TeachQuest: Education Game

Rethinking teacher recruitment with a new research project funded by the ESRC. TeachQuest is a browser-based and narrative-driven ‘visual novel’ education game, aimed at fans of casual and easy to play games.

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Available to trial in the 2024-25 academic year

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Immerse yourself as a first year teacher starting in the fictitious Loxley Wood secondary school in Sheffield. Make decisions to progress through the game.

With your mentor Jamie alongside you, explore teaching scenarios ranging from tricky parents and challenging pupils, to planning lessons and keeping that all important work-life balance.

Built on a foundation of research on motivation and engagement. TeachQuest can provide valuable research data on career-decision making.

TeachQuest User Feedback

"It's realistic, they're up to mischief, but I felt like I could help them too."

"You don't get it right all the time. I like that it's not a perfect view and you can get it wrong."

"I liked seeing it from a teachers perspective: its not an insight I have had before."

"There's a lot more variety to the job. I'll be honest, I thought it was just marking."

Our Aim

Recruiting sufficient high-quality applicants for initial teacher training is a chronic problem in the UK and several countries around the world. At TeachQuest, we’re developing and testing cutting-edge technologies with the aim of recruiting more undergraduates into the teaching profession. Our new project will test the efficacy of recruitment messages for various groups (gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status) and build and test a ‘serious game’ that will engage STEM undergraduates with an online teaching simulation. TeachQuest is based at the University of Oxford, with partners from Durham University and the Education University of Hong Kong.