Abstract:

Motivation is a key element to develop effective learning. Low motivation may be associated with a scarce commitment to fully acquire the required learning in a specific subject. This issue has become one of the biggest problems in current educational systems. Gamification, defined as the use of games in different contexts, is a technique whose popularity is increasing remarkably, not only in educational contexts but also in business and marketing environments. Regarding educational contexts, gamification may establish a dynamic, novel, and attractive environment, that may help to increase motivation and, therefore, the commitment of the students to perform the activities related to the different subjects. The present educational innovation project used gamification following the rules of the widespread Escape rooms. The students were presented with a problem related to the contents of a specific subject, and they had to solve it using an active process of searching/discarding different clues (that would involve key concepts of the subject). Before using this Escape room paradigm, we asked the students about their expectation with the activity. After its use, we asked them about their satisfaction with it. At last, we explored their academic performance in order to check whether the impact of this activity had been positive at a significant level.

Keywords:

Gamification, motivation, Escape room, commitment.