Abstract:

Traditional lecture-based approaches in engineering project management often struggle to engage students and foster durable learning, particularly for abstract concepts such as planning, risk analysis and resource allocation. This study examines a digital educational escape room as a game-based learning intervention designed to enhance motivation, perceived learning and conceptual understanding in a Project Management course at the University of La Rioja (Spain). The intervention was implemented in a single two-hour session with 54 students across four engineering degree programs (Agricultural, Mechanical, Electrical, and Electronic Industrial and Automation), and comprised a pre-test, the escape room activity, a post-test and a post-activity satisfaction survey. The escape room, developed on the Escapp platform, included eight sequential challenges aligned with key project management topics (time planning, resource allocation, risk analysis, documentation, budgeting and Gantt chart scheduling) embedded in a fictional public project scenario and completed collaboratively in pairs. A pre–post quasi-experimental design was used to analyse both cognitive and affective impact, as well as differences between degree programs, drawing on knowledge tests, platform performance metrics (completion time, number of hints, challenges solved) and Likert-scale measures of motivation, perceived learning, organization and teamwork. Results show a small but statistically significant overall gain in test scores following the escape room, a significant improvement in the Electrical Engineering group, and high satisfaction across all dimensions, particularly teamwork. Significant between-program differences were observed in motivation, perceived learning, organization and overall satisfaction, with Agricultural Engineering students reporting the most positive perceptions and Electronics students the lowest. This study provides initial evidence of the cognitive and motivational impact of a digital escape room in engineering project management education. Nevertheless, the lack of longitudinal follow-up and the single-session design limit the conclusions that can be drawn about long-term learning and transfer. Future work should examine sustained implementations across multiple courses and institutions to better understand scalability, sustainability and long-term effects.

Keywords:

Educational escape room, game-based learning, engineering education, project management, student motivation, learning outcomes.