Exploring emotional responses and learning effectiveness in gamified educational settings: insights from digital escape rooms

This study investigates the emotional dynamics experienced by students in digital escape rooms as a gamified learning tool. The research addresses three main questions: how digital escape rooms (DERs) overcome the limitations of physical escape rooms, the manifestation and interaction of positive and negative emotions during problem-solving, and the impact of these emotional interactions on learning English. A total of 233 university students participated. The study used an online escape room and a revised version of the Achievement Emotions Questionnaire to assess emotions, including enjoyment, hope, pride, anger, anxiety, shame, hopelessness, and boredom. Findings revealed that students experienced mixed emotions, with positive emotions coexisting with negative ones. Inter-emotional correlations and participants’ open-ended responses indicated that these emotional experiences were associated with perceived engagement and persistence, whereas individual emotions were not significantly associated with immediate performance gains. The findings further suggest that hope may be an important emotion to consider when designing supportive gamified learning experiences. Overall, this research contributes to the understanding of emotional dynamics in digital escape-room learning while avoiding causal claims that are not supported by the study design.