An Empirical Study on the Application of Discipline-Integration Oriented “Escape Room Teaching Method” to Enhance Clinical Reasoning Ability of Undergraduate Intern Nurses in Neurology

Abstract

To investigate the application of a Discipline-Integration Oriented “Escape Room Teaching Method” in enhancing the clinical reasoning abilities of undergraduate nursing students interning in the Department of Neurology of Deyang People's Hospital, a total of 80 undergraduate nursing students interning in the Department of Neurology from January 2024 to January 2025 were selected as the study subjects with a six-week internship period. They were randomly divided into a control group (n=40) and an observation group (n=40). The control group received conventional clinical nursing education, while the observation group received the disciplinary integration-oriented escape room teaching method in addition to the conventional method. The effectiveness of the two teaching methods was compared thereafter. The results show that among the three testing scores, the theoretical and practical scores, the scores on the Nurse Clinical Reasoning Scale (NCRS), the scores on the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale for Students (UWES-S) of the observation group interns were all significantly higher than those of the control group interns (P < 0.05). The conclusion could be thus drawn as implementing a Discipline-Integration Oriented “Escape Room Teaching Method” could effectively improve undergraduate nursing students' theoretical and practical skills, cultivate their clinical reasoning abilities, and enhance their learning engagement levels. This teaching method is worthy of further promotion and application in clinical education in a larger scale across mainland China and even around the world.