Construction safety student perceptions of spatial presence in virtual reality: Immersive versus 360°

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

2024

Department/School

Technology Studies

Publication Title

Proceedings of the Future Technologies Conference (FTC) 2024

Abstract

This study reports an evaluation of virtual reality (VR) in construction safety education while answering the question, is there a statistically significant difference between students’ perceived spatial presence of two VR construction safety environments? Proactive safety education is needed following the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) findings that falls are the leading cause of fatalities in the construction industry. The study explores VR in construction safety, the Model of Spatial Presence (MSP), and the scoring of VR spatial presence with the Virtual Reality Spatial Presence Index (VRSPI). The study’s participants included 15 students at a United States university who evaluated perceptions in two VR construction safety environments: Pixo immersive (production game-based) VR and a 360-° (instructor-developed) VR environment. The results revealed a significant difference in the spatial presence between the two environments in only one of the three dependent sub-variables discussed in the study. The VRSPI supports the findings when applied to both VR formats. Results indicate that while construction educators must provide safety education that is ‘adequate’ for learning according to OSHA, evaluating tools is necessary to determine how knowledge is built as virtual environments evolve.

Comments

D. Guevara is a faculty member in EMU's School of Information Security and Applied Computing.

A. Bogedain is a faculty member in EMU's School of Engineering.

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