Evaluating the use of an escape game to reinforce foundational pathogens recall among first-year student pharmacists.

INTRODUCTION: The objective of this study was to implement an escape game in a first-year basic-science lab and evaluate item-mapped outcomes immediately and at six weeks, including subgroup analyses and cohort-level GPA context. METHODS: First-year student pharmacists (n = 49) worked in groups to "escape" in 50 min. One week prior, students received a list of 14 fungal and parasitic pathogens, were given a lecture over them, and told to memorize them. On the lab day, students completed an individual pre-quiz, the escape game activity, a post-quiz, and a reassessment six weeks later. RESULTS: Post-quiz scores exceeded pre-quiz scores (86.59% ± 2.7 vs 92.13% ± 1.67; p < 0.05). Over half of the participants earned a perfect score on the pre-quiz. The escape game learning intervention had a larger impact when analyzing only participants who did not earn a perfect score on the pre-quiz (pre-quiz: 70.13% ± 3.63%; post-quiz: 85.71% ± 2.97%, with a p-value <0.001). On mapped exam items at six weeks, the experimental year outperformed the control year (94% ± 4.04 vs 85% ± 4.16; p < 0.05) despite lower incoming GPAs (total 3.17 ± 0.011 vs 3.44 ± 0.007; math/science 3.00 ± 0.012 vs 3.26 ± 0.009; p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The escape game activity was associated with higher immediate and six-week item-mapped performance with larger gains among students who did not find initial success with rote memorization.