Unlocking Learning: The Impact of an Educational Escape Room on Energy Transition

Since the first escape room opened in 2007, the industry has grown to attract people from all over the world and is expected to continue to grow. This trend of rising social and recreational interest has, in turn, being introduced in the education sector in many countries. The use of escape rooms for educational purposes has become increasingly popular across different levels of education, including higher education institutions. This innovative and ludic approach involves students in their learning environment, encourages the use of numerous soft skills (creativity, problem solving, teamwork, etc.), and provides opportunity to escape the 'routine' of traditional and less student-centered learning methods. Although Educational Escape Rooms (EER) are becoming more prevalent in formal education, initiatives related to the topic of energy transition are scarce. As a result, there is limited information on the impact of these strategies to promote youth motivation and learning towards the energy transition. Exploring this issue is particularly relevant as young people have the potential to play an active and important role in achieving a sustainable future. This case study employs a quasi-experimental pretest- posttest design with mixed data. The sample consist of 32 students playing an EER, designed by higher education students, on energy transition. The study aims to assess the quality of the resource design and its impact on students' knowledge, motivation to learn, soft skills utilization, and engagement. The study results show a noteworthy improvement in self- perceived knowledge regarding the energy transition after playing the EER. This increase is associated with new knowledge gained by the players about energy consumption, production and transformation. The results indicate that the EER is ineffective in increasing or decreasing motivation to learn among players. Engagement is perceived as positive with respect to the experience of playing the EER. However, there is no correlation between motivation to learn and engagement. The study also suggests that the EER has the potential to improve various soft skills, especially teamwork, communication, and problem-solving. Finally, the EER was generally praised by the players for its engagement, on both quantitative and qualitative data in the study. On the other hand, the thematic analysis revealed some design issues that may have affected the players' experience and learning outcomes. These included excessive difficulty in some puzzles, lack of guidance, and insufficient time to complete. These issues need to be addressed in order to improve the overall impact of the EER, despite players' generally positive perceptions of it. In relation to the four puzzles that compose the EER (which relate to energy consumption, production, storage and transformation), they were generally positively rated by the participants, with the energy consumption puzzle being the highest rated for its practical application.