Learning Innovation Festival 2023 - Teaching Team Dynamics with an Escape Room

Dr Low Chin Heng Adjunct Faculty, Lee Kong Chian School of Business Escape rooms are “live-action games in which people work together — usually in groups of three or more people — to discover clues, solve puzzles, and complete tasks within a certain time and accomplish a specified mission” (Plump & Meisel, 2020, p. 203). In the last decade, game-based learning, such as those using escape rooms, has enjoyed growing interest amongst scholarship on teaching and learning, especially in the field of management education (Leemkuil & De Jong, 2012; Nemanich, 2019). For example, Ben Arbaugh, Asarta, Hwang, Fornaciari and Charlier (2019), in their review and assessment of 250 articles on business and management education, found that the study of individuals’ involvement in games and their learning effectiveness was a key research stream. According to Kapp (2012), games offer the participants a remarkable opportunity to experience a flow psychological state, where they immerse themselves cognitively and totally in the game. In doing so, the participants are intrigued, and made ready to creatively reflect on observations and conceptualise the abstract during gameplay. As they moved through the game, they may even generate knowledge and understanding beyond the game itself, through a quintessentially experiential learning process (Kolb & Kolb, 2005; Linnenbrink-Garcia et al, 2010). Escape rooms, when used in a management education setting, may thus offer participants a good chance to learn various people management concepts and theories, through their first-hand in-game experience. References Ben Arbaugh, J., Asarta, C. J., Hwang, A., Fornaciari, C. J., & Charlier, S. D. (2019). Business and Management Education Research: Developing and Assessing Research Streams Using Legitimation Code Theory. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 18(3), 433–456.Kapp, K. M. (2012). The gamification of learning and instruction: Game-based methods and strategies for training and education. San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer.Kolb, A. Y., & Kolb, D. A. (2005). Learning style and learning spaces: Enhancing experiential learning in higher education. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 4, 193-212. doi:10.5465/amle.2005.17268566Leemkuil, H., & De Jong, T. O. N. (2012). Adaptive Advice in Learning With a Computer-Based Knowledge Management Simulation Game. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 11(4), 653–665.Linnenbrink-Garcia, L., Durik, A. M., Conley, A. M., Barron, K. E., Tauer, J. M., Karabenick, S. A., & Harackiewicz, J. M. (2010). Measuring Situational Interest in Academic Domains. Educational and psychological measurement, 70(4), 647–671.Nemanich, L. A. (2019). Ahead of the Chains: Business Leadership Insights From the Game of Football, by Matthew F. Prostko. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 18(1), 117–118.Plump, & Meisel, S. I. (2020). Escape the Traditional Classroom: Using Live-Action Games to Engage Students and Strengthen Concept Retention. Management Teaching Review, 5(3), 202–217.<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" href="https://doi.org/10.1177/2379298119837615"> https://doi.org/10.1177/2379298119837615</a><div> </div>