A chance for blended learning caused by COVID-19: From escape rooms to digital educational Brekouts

The crisis caused by COVID-19 has prompted diverse changes in the Higher Education teaching during the last two years. This has provoked a couple of challenges for all university agents but some opportunities and chances for getting better teaching and learning methodologies and resources too. Among these, the use of digital platforms and tools in the blended learning and online education is one of the clearest ones. This use may increase the motivation and participation of the students. This paper presents a teaching-learning experience developed into courses on Economic Theory at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, both in Spanish and English, from 2019 to 2021. However, this can be generalized to any kind of Public Economics and other related economic and business areas. This proposal supposes a novelty in the teaching of Economic Sciences at higher education. The aim has been improving the motivation and participation of our students, using gamification approaches through escape room activities. We have adapted this methodology to the digital framework using educational Breakout games. The changes introduced allow students to learn and review theoretical, graphical, and mathematical contents. Additionally, the results show they complete some other horizontal competences such as cooperative work, creativity and imagination, critical reasoning, resolution of practical cases, and the control of ICTs. The experienced shows students improve not only their motivation but also their academic results. Finally, the perception of the participants in this innovative project is that it significatively improves the quality of the learning process.