Are Multimedia Training Interventions Effective within Traditional Safety Training Frameworks?

Recent efforts to revamp safety training programs have focused on improving learning outcomes among workers by incorporating principles of behavioral psychology and adult learning. Unfortunately, a number of these studies lack the requisite external validity. Even when construction workers are adequately sampled, these targeted multimedia-based interventions (e.g., Naturalistic Injury Simulations) have been shown in isolation to improve desired precursors of learning and retention, hence their efficacy within the confines of traditional safety training settings remains nebulous. Thus, this paper aims to conduct a pilot investigation on the efficacy of validated multimedia training program elements within a traditional instructor-centric pedagogical framework for safety orientation and training. Using a longitudinal A+B experiment, variability in workers’ hazard recognition, risk perception, risk tolerance, and emotional arousal before and after the training session were measured. Furthermore, analysis was also conducted to determine if the desired psychological triggers positively impacted the safety performance of workers. Results show that these empirically validated adult learning-based training interventions may not naturally align with traditional training frameworks as no improvements in hazard recognition performance, risk perception, and risk tolerance was observed. This preliminary analysis indicates that construction practitioners and academics need to further examine and understand how to deliver these novel training interventions effectively within the constraints of traditional training frameworks.