Educational escape rooms for raising information privacy competences: An empirical validation

Abstract Contemporary research has highlighted the need to specify the competences that individuals need to possess in order to protect their privacy against the potential risks of the internet, beyond mere awareness. The reassessment of conventional strategies for enhancing knowledge and skills for privacy protection has directed research attention towards the design and development of innovative educational interventions. To address this gap, in this paper we explore the effectiveness of educational escape rooms in enhancing users' privacy competencies. The study experimentally tested a 2D digital escape room which we designed to improve five specific privacy skills among 81 adult participants. The empirical findings show significant improvement in all the competencies tested: the ability to install and customize safeguards, the ability to perceive privacy risk, self-control, the ability to perceive privacy and privacy concerns. This demonstrates the potential of escape rooms as innovative tools for privacy learning, suggesting implications for designers of educational games and privacy software. This investigation contributes novel insights into privacy education by being one of the first studies to implement and test a privacy-focused escape room.