Comparing the different perceptions of site engineers, workers, and graduate students to safety training by using eye-tracking technology

Abstract

The construction industry is known to be risky and full of trammels; therefore, an appropriate safety training method is needed to mitigate the hazardous e ects of construction activities. Researchers and practitioners have been trying to improve the construction site's conditions for decades. However, construction accidents still take place in many countries around the world. On the other side, scienti c and industrial advancements considered to be essential in mitigating site incidents; therefore, scientists have been trying to employee information technologies in this regard. Virtual environments have favorable e ects on safety management. This study aims at exploring the potential of a virtual environment application and a traditional safety training application in safety management. More speci cally, a virtual environment based safety training tool entitled V-SAFE.v2, and a least engaging safety training application embedded by a Powerpoint presentation were used to examine participants' reactions and concentration levels during safety training. In this regard, eye-tracking technology was utilized to explore the participants' eye movement during the safety training sessions. Five engineers, ve workers, and ve graduate engineering students participated in the study. In the experiment, participants experienced V-SAFE.v2 software which simulates sca olding assembling activities in a virtual environment, after that, they were asked to attend the Powerpoint presentation that contains detailed information about the sca olding activities along with an eye-tracking device in front of them. After nalizing the tests, participants lled a survey that is related to their backgrounds and experiences. The main ndings from this study show that engineers concentrate faster than workers and students during all sessions of safety training, and all participants spent more time exploring di erent areas of interest during the highly engaging safety training. Therefore, it was concluded that using virtual environment applications in safety training leads to better concentration levels. Furthermore, it is foreseen that advanced technology applications and training scenarios will be used more widely in order to make construction sites safer workplaces in the future.