González Domínguez, José Ángel

Introduction: In recent years, innovative educational strategies of learning have appeared, to generate greater motivation in the students. Gamification has become popular in the educational area, including Escape Rooms. The primary aim of the study was to evaluate if this gamification activity led to better knowledge acquisition by the students, improving performance in their final exam. As a secondary objective, we surveyed the satisfaction of the students participating in the Educational Escape Room. Material and methods: An observational study of cases and controls was carried out. We designed an escape room based on the cardiovascular area of physiotherapy, titled Escape-Cardio. We provided scaffolded learning activities through the activity. Primary outcomes corresponded to the students’ qualifications and the number of correct answers in the final exam. Qualitative questionnaire results of students of both courses were collected using a self-created survey, which was completed after the activity. Results: 58 students participated in the Escape-Cardio. We observed better performance in the intervention group, improving their average mark and number of correct answers in the exam, with a statistically significant difference compared to the control group (p-value<0.05). In the qualitative assessment, students answered the survey, and all of them scored unanimously each item with the maximum score, aiming for 100% satisfaction. Conclusion: Escape-Cardio students improved their professional knowledge application in the cardiovascular physiotherapy area in a statistically significant way. An excellent qualitative evaluation was achieved by them.