Immersive Gamification in STEM: Educational Escape Rooms for Engagement and Formative Assessment

ABSTRACTGamification has emerged as an innovative educational approach to foster engagement, critical thinking, and collaboration. Although most research on educational escape rooms has focused on higher education, empirical evidence in secondary STEM contexts remains scarce. This study addresses this gap by analysing the design, implementation, and evaluation of an interdisciplinary escape room for 68 first-year IGCSE students in Portugal. Biology, chemistry, and mathematics content was integrated into scenario-based challenges to promote both subject-specific knowledge and transversal competencies. Data were collected through observations, post-activity discussions, student questionnaires, and analysed thematically. Results showed high levels of cognitive and emotional engagement: 92.6% of participants reported enhanced knowledge, and 95.6% affirmed learning gains. Students valued the experience as educational, fun, and engaging, while challenges such as prior knowledge gaps and time constraints revealed the escape room’s diagnostic potential. The findings align with the CREATE framework for escape room design and resonate with international policy agendas (OECD, UNESCO) that emphasise 21st-century skills and formative assessment. This study contributes empirically by extending evidence to secondary STEM education, methodologically by positioning escape rooms as diagnostic as well as motivational tools, and theoretically by connecting gamification with media literacy and digital culture as transformative strategies in contemporary pedagogy.