Compare VR vs. conventional training for construction workers' safety awareness

Abstract

In recent years, Sri Lanka’s construction industry has seen a troubling increase in both fatal and non-fatal accidents, largely attributed to insufficient safety knowledge among workers and deficiencies in the health and safety system. To mitigate these accidents, effective occupational health and safety training is imperative. However, the efficacy of traditional safety training methods has been questioned due to their limited impact on workers’ ability to identify and assess risks critically. The lack of experiential training is the primary cause of accidents that could have been easily avoided at construction sites in Sri Lanka. Addressing this gap, there is growing interest in utilising Virtual Reality (VR) as a powerful tool for experiential safety training in the construction sector. VR offer a realistic and safe environment where workers can engage with various scenarios and procedures, enhancing their understanding and awareness of safety protocols. This research explores the effectiveness of VR tools in enhancing safety knowledge and awareness among construction workers through a simulation safety training platform, using VR and PowerPoint methods for data collection. An experiment was conducted with VR and PowerPoint safety training methods as a data collection method. A questionnaire survey was conducted to compare conventional training methods with the VR solution. The results indicate that workers trained in VR environments had better retention of critical information, highlighting the efficiency of VR in providing a safe yet realistic training experience. This research emphasises the potential advantages of the suggested VR safety training methods in improving construction safety knowledge and awareness of construction workers.