Presented By: James Swigart, Carle Illinois College of Medicine, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Co-Authors: Grace Park, Carle Illinois College of Medicine, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Chris Pecenka, Carle Illinois College of Medicine, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Joseph Sepe, University of Minnesota Medical School

Purpose
Escape rooms are becoming more common in educational environments to promote engagement and enjoyment of students. Current literature describing escape room activities focuses primarily on team building and social behaviors as opposed to the effectiveness of the activity as a learning tool. Our study addresses this gap in a pre-clerkship organ-based system curriculum.

Methods
64 first-year medical students completed three discipline integrated organ-based courses as part of their first semester in the curriculum. During the last week of each course, students participated in an escape room activity to review content of that course and integration with previous courses. After the activity, students completed a course final exam and an activity evaluation survey. This study correlates the student satisfaction of the escape room activity with the performance on the course final exam. Students that did not participate in the activity were also examined to see if completion of the activity influenced course final exam scores.

Results
Students on average enjoyed the activities (4.2/5), learned from their peers (4.1/5) and felt that the activities were effective ways to review the content (3.6/5). The enjoyment and effectiveness measurements are lower than last year (4.5/5 and 4.3/5 respectively) indicating cohort differences. Students that completed the activities scored on average 2.5 percentage points higher than those that did not. Members of the clinical faculty have begun attending the session and shadowing the students to gain ideas for adding active learning to clerkship courses suggesting additional use of the activities for faculty development.

Conclusions
The escape room activities are an effective way for students to review the content of the course, but indications of cohort differences question their use more generally. While students still enjoy the activities, if excitement continues to decline, the activities may be retired due to the time commitment of the faculty.