A new study by the Human Factors Research Group at the University of Nottingham in the U.K. is attempting to improve employee safety using virtual reality (VR) training sessions.

The team developed trained employees in health and safety scenarios, such as fire evacuation drills, by simulating real-life conditions in an immersive VR system.

For instance, in one of the training scenarios, participants were tasked with evacuating the office as a virtual fire breaks out. While the participants see and hear the event using VR headsets, they also feel the heat generating from the virtual fire as simulated using three 2 kW heaters. Additionally, the participants are exposed to the smell of smoke, which emits from a nearby scent diffuser. Such simulated conditions, according to the researchers, work together to create a multi-sensory virtual environment.

To determine the effectiveness of the VR training, researchers measured the results against another group of participants who had trained for the same scenario using only VR audio and visual elements. The participants in the multi-sensory scenario had expressed a greater sense of urgency reflective of a real-life scenario, and were consequently likely to avoid the virtual fire, Participants from the VR audio and visual-only scenario treated the event like a game, reflecting behaviors less aligned with those expected in a real-life event.

Additional testing was also conducted, which measured the VR training against PowerPoint training sessions. Participants answered questionnaires that tested their knowledge on fire safety or safe vehicle disassembly procedures, both before and after the trainings, and then again one week later.

The results revealed that those trained with the PowerPoint sessions gained more knowledge immediately following the training, but that their knowledge scores diminished one week later. Long-term retention was better for those from the VR group.

Glyn Lawson, associate professor in the engineering department at the University of Nottingham, explained that conventional health and safety trainings may not motivate and engage employees as they often lack relevance to real-life events. Lawson suggests that virtual scenarios may address such issues by increasing employee engagement and their willingness to participate in additional trainings. Lawson also suggests that there are business benefits by using virtual environment training, including the ability to train employees at or near the workplace, and at a time that is convenient for them.

The full study appears in a report, titled Immersive virtual worlds: Multisensory virtual environments for health and safety training.