Communicating Science Through Escape Rooms: A Challenge

This conceptual protocol proposes a mixed-methods study to examine how different stakeholders in Portugal perceive, accept, or resist the use of escape rooms as a science communication (SciComm) tool. The authors note that while escape rooms have proven effective for learning, motivation, and engagement in educational settings, their structured use for science communication remains empirically underexplored, a gap made more pressing by declining public trust in science and growing demand for participatory communication formats. The study frames its aim not as measuring learning outcomes but as mapping the cognitive, emotional, and institutional factors that shape acceptance, treating stakeholder receptiveness as a prerequisite for sustainable escape room design.

The proposed design combines an exploratory qualitative phase with an online survey. Focus groups of 5 to 8 participants, with an estimated total of about 60 participants split across the general public, academia, and the escape room industry, would be analyzed through reflexive thematic analysis to identify themes, barriers, and opportunities. These findings would then inform a Likert-style questionnaire targeting roughly 600 respondents, which would incorporate the Portuguese version of the Trust in Science and Scientists scale and examine group differences and associations through JASP-based analyses. The authors state that ethical approval will be sought before data collection begins.

The authors hypothesize that potential users will hold more favorable attitudes toward escape rooms than institutional stakeholders such as academics and decision-makers, who are expected to voice greater concern about educational legitimacy and resource allocation. They also propose competing expectations regarding whether higher trust in science is associated with more positive or more negative attitudes toward the format. The intended output is a set of evidence-based guidelines for designing escape rooms that meet the needs of both audiences and communicators, offered as a practical contribution to informal science learning.