Communicating Science Through Escape Rooms: A Challenge

Abstract

Existing evidence shows that escape rooms are effective in promoting learning, motivation, and engagement in educational and professional contexts. More recently, the format has been used in science communication initiatives in informal contexts and/or with diverse audiences, showing promising results. Despite these developments, the potential of escape rooms as structured tools for science communication remains significantly underexplored from an empirical perspective. This gap is particularly relevant in a context marked by misinformation, declining trust in science (European Commission, 2025), and growing demands for participatory communication formats. This context calls for prior empirical understanding of how different stakeholders perceive, evaluate, and relate to novel science communication tools such as escape rooms. Drawing from cognitive and social psychology, and science communication, this conceptual protocol addresses this critical empirical gap by examining how different stakeholders (potential users, academics, institutional decision-makers, and industry professionals) perceive, accept or resist the use of escape rooms as a science communication tool in Portugal. We propose a mixed-methods approach consisting of focus groups and an online questionnaire to assess openness or resistance to this format. We hypothesize that potential participants (e.g., university students, members of the public) would show strong interest in this format, but academics (professors and researchers, directors and deans) may show some resistance to its adoption. Insights from the escape room industry will complement the findings from this project, allowing us to map the barriers and opportunities for the engagement of diverse audiences with scientific content using escape rooms. The further goal is to inform future development of evidence-based escape rooms for science communication that encourage people’s active participation in scientific discourse.