EDUCATIONAL ESCAPE ROOMS

Escape rooms have inspired educators all over the world to adapt this popular entertainment activity for education purposes. This article discusses the design and design philosophy of MasterMind, an escape room developed at Utrecht University by a multidisciplinary team of educators, educational researchers
and game researchers. MasterMind served as a means of professional development in the use and implementation of online educational tools in academic teaching. Its aim was to playfully introduce university teachers to digital educational tools and help them make informed decisions about employing
these tools in their educational contexts. It targeted early majority and late majority adopters of digital technologies in education (cf. Rogers, 1962). A majority of the participants perceived that the experience of playing MasterMind made them more inclined to use digital tools in their own teaching, and that it was an enjoyable and meaningful time investment. This article analyzes in a post-mortem reflection, the design of
MasterMind. Post-mortem reflections are also referred to as post-mortem evaluations, post-project audits, debriefs or retrospectives. Project members identify and analyze elements of a project, product or meeting that were successful and unsuccessful, and articulate lessons learned (Kasi, Keil, Mathiassen, & Pedersen, 2008; Myllyaho, Salo, Kääriäinen, Hyysalo, & Koskela, 2004). MasterMind project members based their analysis on formal evaluations by questionnaires, observations as game masters, and informal contact with participants after the game. The design of MasterMind is analyzed from the perspective of three design challenges that have informed the design process: 1) the participants’ transition from the real world to the game world; 2) the alignment of game design and educational aspects within the game world; and 3) the transfer from experiences and knowledge obtained within the game world back into the real world. We argue that educational escape rooms, such as MasterMind, can be positioned in a context of both serious and persuasive gaming and thus need to take into account the design challenges that are particular to both forms of games. Drawing on a general theoretical model for persuasive game design (Visch, Vegt, Anderiesen, & van der Kooij, 2013) and a design framework for the alignment between game goals and learning goals (Van der Linden, Van Joolingen, & Meulenbroeks, 2019), the article reflects on how we engaged with the aforementioned challenges in the design of MasterMind. We appoint successful and less successful design elements of this persuasive game, and describe encountered dilemmas and lessons learned. With this, we hope to contribute to the discourse on serious gaming and help foster the dialogue between serious game designers and educators.