Abstract:

Introduction:
Although there are some experiences of Educational Escape Rooms in High Education, only few analyze the effectiveness of this teaching methodology.

In the proposed work, we will present data on the validity of an Educational Escape Room implemented for the practices of the Psychopathology subject, in the 3rd year of the Degree in Psychology, in order to renew the teaching-learning process.

There are different proposed hypotheses:
- Specificity: Participants without knowledge of Psychopathology will not be able to solve the designed enigmas.
- Effectiveness: The time spent in solving the designed enigmas will be inversely proportional to the knowledge of the contents of Psychopathology evaluated with a previous objective test.
- Efficiency: The escape experience will facilitate the acquisition or consolidation of the knowledge about Psychopathology worked.
- Maintenance: The improvement in the knowledge of Psychopathology acquired in the escape room will be maintained over time.
- Satisfaction: The activity will be well valued by the students.

Method:
Participants. Groups of 6 people will be formed who, during a one-hour session, will have to solve the enigmas proposed in the session. The groups of students will be equated depending on the academic record and the sex of the participants.
Setting of the class. A Psychopathology escape room has been designed around the key learning objectives established within the curriculum of the matter: identification of symptoms and diagnosis. Everything was set in a Mental Health Hospital. The objective of the participants was to make the diagnosis of 7 patients admitted to the unit to demonstrate that they were true students of Psychopathology and not accomplices of an escaped patient.

Procedure:
For the validation and/or adjustment of the escape room, several tests were carried out with students who had already passed the course and with teachers of related subject to Psychopathology. The difficulty of some riddles was adjusted based on the suggestions obtained.

Evaluation:
At the end of the session the students will answer a series of questions about their learning (degree of achievement of the competences of the matter), the teaching process (ability to work and solve the tests autonomously and in groups, motivation and active participation) and teaching practice (coherent objectives, adequate challenges, support offered to students, management and organization of the activity), as well as the degree of satisfaction with the experience.

Results and conclusions:
Ninety-eight students participated in the escape experience; 18 of them served to make adjustments to the game. From their suggestions, some changes were made in some tests to make them clearer, and the resolution time was increased (to 80 minutes). After the experience, the students completed a series of questions, and the experience was highly rewarding for all the students. On a Likert scale of 0 to 5, they assessed different aspects of the organization [4.69 (.45)], the relevance of the tests [4.58 (.27)], the individual [(4.85 (.28)] and group [4.26 (.44)] experience, as well as the general assessment of the experience [4.95 (.27)].

Keywords:

Psychopathology, escape room, higher education.