Digital educational escape rooms: Gamifying English Linguistics at University level: A case study to enhance EAP skills.

English for Academic Purposes (EAP) aims to develop the language skills necessary for academic achievement, frequently incorporating instruction in both academic and discipline-specific vocabulary. Additionally, EAP facilitates the acquisition of academic competencies such as writing, with particular emphasis on morphosyntactic structures. In the context of English Language Teaching (ELT), gamification has been employed to enhance learner motivation and promote communicative learning. Informed by Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985), gamification aims to foster intrinsic motivation by addressing learners’ needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness. Empirical studies suggest that gamified activities can increase engagement and improve educational outcomes and may also facilitate vocabulary acquisition when implemented with appropriate digital tools and methodologies (Rabea & Abdalgane, 2022; Chen et al., 2019; He et al., 2023). Digital Educational Escape Rooms (DEERs) constitute a form of gamified learning facilitated by specialised software and, in certain instances, immersive technologies. Nevertheless, such technologies can introduce financial and technical challenges. The present study investigates a DEER delivered exclusively via Google Forms, a cost-effective platform that supports the integration of text, images, audio, and video. Employing an action research design, this study explored the relationship between participation in an escape-room activity and students’ performance on morphosyntactic assessments. Final morphosyntax test results were compared between participants and non-participants using both descriptive and statistical analyses.