The effect of educational escape games on science class motivation, academic achievement and reflective thinking skills for problem solving

The aim of this study is to examine the impact of educational escape games-based lesson activities on the academic achievement, motivation, and reflective thinking skills for problem-solving in seventh-grade students' science classes. Additionally, the study aims to determine student opinions regarding the implementation of educational escape games-based lesson activities. Therefore, a mixed-methods research design, specifically the embedded design among the research designs of mixed methods, was utilized in this study. The embedded design involved advancing a quantitative study with qualitative research methods. The qualitative part consists of the descriptive analysis method. The research group comprised a total of 36 seventh-grade students, with 18 in the experimental group and 18 in the control group, studying in a middle school in the Sapanca district of Sakarya province during the first semester of the 2023-2024 academic year. Data collection tools used in the study included the "Simple Electric Circuits Three-Stage Achievement Test," "Motivation Scale for Science Learning," "Reflective Thinking Skills Scale for Problem Solving," and a semi-structured Interview Form consisting of 11 questions. Except for the interview form, the data collection tools were administered as pre-tests to the students before the implementation period. Subsequently, students in the experimental group participated in educational escape game-based activities. These activities were implemented for 3 weeks (12 lesson hours) with the experimental group. The science class for the control group was conducted using the current curriculum, including textbook and smart board activities. At the end of the process, data collection tools were applied to the students as a posttest. The data collected as pre-tests and post-tests throughout the process were analyzed using IBM SPSS 25 statistical package program within the context of the research sub-problems. It was determined that the data obtained from the measurement tools exhibited normal distribution. Dependent and independent t-tests were applied in the analysis of normally distributed variables. The study revealed a significant difference between the mean achievement test scores of students in the experimental group and those in the control group. A significant difference in motivation for learning science was also found between the experimental and control groups. Finally, no significant difference was detected between the experimental and control groups regarding reflective thinking skills for problem-solving. It is thought that the reason for this is that the students encounter the games for the first time, the application time and the number of students are low. The questions in the semi-structured interview form were asked to 6 randomly selected students from the experimental group at the end of the process. When the answers to the interview questions were analyzed, it was revealed that the students enjoyed playing the game, their motivation towards the lesson increased, they saw their shortcomings, learned time management, saw the advantages and disadvantages of doing group work, and also realized the importance of listening to the lesson.