Digital Educational Escape Games as Immersive and Interactive Technologies in Education: An Exploratory Comparison of Vocational Education and Training and Higher Education

Teaching in higher education has evolved towards incentivizing approaches that involve active student participation. The use of educational games is a proven approach to enhancing motivation, making students engage with the material. A contemporary illustration of this genre is digital educational escape games (DEEGs). Due to their problem-solving approach, they are particularly suitable for STEM disciplines. Research lacks investigations on how DEEGs influence learning outcomes at different educational levels. This article explores success determinants of DEEGs in two STEM groups: senior vocational education and training students and higher education students. An intervention study was conducted with a DEEG on the subject of cryptography. Data were gathered using a pre- and post-test survey and logfile data extracted from the game backend. The data analysis is based on partial least squares structural equation modeling. The main findings show that statistically significant differences can be observed in the variance explained regarding the target construct learning outcome, as well as in two path coefficients: computer gaming affinity to learning outcome and game use to learning outcome. The differences detected lead to the conclusion that vocational education and training students have different study habits than higher education students, leading to different effects of the predictors on the target construct. Nevertheless, the differences detected in the two samples are to be examined further to verify the results of this exploratory study.