Grant deadline: An escape room to simulate grant submissions

Background and purpose: Previous lectures for graduate trainees did not convey the urgency, complexity, and challenges of a successful grant submission. To increase engagement, instructors applied gamification principles to create an educational escape room. Serious games used in other settings engage participants to solve problems, build teamwork, and improve communication skills. This study was designed to fill a gap in the types of educational training effectively conducted via escape rooms. Educational activity and setting: A college of pharmacy team implemented a game to simulate the grant submission process and familiarize trainees to internal processes and resources. Participants searched for grant opportunities, identified proposal errors, solved research-related clues to open locks, contacted a difficult collaborator, physically located resources, and requested permission for late submission. The activity was implemented during an introductory class for first-year graduate students (n = 19). Learning objectives targeted the technical and relational aspects of proposals within a realistic, timed setting. Student perceptions of the escape room experience were gathered via individual interviews (n = 8) and evaluated by thematic analysis. Findings: Analysis of participant emotions, thoughts, and attitudes identified common themes of excitement (63%), fun (50%), stress (38%), and frustration (25%). Compared to didactic instruction, many interviewed students preferred the escape room (63%) and found it conducive to learning (63%). A subset thought it might not work for everyone (13%) or would be improved by adding a didactic component (13%). This escape room served as an engaging method to introduce graduate students to the grant submission process.