Shocking Escape: A Cardiac Escape Room for Undergraduate Nursing Students

Background. Cardiovascular content is challenging for students to master in the undergraduate nursing curriculum. Educational escape rooms have been shown to be useful in increasing student knowledge, immersing students in the learning process, and facilitating the growth of soft skills among learne...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Simulation & gaming 2021-02, Vol.52 (1), p.72-78
Main Authors: Morrell, Briyana, Eukel, Heidi N
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Clinical decision making
Clinical nursing
Computer & video games
Critical thinking
Curricula
Debriefing
Deterioration
Dosage
Education
Educational Games
Educational Objectives
Educational software
Escape
Learning
Learning Processes
Licensing
Medical education
Nurses
Nursing
Soft skills
Students
Teamwork
Transferability
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Background. Cardiovascular content is challenging for students to master in the undergraduate nursing curriculum. Educational escape rooms have been shown to be useful in increasing student knowledge, immersing students in the learning process, and facilitating the growth of soft skills among learners. Aim. This article details a cardiovascular educational escape room in an undergraduate nursing course, including educational objectives, design considerations, and all materials for seamless transferability into other curricula. Methods. Faculty designed, implemented, evaluated, and revised a nursing cardiovascular escape room over three years. In this sequential-style escape room, junior-level students worked together in groups to complete nine puzzles and activities. The student teams solved puzzles during the allotted 60 minutes to save a fictional patient at risk for further clinical deterioration related to cardiogenic shock. Participants complete activities including drug dosage calculations, rebus puzzles, multiple choice items, and clinical reasoning activities based around course and licensing objectives for the content area in nursing education. Upon game conclusion, faculty lead a guided debriefing to close the loop of learning. The escape room has been implemented for groups ranging from 31 to 68 students in each cohort. Results. Previously published results on this topic indicate that student content knowledge improved after the event. Students also reflected growth in confidence, critical thinking, and teamwork and also appreciated the real-life nature of the activity. The educational game can be adapted and transferred to other schools of nursing or clinical sites.
ISSN:1046-8781
1552-826X
DOI:10.1177/1046878120958734