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      STEM escape rooms for public engagement

      research-article
      1 , , 2
      Research for All
      UCL Press
      STEM, escape rooms, public engagement

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          Abstract

          Escape rooms are a relatively new cultural phenomenon, attracting a wide range of audiences to test their puzzle-solving skills. While this format has been trialled in an educational context, there has been little exploration of it as a tool for engagement. We ran a STEM-based escape room, open to the public, over five days at a science centre in Malta. This was an exploratory exercise to determine whether escape rooms could be successful in an informal science engagement context. Over seventy players attempted the game and completed our evaluation. Our results suggest that escape rooms can be used in engagement contexts as they provide a positive experience that encourages future interactions with science. They may also draw audiences not normally interested in science and help them engage with scientific content in a more accessible manner. Interestingly, players were able to persist in engaging with content they found difficult while still finding it enjoyable, which has implications for the science communication of complex topics. Finally, players perceived that they were able to learn science through the escape room, which may increase their self-efficacy.

          Most cited references18

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          The "What" and "Why" of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs and the Self-Determination of Behavior

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                Author and article information

                Journal
                rfa
                Research for All
                UCL Press (UK )
                2399-8121
                21 September 2021
                : 5
                : 2
                : 347-355
                Affiliations
                [1 ] University College Dublin, Ireland;
                [2 ] University of Malta;
                Author notes
                *Corresponding author – email: Amanda.mathieson@ 123456ucd.ie
                Author information
                https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2712-8867
                https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2536-8314
                Article
                10.14324/RFA.05.2.10
                455aa120-07da-4bbe-84fa-f71ca9658af0
                Copyright © 2021 Mathieson and Duca

                This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY) 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

                History
                : 31 August 2020
                : 18 March 2021
                Page count
                Tables: 4, References: 18, Pages: 10
                Categories

                Assessment, Evaluation & Research methods,Education & Public policy,Educational research & Statistics
                STEM,escape rooms,public engagement

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