Exploring the Impact of a Digital Escape Room in Moodle on Students´ Motivation

Knowledge Management is a core subject in the bachelor’s program in Information Systems at the Nuremberg Institute of Technology. To enhance learning, a digital escape room was developed and implemented on the Moodle e-learning platform. The project addressed three research questions: Is Moodle a recommendable platform to implement a digital escape room? Are digital escape rooms a reasonable concept to teach knowledge? Are students motivated to gain knowledge with an escape room? A prototype was initially evaluated, revealing improved learning outcomes, particularly among students who enjoy quizzes. However, the quiz-based format of Moodle proved unsuitable for certain topics, and the platform's limited capabilities for game development posed challenges. The original escape room’s duration of two to three hours was considered excessive by students, leading to a revised version with a more manageable length of 90 minutes. Usability testing, employing the think-aloud method, was conducted to refine the design before re-release. A subsequent pilot revealed that 70% of students valued the escape room for knowledge acquisition. While many enjoyed the puzzles, some preferred traditional exam preparation. These findings suggest that digital escape rooms hold promise as innovative pedagogical tools. However, their success depends on careful adaptation to course content and student needs, making them a potential complement to traditional learning methods. The overarching goal of this project is to evaluate the efficacy of digital escape rooms as innovative pedagogical tools and to explore their potential in reshaping conventional learning environments.