How Project-Based Learning Improves Construction Contract Management Training: Evidence from Eye-Tracking Searching Strategies for Contract Risk Recognition Performance

Construction contract management is crucial for the smooth implementation of projects, and contract risk recognition is key to construction contract management. However, complex legal terminology often makes project managers find contract management training quite challenging. Recently, learner-centered project-based learning (PBL) has flourished, but few related studies concentrate on construction contract management training. This study aims to explore the impact of PBL on improving construction contract management training and the specific mechanisms through eye-tracking technology and then conclude the visual search strategies for recognizing contract risks. We designed a project-based learning training program based on the ADDIE (analyze, design, develop, implement, evaluate) theory and recruited managers to participate in the training. Forty participants finished the contract risk recognition experiment, and related algorithms were used to extract eye fixation points and analyze the visual trajectories. The results show: (1) project-based learning can significantly improve risk recognition rates (by 6%, p=0.004, d=0.588) and reduce the fixation time on keywords in contracts, indicating that participants can more deeply experience their roles in engineering and risk management and increase attention to keywords; (2) participants recognizing risks successfully followed similar visual search patterns, with visual trajectories focused on specific risk areas rather than distracting words; and (3) participants recognizing risks successfully tended to fully observe a subarea and systematically move to another, forming subject-driven and predicate-driven visual search patterns, revealing that participants can better understand the connections between knowledge and form a logical and sequential visual search pattern. In terms of the body of knowledge, this study deconstructs the specific mechanisms by which PBL improves contract management training, proposes a contract risk search pattern based on visual scanning paths and expands the ADDIE model to the ADDIEO (analyze, design, develop, implement, evaluate, optimize) model. Practically, this paper has significance for improving construction contract management training and developing intelligent contract risk recognition platforms.