A model to evaluate the effectiveness of virtual construction safety training tool

Abstract

Construction projects have become more complex. Due to this complexity, construction projects are exposed to more risks and the probability of occupational accidents on the site increases. So, the provision of safety on the construction eld becomes more challenging, and the number of occupational accidents and fatalities remains high all around the world. The literature highlight that human-related factors play a crucial role in the safety management process, so, improving behavior-based skills of workers by adequate safety training method has become important to provide on-site safety. Previous literature states that an e ective safety training method should cover (i) information transfer, (ii) instructional feedback, (iii) knowledge development, (iv) hands-on practice, (v) behavioral modeling and (vi) hazard identi cation. Due to the low level of engagement, conventional safety training methods fail to provide an e ective safety training. In order to bridge this gap, a high level of engagement between the safety training method and the participant should be provided. In this regard, the main aim of this study is to quantitatively analyze the e ectiveness of virtual construction safety training tool entitled Virtual Safety Analysis For Engineering applications (V-SAFE). During evaluation, eye tracking technologies have been also used to test the attention level and safety awareness of participants. Analysis results show that V-SAFE provides all the essential features of e ective safety training. The present study makes a signi cant contribution to the eld of safety training, since it is the rst and only study that evaluates all safety training parameters rather than focusing on a single parameter. It has also developed a conceptual model that examines the e ectiveness of virtual safety training methods. This model o ers great insights for future studies on how to measure the e ectiveness of safety training.