Challenges in the Application of Educational Escape Rooms in the Brazilian Context

Introduction

Digital transformation has turned the need to adapt the educational system into an urgent matter (Becker, 2007). A key element in this adaptation is the development of teaching and learning environments that may better stimulate the creativity of the educators while teaching, while improving the engagement and the participation of the students in the classroom (OECD, 2019).

Over the last few years, the use of Escape Rooms (ER) has grown in popularity and has gained attention in the educational context, leading many educators and researchers into making efforts and joining forces to implement this methodology. The concept of Educational Escape Rooms (EER) emerges as a new educational approach devoted to the creation of teaching and learning environments that combine the delivery of technical knowledge with key pedagogical competences to solve puzzles, and to find solutions for enigmas, by means of physical and cognitive challenges, in an interdisciplinary work environment (Veldkamp et al., 2020).

An ER is a game environment in which the participants face a series of challenges, uncover clues, and solve riddles to “escape the room” and to win, involving as a big obstacle a time limit to complete the proposed activities (Nicholson, 2015). Usually, this kind of game involves a group of people, and may be put into practice with the utilization of one or more rooms that are prepared for it. It started as being a simple riddle-solving activity, but nowadays the ERs have evolved to totally immersive environments with high quality props and effects, as well as to formats involving virtual spaces, notably given the circumstances of social distancing, that originated with the Covid-19 pandemic, that have limited the access to physical spaces.

In the educational context, the ERs are being used for different purposes. The most remarkable one is that this practice encourages students to participate and interact, and in this way, it promotes an active learning that is acknowledged as having benefits for the learning goals. This is in contrast with the experience of other more traditional methodologies, in which despite the efforts of the educators, many students still face the fear of failure, and prefer not to actively participate in the classes (Moura & Santos, 2020). Moreover, the use of EERs encourages the development of key competences in students. In an ER, students are asked to solve problems, by means of trial and error, in a process that involves creativity, fast decision making and the discussion of the proposals of solutions between elements of working groups (Arnab et al., 2019). These competences offer important contributions in the preparation the students for the job market, while they also offer gains in their enthusiasm and conscience, making them be more interested in the curricular subjects and fostering them to raise questions and experience the academic and cultural diversity among students.

However, the popularization of this practice, and its acceptance by the educators, goes through great challenges and difficulties in its implementation. Several challenges have been reported, including aspects such as the required educators’ competences, the existence of institutional barriers to the adoption of such methodologies, the lack of resources and limitations in student’s preparation to take full advantage in the proposed activities (Tercanli et al., 2021).

Many educators report a lack of technological skills and digital competences that required to develop the games (Hurtado & González, 2017). Likewise, there are several mentions to the importance of being formerly acquainted with the subject, having former experience with educational games or basic knowledge about the different approaches to Game-Based Learning (GBL) (Shah & Foster, 2015). Beyond the theoretical knowledge about the subject, the educators need to experience the practical demonstration of the use of this tool, to develop EER narratives, to create puzzles, and to develop a digital EER (Buchner & Zumbach, 2020). Other reported difficulties include planning and developing strategies to integrate the proposed activities, how to proceed with adequate assessment models, the nature and quality of feedback to provide to participants, and the involvement of the students in these activities (Chen et al., 2020; Guigon et al., 2018; Nousiainen et al., 2018).