Enter the Serious E-scape Room: A Cost-Effective Serious Game Model for Deep and Meaningful E-learning

Escape rooms are a phenomenon that has taken the world by storm in the last decade. Simultaneously Virtual Reality is a promising technology for innovation in education, training and e-learning. Combining these two concepts, this paper outlines a new model for designing serious games in virtual reality environments for high quality, deep and meaningful learning, the Serious E-scape Room. It describes the theoretical grounding, general guidelines and principles of the model. It also presents the case study "Room of Keys", a serious virtual escape room for biology concepts. To test the assumptions of the model, researchers conducted a mixed research study with 148 students in a US high school. Pre-post test results recorded a 13.8% performance increase and high overall satisfaction. The game has been received enthusiastically by students, it increased their motivation and helped them build a deeper understanding of the learned concepts.