possible time might end up backfiring as if one single question is not answered correctly, then the player will not be able to reach the end of the level with the marks corresponding to that exam, so another exam will need to be taken to clear that level.

Regarding the evaluation system considered for this escape room, the player reaching the end in the first position will get top marks, whereas the second one will get a lower mark, and so on. We consider that all players finishing the escape room within the allocated time slot deserve to pass, whilst the players not finishing it will get penalized for failing this activity, although such a time slot must be long enough for all of them to finish on time. This way, all the players are motivated in order to get better performance when facing the escape room, as part of their evaluation for a particular didactic unit depends on how well they deliver on it.

4. Discussion

As stated above, at the end of each didactic unit, students must take two activities to evaluate what they learned about it. On the one hand, the first task is a computer-based exam test composed of 30 questions to be undertaken on an individual basis, whose content is related to the corresponding didactic unit. On the other hand, the second task is an escape room where students are organized in groups in order to take a series of computer-based exam tests composed of 10 questions each to be carried out on a group basis, whose target is to advance as fast as possible through the escape room in order to reach the end of it in the shortest time interval.

We put all this scheme into practice in the current semester in a subject related to Introduction to Computer Science, where 63 learners are registered. So the procedure was to implement the aforesaid scheme of evaluation activities at the end of each didactic unit, such that students faced an individual exam and an escape room in the sessions allocated at the end of each of the 5 didactic units being part of the course. Therefore, the sample is composed of 63 students, who will be taking up to five escape rooms during the semester.

The objectives of setting up this scheme are threefold, such as getting better marks for the students as an average regarding the subject, as well as getting more students passing the subject, and also getting the students more engaged in the subject because of the implementation of the educational escape rooms. The tools employed are just providing each student with a computer and a learning platform to implement the computer-based exams.

According to the literature, the introduction of escape rooms as an evaluation tool for STEM courses raises the students’ academic performance by around 15% [32]. This result is somewhat coherent with those obtained in our course, as the increments in the grades for the subject selected in the current academic year compared to those reported last academic year for each of the five didactic units are 12.1%, 20%, 18%, 25%, and 22%, respectively, thus leading to an average of 19.4%.

Getting deeper into the rise related to academic performance, Table 1 exhibits the average grades and the corresponding increases obtained in the results of the subject during both the current and the previous academic year. These results show a clear growth in the grades achieved for all five didactic units, ranging from roughly 12% to nearly 25%.

Didactic unit	Average score in 2022–2023	Average score in 2023–2024	Variation rate	Increase in %
1	6.45	7.23	1.1209	12.1%
2	6.22	7.46	1.1994	19.9%
3	6.14	7.27	1.1840	18.4%
4	6.03	7.53	1.2488	24.9%
5	6.31	7.72	1.2234	22.3%
Overall	6.23	7.44	1.1942	19.4%

Table 1.

Average rise in academic performance.

Looking at those percentages in more detail, it may appear that they might be classified into three groups containing sort of similar values, as the rise in didactic unit 1 is the lowest, then the increase in didactic units 2 and 3 are higher, and in turn the growth in didactic units 4 and 5 are even higher.

This point suggests that students in the current year got better grades as the course went through compared to their peers in the last year. In fact, the overall average may well be fitted into the intermediate interval, which reinforces the hypothesis of an increasing interest in the subject as the course goes by because the results in the first didactic units are below average and those in the last ones are above average. It is quite likely that such a rise in academic performance is directly related to the introduction of escape rooms as evaluation tools, as scholars work harder in order to get more prepared for it and be able to beat their colleagues.

Likewise, the literature establishes a rise in the success rate for STEM courses when introducing escape rooms of around 20% [33]. This outcome is kind of coherent with that obtained in our course, as the success rate for the subject chosen in the current academic year compared to that reported last academic year regarding the final grades rose by 17.4%, as we passed from 46 to 54 successful students.

Going deeper into the rise referred to success rate, Table 2 displays the success rate corresponding to the subject during the current academic year and the previous one. Those results expose a definite increase in the amount of students passing the subject. This growth in the success rate confirms the higher interest for the subject in the students during the current academic year compared to the previous one. Likewise, the increase in the success rate may well be related to the introduction of escape rooms, as stated before for the academic performance.

Success rate in 2022–2023	Success rate in 2023–2024	Variation rate	Increase in %
46	54	1.1739	17.4%

Table 2.

Increase in success rate.

On the other hand, the level of engagement of the learners has been measured by using the ISA engagement scale, which associates engagement with a state of mind regarding three dimensions, such as intellectual, social, and affective. The ISA scale presents three standard questions for each dimension, whose results altogether offer the overall level of engagement of each individual [34].

Each question provides a score of 7 point Likert-type, where the lowest value refers to a total disagreement and the highest one does to a total agreement, whilst the intermediate values cover the range of options in between. Besides, it is to be noted that the average of the three items for each dimension yields the average score of the corresponding dimension, whereas the average score of those three dimensions accounts for the overall score average. The expected score for each dimension and overall is above 6 in order for the engagement to be high, thus leading to significant results.

Focusing on the three dimensions, intellectual engagement is related to how much the learners are intellectually absorbed when undertaking a given task, social engagement is related to how much the students feel socially connected while carrying out a given task, and affective engagement is related to how much the pupils experience positive feelings whilst working in a given task.

In summary, the ISA engagement scale is composed of a set of three dimensions, where each of those is assigned to a subset of three standard questions, accounting for nine questions overall, as is exhibited in Table 3 [35].

