EconScape Game: A transformative approach to interactive learning

What if learning complex concepts could feel like an exciting adventure rather than a dull chore?

Our project holds significant importance in advancing business education scholarship by introducing innovative teaching methods in the field of Economics. Traditional approaches to education often struggle to captivate and engage modern students. By introducing gamification, this project addresses the need for dynamic, interactive, and student-centred pedagogical strategies.

Our case study revolves around the development and implementation of an interactive online escape room game tailored to a highly technical and quantitative second-year undergraduate module at the University of Birmingham Dubai campus. By merging technology, gamification, and learning principles, this innovative educational tool prompts students to tackle module-specific challenges, promoting critical thinking, problem solving, and concept application.

The integration of the escape room game in the curriculum directly aligns with our mission to foster engagement, collaboration, and time management skills– all crucial transferable skills for success and part of our Business School’s graduate attributes. By introducing this innovative and engaging pedagogical approach, we aim to enhance student learning experiences and cultivate a culture of active participation and collaboration within an inclusive classroom environment that caters to diverse learning styles.

The EconScape Game has three primary objectives:

1. Enhance engagement and participation: employing gamification to transform intricate concepts into captivating challenges, encouraging active participation and improved understanding;
2. Support enjoyable learning: introducing a fun educational activity to enhance understanding, knowledge retention and application, student enthusiasm, and a sense of support;
3. Promote collaboration: the online escape room platform facilitates collaborative problem-solving, enhancing teamwork skills and peer learning dynamics.

To gather comprehensive insights and assess the project’s impact, we employ a combination of evaluation methods and indicators, ensuring a holistic understanding to its effectiveness. Firstly, we conduct a tailored questionnaire to elicit students’ feedback and first-hand experience with the EconScape Game. The open-ended survey responses are analysed in-depth, focusing on students’ reflections on their learning journey. These reflections offer insights into the challenges encountered, benefits gained, and the overall impact of the escape room game on their motivation and engagement, sense of belonging and inclusivity, peer collaboration and learning dynamics, time management, and perceived learning. Additionally, we run a student focus group discussion to obtain deeper understanding of students' perspectives and insights into the game’s impact, shedding light on areas for improvement and allowing us to refine and optimise the educational tool based on real-time feedback.