Escape Room and Its Impact as an Educational Evaluation Tool

The change from a traditional learning paradigm towards an active learning one requires not only the deployment of a new way of facing theory and practice sessions from both teachers and students, but also an alternative manner to evaluate learners. In this paper, a model of escape room has been designed as a variation of the sequential path one, as the path is divided into a series of levels which must be traversed in a sequential order, such that one level must not be started until the previous one has already been cleared. We implemented this activity as an evaluation tool for a subject related to network fundamentals and the three goals we proposed beforehand were all achieved, such that an increment in the academic performance, a rise in the success rate, and a high level of engagement. Basically, the aim of this study is to check whether those three targets are achieved by introducing escape rooms as an evaluation tool in a course related to network fundamentals with 63 students, taught at a bachelor's degree level. The methodology used in this study was the application of statistical analysis to both the grades obtained by learners in the escape rooms and the answers to the Student Engagement Scale SES-4D related to the engagement they experimented during the escape rooms. The results obtained present an 11% rise in the average academic performance with respect to the average of previous academic years, a 15% increase in the success rate and an overall average of 4.1 in a 5 point likert-type when it comes to students’ engagement. Therefore, the outcome achieved is definitely positive from all three points of view, thus leading us to recommend the use of escape rooms in other courses.