Dimensions	Questions
Intellectual engagement	I focus hard on my work.
	I concentrate on my work.
	I pay a lot of attention to my work.
Social engagement	I share the same work values as my colleagues.
	I share the same work goals as my colleagues.
	I share the same work attitudes as my colleagues.
Affective engagement	I feel positive about my work.
	I feel energetic about my work.
	I am enthusiastic in my work.

Table 3.

The ISA engagement scale.

The average results obtained in our subject for the different dimensions are 6.1 for the intellectual one, 6.4 for the social one, and 6.5 for the affective one, leading to an overall score of 6.33, which is considered as high engagement by the learners. Table 4 summarizes the outcome achieved in each dimension of the ISA engagement scale, as well as the overall result, obtained as the average value of all dimensions.

Intellectual engagement	Social engagement	Affective engagement	Overall engagement
6.1	6.4	6.5	6.33

Table 4.

Results obtained in the ISA engagement scale.

This outcome reinforces the feedback we obtained during the escape room sessions, where students felt sort of excited about the competition and in good mood, which makes a difference when it comes to the anxiety and tension they usually face with traditional exams. Therefore, it seems clear that escape rooms offer multiple advantages when being used as evaluation tools as opposed to traditional exams, as performance is increased because learners work harder to get better results, and engagement is risen because they feel embedded into the gaming experience.

Digging deeper into the results related to engagement, it seems that the intellectual dimension got the lowest figure, whereas the other two facets got pretty similar values. This outcome may be explained through the fact that escape rooms get scholars more motivated due to their competence with their colleagues and the gaming environment, whereas the cognitive motivation may not be as high.

Furthermore, the affective dimension is a bit higher than the social one, which may be explained by the fact that the gaming environment inherent to escape rooms gets learners slightly more motivated than the competence of their colleagues. Nonetheless, the values obtained in all three dimensions are above six, and so is the overall score, hence the motivation level is considered high, which may well be a key factor to explain the results obtained in both academic performance and success rate, as exposed above.

5. Conclusions

In this paper, we exposed the advantages of employing escape rooms as evaluation tools as opposed to traditional exams. To start with, the concepts of information literacy and lifelong learning have been introduced as they are already part of teaching competences necessary to confront the current ever-changing world, where people need to be ready to adapt the mutable circumstances in all aspects of their lives, including the working field.

Then, we talked about the active learning paradigm as a new reality in the education field, which is already substituting the traditional learning approach. In this new paradigm, teachers took the whole responsibility in the education process, thus leading them to act more as facilitators for students to get the responsibility for their own education. In that context, gamification is one of the driving forces of active learning, where educational escape rooms may play a relevant part in both learning and evaluating.

Focusing on the evaluation process, we exposed a use case where we implemented an evaluation process where escape rooms were used for the different didactic units within a given course of introduction to computer science. Positive conclusions have been drawn from this experience of implementing educational escape rooms as evaluation tools, as we obtained advantages in three directions.

First of all, students achieved a rise in the average performance of 19.4% in the subject taught in the current academic year with respect to the same subject taught the last academic year, where traditional evaluation tools were used, meaning a traditional exam. Basically, it means that the grades obtained by the students for the same subject were 19.4% higher in this current year due to the use of escape rooms than in the previous year without the escape rooms.

Getting deeper into the growth in academic performance, it happens that the results obtained for the five didactic units within the subject could be classified into three groups. This way, the first group gets a rise of around 12%, which is only the case of the first didactic unit. Besides, the second group gets a rise between 18% and 20%, which is the case of the second and third didactic units. Moreover, the third group gets a rise between 22% and 25%, which is the case for the fourth and fifth didactic units.

Hence, it seems that students in the current year got better grades as the course went through. Regarding the cause of this increase in academic performance, it appears to be directly related to the use of escape rooms as evaluation tools, as students seem to work harder so as to get more ready to face them.

Also, students attained an increment in success rate of 17.4% in the subject taught in the current academic year with respect to the same subject taught in the last academic year. Basically, it results in having a percentage of 17.4% increase for the students who passed the subject in this current year than in the previous year.

Going deeper into the increase in the success rate, the outcome exhibits a clear growth in the number of students passing the subject. This rise related to the success rate indicates a higher interest in the scholars for the subject during the current year compared to the last one. This growth referred to the success rate seems to be closely related to the use of escape rooms as evaluation tools, as exposed for the improvement in academic performance.

Eventually, escape rooms provide a high rise from the point of view of engagement owing to two main factors. The first one is due to learners working harder because of the competition spirit to perform better in the escape room, which permits them to go to the evaluation with more confidence.

The second one is due to the good mood and excitement brought by the competition spirit, which may lead some students to overperform because they want to overcome their colleagues, as opposed to the anxiety and tension related to traditional exams, which may lead some students to underperform because they do not concentrate properly during the examination process.

The ISA Engagement Scale has been used to measure the level of engagement overall, as well as in the intellectual, social, and affective dimensions. The scores obtained have been greater than six in all cases, which reflects a high engagement for the learners when they take part in the escape rooms.

Digging deeper into the outcome related to engagement, it appears that the value obtained for the intellectual dimension is lower than the values attained for the rest of dimensions, which may indicate that the cognitive motivation gets overcome by the affective and social counterparts. Additionally, the former is slightly greater than the latter, which may indicate that the gaming environment gets students a bit more motivated than the competence of their peers.

Anyway, the results obtained in all cases overcome the boundary to consider the motivation level as high. Therefore, this high degree of motivation seems to be the key factor in order to explain the increase achieved in both academic performance and success rate in the subject during the current academic year with respect to the previous one.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.