The hidden curriculum of escape rooms: Teaching soft skills through play

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Designing educational escape rooms involves a conscious focus on pedagogical objectives. But beyond the explicit skills that players are meant to develop, in any and all escape rooms lies a (not-so) hidden curriculum: soft skills that are naturally developed through the experience of immersive, collaborative gameplay. These skills are essential for personal and professional success, and escape rooms are uniquely suited to nurture them in ways traditional methods often cannot. 

Why soft skills matter 

Soft skills are interpersonal, intrapersonal and cognitive skills such as communication, teamwork, adaptability, leadership, creativity, strategy or critical thinking. Beyond their obvious advantages in one’s daily life, they’re also increasingly valued by employers, especially in digital entrepreneurship, where uncertainty and innovation are common. 

How escape rooms teach soft skills

Every relevant soft skill that digital and entrepreneurial environments often require is organically involved in escape room settings and implementation: 

  • Teamwork & collaboration: One key aspect of escape rooms is that players must coordinate, share and discuss clues and solutions and rely on each other to reach a common goal. Escape rooms value the act of combining the way different people think or process certain types of information to maximise their chances. 
  • Communication skills: Players must share every relevant observation or discovery they make, propose and hear ideas, debate the group’s choices and sometimes mediate disagreements. They must reflect on their own thoughts and listen to others in order to fully understand the situation from different points of view and identify the right course of action together.  
  • Critical thinking & problem-solving: Escape rooms pose puzzles that require identifying patterns, thinking laterally, and combining clues. Players must critically examine diverse information to identify the relevant or useful elements and sort through red herrings and irrelevant data. 
  • Time management & working under pressure: Time limits keep players engaged but also fuel their ability to prioritise, make quick decisions and stay focused on the goals despite the tension. Such conditions mimic entrepreneurial situations where time and resources are limited, helping players learn to think quickly and efficiently. 
  • Leadership, initiative & strategic thinking: In puzzle-rich environments, someone often naturally steps up to coordinate the group’s efforts, delegate tasks, or rally the team when time is running out. Players are encouraged to take initiative, set a common direction to clear confusion, assign roles and motivate their peers to act, thus building confidence in decision-making, leadership and strategy.  
  • Adaptability & resilience: Escape rooms often present misleading clues or dead ends, which require players to adapt and bounce back. Understanding that drawbacks don’t necessarily lead to overall failure and being able to reflect on their mistakes and improve processes are also key entrepreneurial skills. 
  • Empathy, belonging & peer learning: Soft skills also include socio-emotional dimensions, as working with others and using each other’s strengths to reach a common goal increases a sense of belonging and social connection. Escape rooms foster healthy challenges and inclusive teamwork, boosting players’ confidence and showing that it takes diverse mindsets and skills to solve a situation efficiently.  

Hidden curriculum, intentional design 

While many soft skills will emerge naturally during an escape room, educators and facilitators can make the hidden curriculum more visible and powerful by: 

  • Designing challenges to require intense communication and initiative: Such as puzzles where necessary elements are only provided to one of the players. 
  • Varying the roles among players: Assigning a leader, communicator, coordinator, etc, so everyone practices different skills or handles different puzzle types. 
  • Providing support for students who may feel overwhelmed by ambiguity or social dynamics: Establishing clear tasks and roles with adapted hints and guidance. 
  • Involving hybrid or roleplay elements: To deepen interpersonal learning, with immersive plots, identifiable characters and engaging interactions.  
  • Embedding reflection phases after the game: Asking players what they learned and how they learned it, and what they would improve or do differently. 

The implications for digital entrepreneurship education 

In digital entrepreneurship, soft skills are crucial: pitching to investors, negotiating partnerships, managing teams, solving conflicts or addressing discontent all demand some or all of the previously described skills and mindsets. By utilising those skills in a playful setting, escape rooms provide a safe, structured, low-stakes yet high-engagement simulation of real-world entrepreneurial challenges. 

By intentionally designing escape rooms to bring soft skill learning to the surface and monitoring the results, youth programmes and youth workers can help young people emerge not only more confident in technical skills but also more capable in handling the social, emotional and strategic dimensions of entrepreneurship. 

Thanks to the ER4DE project, educators and young players will be able to highlight and explore these pedagogical advantages by creating or participating in a variety of escape rooms that will help them navigate and meet the needs of a complex digital business world. Discover our free resources, including guides, worksheets and ready-to-use escape room scenarios, to improve your practice and enhance young people’s soft, digital and entrepreneurial skills, one puzzle at a time! 

References 

  • Hahn, S., DIPF, Springmann, M.-L., Denninger, T., & Kiegelmann, M. (2025). Extension of escape rooms with roleplays: promoting a sense of belonging and fostering communication skills among first-year university students. In Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education (p. 2). https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1464987.pdf 
  • Lim, I. (2023). A physical neuroscience-themed escape room: Design, implementation, and students’ perceptions. Education and Information Technologies, 29(7), 8725–8740. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-023-12173-x 
  • Taraldsen, L. H., Haara, F. O., Lysne, M. S., Jensen, P. R., & Jenssen, E. S. (2020). A review on use of escape rooms in education – touching the void. Education Inquiry, 13(2), 169–184. https://doi.org/10.1080/20004508.2020.1860284  

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