A new study suggests employee safety could be improved through use of Virtual Reality (VR) in health and safety training, such as evacuation drills.

The Human Factors Research Groupatthe University of Nottingham have conducted a study toproduce evidence-based guidance for the development and use of virtual environments in engaging and effective training using cost-effective and accessible solutions.

The team developed an immersive VR system to stimulate participants perception of temperature, and senses of smell, sight and hearing to explore how they behaved during two health and safety (H&S) training scenarios: an emergency evacuation in the event of a fire and a fuel leak.

In one scenario, participants had to evacuate from a virtual fire in an office, seeing and hearing using a VR headset but could also feel heat from three 2kW heaters, and could smell smoke from a scent diffuser, creating a multisensory virtual environment.

This group was compared against another group who were observed in this scenario using only audio-visual elements of VR.

Observing real life behaviours

Previous research on human behaviour during real-world fire incidents has shown that a lack of understanding of the spread and movement of fire often means that occupants are unprepared and misjudge appropriate actions.

ImmersiveH&S trainingenablesemployers to train people about hazards and hazardous environments without putting anyone at risk.

TheNottinghamresearch, funded by the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), foundcontrastsbetween the groups in the way participants reacted to the scenario.

Those in themulti-sensory grouphada greater sense of urgency, reflecting areallifescenario,and were more likely toavoid the virtual fires.

Evidence from the audio-visual participants suggested that they were treating the experience more like a game and behaviours werelessconsistent with those expected in a real-world situation.

Dr Glyn Lawson,Associate ProfessorintheFaculty of Engineering,said: Health and safety training can fail to motivate and engage employees and can lack relevance to real-life contexts.

Our researchsuggests that virtual environments can help address these issues, by increasing trainees engagement and willingness to participate in further training. There are also business benefits associated with the use of virtual environment training, such as the ability to deliver training at or near the workplace and at a time that is convenient to the employee.

Virtual Reality vs. PowerPoint

A further test was done, as part of the study,to measure the effectiveness of VR training versus traditional PowerPoint training.

Participantstook questionnaires, testing their knowledge on either fire safety or safe vehicle disassembly procedure, before and after training as well as one week later.

While those trained via PowerPointappeared tohavegainedmoreknowledgewhen tested directly after training, there was a significantly larger decrease in knowledge scores when participants were retested one week later.

In comparison, the VR groups longtermretentionwas better andreportedhigherlevels of engagement;attitude tooccupational safety and health; and willingnessto undertake trainingin the future.

The research suggeststhat the increased cognitive engagement of learning in the virtual environment creates more established and comprehensive mental modelswhich can improve recall, and implies that testing an employees knowledge immediately followingtraining may not be an effective means of gauging long-term knowledge of health and safety.

Mary Ogungbeje, research manager at IOSH, said: The wheels are turning so that virtual and smart learning is increasingly ingrained in the workplace and everyday life.Technology is continuously advancing and in many cases becoming more affordable, so this study gives us a taste of whats to come.

By improving training strategies with the use of technology and stimulated sensory experiences, we are heading in a direction where the workforce will not just enjoy a more immersive and interesting training course but participate in an effective learning experience, so they are better prepared and equipped to stay safe, healthy and well at work.

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Is Virtual Reality training the key to improving worker safety? - Manufacturer.com