The Language-Developing Design of Escape Rooms as a Method for Promoting Subject-Specific Competence in Religious Education: A Qualitative Study Focusing on Students Who Have Migrated from Ukraine

Given the growing religious, cultural, and linguistic diversity in learning groups—which presents the challenge of addressing learners’ varying backgrounds and needs in the classroom—the search for innovative teaching approaches in religious education is becoming increasingly important. Numerous studies show that the use of escape rooms in an educational context can increase learners’ motivation to learn and perform. However, the specific language-building design of such formats in religious education has hardly been researched to date.

At the same time, the development and promotion of subject-specific competencies in religious education depend to a large extent on the students’ linguistic resources, which are necessary for understanding, reflecting on, and communicating religious content. Against this backdrop, the project focuses on action-oriented and student-engaging learning formats that enable a real-world, competency-oriented, and differentiated engagement with religious and ideological issues.

As part of the planned qualitative study, students will experience a playful and motivating approach to subject-specific content through the use of language-building escape rooms in religious education classes. The learners’ multilingualism is explicitly viewed as a resource that should be activated and utilized in the problem-solving processes of the escape rooms. This approach is supported by targeted language-teaching measures in the spirit of scaffolding. The aim of the study is to investigate to what extent the subject-specific competencies of immigrant students can be promoted through a language-building design of escape rooms and to what extent this method positively influences their willingness to learn and perform in religious education classes.