Abstract:

Introduction:
During the COVID-19 endemic, delivering synchronous lectures and video lectures in the manner of the traditional lecture method seems to trigger low attendance, hinder peer interactions and encourage passive learning in Generation Z students. To overcome such problems, innovative approaches like game-based learning are often employed. Educational games are widely incorporated into teaching and learning process in order to enhance collaboration, critical thinking and communication skills. An escape room is a type of educational, puzzle-based game that puts student teams in charge of problem-solving scenarios before escaping. Previous studies have shown its effectiveness in providing overall positive learning experience, though investigations involving pharmacy students in a medicinal chemistry course remain scant.

Objective:
This paper investigates pharmacy students’ perceptions on an interactive, multi-themed medicinal chemistry escape room activity that was employed as an educational intervention in lieu of a synchronous lecture during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Method:
To escape passive learning in a 2-hour synchronous lecture session, a digital escape room activity was designed and implemented using interactive, multi-themed puzzles for medicinal chemistry topics. The multiple themes in the escape room activity was created in Genially and hosted in the Miro board and Cisco Webex breakout rooms. Out of 184 students, 100 students participated in the escape room activity that took place in the first hour of the synchronous lecture session covering topics on peptic ulcer drugs, anti-emetics, H1-antagonists and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). These were arranged in a linear game structure combining easy and difficult challenges and featured:
1) Where in the world is?,
2) MedChem Superheroes,
3) Find C-19X vaccine code,
4) Stop the Alien invasion and
5) Final challenge: Baek Hyun’s First Date. Upon completion of the activity, students rated their experience and overall perception of the escape room game.

Results:
The survey results indicated that the interactive, multi-themed escape room activity was positively perceived by students (n=80) with average scores above 3.70 in a 1-5 Likert scale. It was considered as fun and interesting (4.53) by the third-year pharmacy students who described it as “exciting”, “awesome” and “...definitely wake me up from feeling sleepy in the morning”. Students also viewed the escape room game as an effective way to learn new information related to medicinal chemistry (4.36). They also perceived that they learned better in a game format than a live lecture (3.83) or a video lecture (3.70).

Conclusion:
Third-year pharmacy students positively perceived the multi-themed digital ER game in helping them improve their understanding in medicinal topics. It has the potential to serve as an educational intervention to escape passivity in the traditional lecture method and enhancing students’ autonomy in fostering the acquisition of 21st century skills.

Keywords:

Escape room, medicinal chemistry, educational games, active learning, pharmacy education.