An Experimental Study on the Effectiveness of the VR-Based Construction Safety Training Evaluation Method Compared with the Traditional Mode

Current construction safety training evaluations are in the form of textual readings and lectures, failing to replicate the retention of safety knowledge in practice. This paper aims to propose a VR-based evaluation method for construction safety training and examine the effectiveness of the VR-based evaluation method compared with the traditional methods. An experiment was conducted with a 2 × 3 experimental design based on the cognitive psychology. Participants were divided into a traditional evaluation group as the control group and a VR-based evaluation group as the study group. Results indicated that in the short term, VR-based evaluation performed better than traditional evaluation in distinguishing whether inaccurate hazard attention or handling caused participants’ unsafe behavior. In the long term, VR scenes might consolidate safety knowledge and enhance memory retention. The findings of this study highlight the advantages of VR-based evaluation in construction safety training, which could be useful for practitioners to improve construction safety.