Teaching Development Grants
Completed TDG Projects

Experiential Learning

Development, Implementation and Evaluation of the Gamification of Learning for Medical Students Using a Pilot Educational Escape-Room Experience


Abstract

Project description
The aim of our project was to explore game-based learning in a novel, immersive learning environment, based on an Escape Room, a popular game in which participants solve a series of puzzles to escape a locked room. An educational Escape Room was created using the MBBS year 2 cardiovascular syllabus on anatomy, physiology and pharmacology. Curricular elements such as ‘auscultation of heart valves’ were used to develop puzzles. Students would locate a thorax model in a hidden chamber, with corresponding questions elsewhere. Communicating via walkie-talkie, they would experience relaying complex anatomical data, mirroring the challenge of reporting clinical findings over the telephone. Nine different challenges were developed to be completed in a 45 minute time limit.
Data was collected via a mixed-methods approach using a survey, focus-group interviews and qualitative video data collected through wearable micro-cameras for analysis of student actions. A total of 151 students participated in the project.

Outcomes
Survey data revealed a high level of student engagement and improvement in problem solving and data interpretation. Qualitative analysis of video data demonstrated three main themes of learning behaviours: Cognitive engagement, metacognitive activity and positive collaboration. Overall, the academic escape chamber was a popular, interactive and pedagogically progressive teaching method.

Principal Investigator

Professor T.P. Lam, Department of Family Medicine and Primary Care, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine Contact

Project level

Programme-level project

Project Completion

September 2015

Deliverables

  1. The provision of an innovative and exciting game-based learning experience to medical students which is simultaneously based on sound and sustainable pedagogical principles
  2. Presentations and publications to share the experience of the project and its findings with the Faculty, University and the wider academic community
  3. To explore serious games as a channel for creativity amongst educators within the faculty
  4. Knowledge exchange and public engagement with the community through the media