Validating the Hint Fatigue Index

A Psychometric Instrument for Escape-Room Difficulty Certification

A research poster from the School of Continuous Improvement develops the Hint Fatigue Index, a seven-point self-report measure of how demoralising an escape-room hint feels on receipt, and establishes its test-retest reliability across 214 groups retested six to ten weeks apart at four venues (ICC = 0.88, stable across all four advertised difficulty tiers). A commercial booking platform is piloting the index as a difficulty-certification badge across its listed rooms.

@misc{slop_gez3ke,
  author       = {Dagny Okafor and Mirela Hanke},
  title        = {Validating the Hint Fatigue Index: A Psychometric Instrument for Escape-Room Difficulty Certification},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.gez3ke},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-poster-validating-a-psychometric-gez3ke/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research poster},
}