Exploring the Potential for Safety Training in VR to Generate Emotional Engagement and Situational Interest among Construction Workers

To improve its traditional safety training methods, the construction industry has started to adopt virtual reality (VR) to enhance workers’ safety practices. Although preliminary research has shown promising results for the adoption of VR in safety training, there is a dearth of research on whether VR supports engagement [emotions and situational interest (SI)] among construction workers. Additionally, it is unclear if the potential improvements in engagement translate to learning achievements. This study sought to address this existing knowledge gap by assessing the impact of VR-based safety training (when adopted with traditional passive training and used as a tool to provide situated learning) on the conditions affecting learning—in this study, emotions and situational interest. The study used a quantitative quasi-experimental approach not only to evaluate how incorporating VR (and VR paired with haptic feedback) to a traditional passive training session affects these key conditions, but also to evaluate the effect of emotions and situational interest on the learning outcomes obtained from the experience. The study gathered data from 221 participants representing various sectors of the construction industry across the United States, including both on-site workers and construction managers. Parametric tests showed that VR-based safety training, as tested in this experiment, increased negative emotions and decreased positive emotions of participants, aligning with results from past studies. Findings indicated that the experience was effective at eliciting emotional arousal among participants. Results indicated a statistically significant increase in situational interest, including interest in the use of VR technology for construction safety trainings but did not have a statistically significant effect on maintained value-based situational interest (which is related to the perceived long-term value of the experience). Finally, results also showed that emotions and situational interest do not influence the learning outcome obtained from the experience. These results underscore the potential of VR-based safety training to significantly enhance situational interest and emotional responses; however, they also challenge the assumption that emotional engagement and situational interest directly enhance learning outcomes from a VR-based safety training module, as tested in this experiment. This research underscores VR’s potential in safety training while highlighting the need for further exploration into how these technologies influence learning efficacy.