Escape boxes: Bringing escape room experience into the classroom

Abstract

In this paper, we present an escape box as a means to introduce the escape room concept into classrooms. Recreational escape rooms have inspired teachers all over the world to adapt the popular entertainment activity for education. Escape rooms are problem-based and time-constrained, requiring active and collaborative participants, a setting that teachers want to achieve in their classroom to promote learning. This paper explores the adaptation of the escape room concept into educational escape game boxes. These technology-enhanced escape boxes have become hybrid learning spaces, merging individual and collaborative learning, as well as physical and digital spaces. The design of the box with assignments on each side puts users face to face with each other and requires them to collaborate in the physical world, instead of being individually absorbed in a digital world. The developed box is a unique concept in the field of escape rooms; the content is adaptable. This paper describes the process leading to the design criteria, the design process, test results and evaluation, and provides recommendations for designing educational escape rooms.