Promoting Intraprofessional Collaboration and Critical Thinking With Escape Rooms: An Example of a Clinical Skills Class.

Abstract

Importance: Although gamification is recognized for enhancing motivation and learning outcomes, there is a need for specific evidence on how innovative methods, such as educational escape rooms, affect learning experiences and teamwork.

Objective: This study examined the effectiveness of using the educational escape room as an innovative approach for occupational therapy (OT) and occupational therapy assistant (OTA) students.

Design: One-group, preexperimental, pre- and poststudy.

Setting: A simulation laboratory at a university.

Participants: Seventy-six OT and 38 OTA students enrolled in clinical skills classes were randomly assigned to teams of OT and OTA students.

Intervention: An escape room incorporating associated topics covered in the clinical skills course. Students worked collaboratively and applied their combined knowledge and critical thinking skills to solve 10 puzzles to escape in 1 hr.

Outcomes and measures: The Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale, Self-Assessment Scale for Active Learning and Critical Thinking, and a researcher-developed knowledge assessment were administered 2 wk before and immediately after the escape room experience to evaluate the students' intraprofessional collaboration, activity learning, critical thinking skills, and knowledge levels.

Results: Students' readiness for teamwork, activity learning, and critical thinking skills increased after participating in the escape room experience. Students' knowledge levels also improved, with a moderate effect size. These results suggest the possible benefits of educational escape rooms.

Conclusions and relevance: Escape rooms are an increasingly popular, innovative teaching modality in health care education. This study validated that escape rooms promote students' learning outcomes and intraprofessional teamwork. Plain-Language Summary: This study assessed the effectiveness of using an escape room as a teaching tool in a clinical skills class for occupational therapy (OT) and occupational therapy assistant (OTA) students. The findings revealed significant improvements in the students' teamwork, active learning, critical thinking skills, and knowledge levels after the escape room experience. These results suggest that incorporating escape rooms into OT education can enhance learning outcomes and should be further explored in future studies with more rigorous experimental designs. This innovative approach benefits students' academic development and can affect OT practice. Fostering collaboration and critical thinking better prepares students to provide comprehensive and effective care to their future clients. This study contributes to the growing body of research that supports active learning pedagogies in OT education, highlighting the importance of engaging and experiential learning methods in preparing students for real-world practice.