Design of a large-scale escape room for first-year pharmacy student orientation

Abstract Background and purpose In this article, we developed and implemented an escape room activity for first-year pharmacy student orientation. The purpose of the activity was to engage students in socialization with their classmates, to familiarize students with the key personnel of the program, to acquaint students with co-curricular programming in the academic calendar, and to peruse key policies in the student handbook. Educational activity and setting An escape room was developed for first professional year student orientation in a large classroom setting. The escape room featured several gameplay elements, including a personnel bingo game, a computerized student calendar scavenger hunt, and group assessments designed to acquaint students with policies within the student handbook. One hundred nineteen students participated simultaneously in the orientation escape room activity in break-out groups to accomplish the objectives of the escape room as measured by embedded assessments. Findings All students successfully escaped the encounter. Students demonstrated proficiency in orientation learning objectives on group assessments. Students were queried about their attitudes towards the instructional design via a post-survey. The proof-of-concept for this work was evaluated via a log of estimated faculty time and monetary costs for implementation. Summary A student orientation escape room was successfully designed and implemented. Students were assessed to evaluate the retention of knowledge obtained during orientation. Despite not having previously met their classmates, survey responses indicated that students were positively inclined toward the educational activity. This is the first report of a co-curricular escape room developed for pharmacy student orientation.