University of Oxford

Communicating STEM Teaching Careers Through Persuasive Game Design: A Focus Group Study

The United Kingdom faces a critical shortage of STEM educators, a crisis driven by undergraduate perceptions of teaching as a stagnant, emotionally taxing profession characterized by burnout and unclear career trajectories.

• Recruitment strategies for STEM teaching fail when using idealized messaging, as undergraduates perceive such promotional content as inauthentic.
• Persuasive game design, exemplified by tools like TeachQuest, serves as an effective intervention by providing a transparent, balanced representation of the profession's realities.
• Effective career exploration games must prioritize psychological safety and procedural rhetoric to allow users to autonomously assess their values against classroom demands.