Virtual field trip for mobile construction safety education using 360-degree panoramic virtual reality

Construction safety education plays a vital role in equipping students with concrete safety knowledge and promoting safety performance prior to entering construction sites. However, safety topics are not given adequate attention in most construction curricula and traditional pedagogic tools fail to provide practical experience or sufficiently engage students in acquiring safety knowledge. With this regard, this study proposes the VIrtual FIeld Trip System (VIFITS) for mobile construction safety education using a 360-degree panoramic virtual reality. The VIFITS utilizes a state-of-the-art 360-degree panorama-based Virtual Reality technology in order to bring construction field trips to the classroom and provide practical experience to improve students’ safety knowledge. VIFITS consists of three modules:(1) a Safety Information Dissemination module (SID) in which the educator disseminates safety information to the students through mobile learning;(2) a Virtual Field Trip Experience module (FTE) where students experience virtual construction field trips based on their own mobile devices;(3) and a Safety Knowledge Assessment module (SKA) designed for learners to play testing simulation games in order to assess their safety knowledge. The VIFITS prototype is developed and validated with virtual scenarios derived from real construction sites. The results reveal that the VIFITS is a powerful pedagogical method for effectively providing practical experience and safety knowledge for students.