Delivering construction safety training and education using immersive learning technology : a state-of-the-art review and future research directions

Construction work is hazardous. Construction workers appear to play a large role in determining their safety own through their behaviours, either taking or rejecting risks. To improve safety behaviours of construction workers, safety training programs traditionally incorporate instruction techniques such as lectures and case studies. These methods have shortcomings in knowledge retention, motivation, engagement, and attentional distribution, resulting in fewer hazards identified by trainees. To address this issue, there has been a trend of immersive safety training applications, which provide employees with a realistic visual experience. This study aims to review the status of construction safety training and education using immersive learning technology. The findings indicate steady growth in the use of augmented reality and virtual reality technologies to develop safety training platforms in construction. Limited hands-on experience with real working conditions and limited customising training experience are two major challenges in delivering construction safety training and education using immersive learning technology. It is suggested to foster the synergy of immersive technology advancement, creation of construction field data, and innovation in training methods. The results of this study provide a useful reference for developing more effective safety training platforms, which have a close-to-reality representation and stimulate more safe behaviours.