Architecting Digital Educational Escape Rooms: A Framework for Instructional Orchestration, Role-Based Collaboration, and AI-Supported Learning

Abstract

Digital Educational Escape Rooms (DEERs) have increasingly emerged as innovative technology-enhanced learning environments capable of promoting learner engagement, motivation, and collaborative participation. Nevertheless, their instructional effectiveness may remain limited when collaboration, progression, and learner support are not systematically orchestrated within the architecture of the environment itself. Existing implementations often emphasize gamification elements without embedding pedagogically aligned mechanisms that regulate interaction flow, interdependence, and reflective learning processes.Objective:To design, develop, and examine a system-oriented Digital Educational Escape Room environment that integrates conditional progression, role-based collaboration, and AI-supported scaffolding through an instructional orchestration framework grounded in the MCIEC model.Methodology: The study adopted a design-based and system-oriented approach focusing on the architectural and technical implementation of the Find Mr. X Digital Educational Escape Room. The environment was developed on the Wix platform using Velo Dev Mode and implemented into an event-driven learning system through code-based interaction management. The instructional design was structured according to the five phases of the MCIEC model (Motivation, Context, Interactivity, Evaluation, and Connectivity). Learner progression was regulated through hidden navigation, conditional redirection, event triggers, and validation mechanisms ensuring task-dependent advancement. Furthermore, the Jigsaw collaborative strategy was operationalized through differentiated expert pathways and role-based access structures, while Artificial Intelligence tools were embedded as optional scaffolding resources supporting reflection, verification, and collaborative inquiry.Results: Findings from a pilot implementation involving 30 pre service an in service teachers demonstrate the operational reliability and pedagogical feasibility of embedding instructional orchestration directly into the system architecture, resulting in a 100% completion rate with no navigation errors. Participants positively evaluated the system’s contribution to mathematical understanding and learning (M = 4.30/5.00), while the embedded AI-supported scaffolding layers were similarly perceived as effective support mechanisms (M = 4.13/5.00). Conditional progression mechanisms successfully reduced unstructured trial-and-error behaviors by enforcing meaningful sequential interactions, while the role-based Jigsaw structure promoted positive interdependence and collaborative knowledge synthesis. Finally, the study contributes a transferable design framework linking instructional affordances with platform-level implementation mechanisms, including hidden navigation, visibility constraints, event-driven interactions, and collaborative orchestration patterns.

Keywords: Digital Educational Escape Rooms, Learning Orchestration, Gamification, Jigsaw Strategy, Artificial Intelligence, Collaborative Learning, MCIEC Model

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1008089