Elsevier

Nurse Education Today

Volume 109, February 2022, 105205
Nurse Education Today

Research article
The impact of using an “anatomy escape room” on nursing students: A comparative study

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2021.105205Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Escape room-based approach constitutes a down-to-earth resource for anatomy educators.

  • This experience demonstrates to be a motivating learning experience in nursing.

  • Findings showed efficacy for evaluating anatomy and knowledge retention in students.

  • This game-based method can be captivating and promotes creativity in students.

Abstract

Background

Anatomy is an important part of health science education. In teaching anatomy, new teaching strategies have been studied in comparison with traditional-based approaches. In this manner, strategies such as the escape room-based approach have been used as an innovative learning approach in nursing education, but little is known about its application in an Anatomy module.

Objective

To evaluate the effectiveness of the escape room for anatomy-related knowledge retention in nursing and the perceived value of the game.

Design

In the first semesters of the academic years 2017–2018 and 2018–2019, a comparative cross-sectional study was conducted.

Settings

This study took place at the University of Almeria with students enrolled in the Anatomy module.

Participants

A total of 248 first-year nursing students took part in the study.

Methods

The study included two groups: an experimental group (EG) that participated in an escape room in the final session of their Anatomy module, and a control group (CG) that received a traditional-based teaching approach in their final lesson.

Results

Students enrolled in the Anatomy module were randomly assigned to either the experimental (EG, n = 128) or control groups (CG, n = 120). The escape room was conducted in groups of four and lasted no more than 15 min. In terms of satisfaction with the escape room, EG scored above the mean. The item “I enjoyed playing” received the highest score (4.88 ± 0.35). Taking the final scores of each group into account, the EG had a final average score of 8.94 ± 0.96, while the CG had a final average score of 7.70 ± 1.25 (p = 0.001).

Conclusions

According to the findings, the “Anatomy Escape Room” is a game-based approach that motivates students and constitutes a down-to-earth resource for anatomy learning in healthcare students.

Section snippets

Background

In healthcare degree programmes, anatomy modules are generally taught at the beginning as an essential component of health education in order to ground basic knowledge in areas such as histology and gross anatomy, among others (Brown et al., 2017; Reinke, 2019). Indeed, without this knowledge, healthcare providers may be unable to effectively develop their clinical practice (Lewis et al., 2016). Although some anatomy-related teaching approaches have traditionally included various strategies

Aim

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the escape room for anatomy-related knowledge retention in nursing, as well as the perceived value of the game.

Design

In the first semesters of the academic years 2017–2018 and 2018–2019, a comparative cross-sectional study was conducted to answer the following research question: “How effective is a game-like design such as escape room to engage nursing students and promote anatomy-related knowledge retention?”. The study included two

The socio-demographic characteristics of the participants

The sample size included 248 first-year nursing students from the University of Almeria, with 51.6% (n = 128) belonging to the EG and 48.4% (n = 120) belonging to the CG. These groups were comprised of 77.8% (n = 193) females and 22.2% (n = 55) males, with a mean age of 19.59 ± 4.70 (ranged from 18 to 51 years old). In terms of the EG, 76.6% (n = 98) were females, while 23.4% (n = 30) were males. Similarly, females composed 79.2% (n = 95) of the population in the CG, while males constituted

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the escape room for anatomy-related knowledge retention in nursing, as well as the perceived value of the game. Our findings revealed that students who participated in the escape room for the final evaluation outperformed those who used a traditional-based evaluation. Despite the fact that different anatomy-related teaching approaches have been used, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to use the escape room as an

Conclusions

For healthcare students, the escape room-based approach is a down-to-earth resource for learning and evaluating anatomy. This strategy has been demonstrated to be a motivating learning experience that supports students in recalling and applying what they have previously learned in class. In short, further exercises alike should be incorporated into anatomy learning and evaluation. The current study confirms that the use of this game-based method can be considered as a captivating and creative

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Guadalupe Molina-Torres: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Validation, Investigation, Project administration. Diana Cardona: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Validation, Investigation, Project administration. Mar Requena: Conceptualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Visualization. Miguel Rodriguez-Arrastia: Methodology, Supervision, Investigation. Pablo Roman: Methodology, Supervision, Investigation. Carmen

Declaration of competing interest

No conflict of interest has been declared by the authors.

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