ESCAPE ROOMS AS COLLABORATIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS: ENHANCING TEAMWORK AND PROBLEM-SOLVING SKILLS

This article examines escape rooms as collaborative learning environments that promote teamwork, communication, and problem-solving skills. Drawing on established design frameworks such as EscapED and Room2Educ8, systematic reviews of educational escape rooms, flow theory, and recent research on motivational calibration and technological innovation management, the study identifies evidence-based design principles and practical implications for educators and instructional designers. The analysis demonstrates that effective educational escape rooms require careful alignment between narrative, puzzles, and learning objectives; appropriate challenge-skill balance achieved through motivational calibration; thoughtful management of technological innovations; and high-quality facilitated debriefing. The article contributes to the growing body of literature on experiential learning by synthesizing current knowledge and highlighting practical strategies for designing escape room experiences that develop transferable collaborative and problem-solving competencies.