Comparing the effectiveness of fire extinguisher virtual reality and video training

Abstract

Fire is a major hazard in built environments. Fires in buildings cause fatalities, serious injuries and tremendous damage. Most fires can be extinguished in the early stages of the fire's development, with the right equipment and correct use of the equipment. However, as there can be as little as a few minutes between a fire starting and very dire consequences, rapid and correct responses are critical. Implementing effective training solutions is necessary to enable members of the public, who are not experts in fire safety, to use a fire extinguisher correctly. This can assist to build resilience to fires. In recent decades, virtual reality (VR) has aroused the fire safety community's attention, as a smart, safe and effective training method compared to the traditional methods of lectures, non-interactive videos, and brochures. VR has been used for training for fire emergency preparedness and to collect data about evacuee decision-making, but VR has rarely been applied to a fully immersive training experience about fire extinguishers operation steps. Fire extinguisher operation steps are Pull, Aim, Squeeze and Sweep. Each step is critical to quickly extinguish a fire. This paper compares fire extinguisher training using a VR simulation with a non-interactive training video and evaluates the trainees learning of a fire extinguisher's basic operation steps, in terms of knowledge acquisition, retention of information and change of self-efficacy. The results showed that the VR trainees scored better than video trainees, in terms of knowledge acquisition, even if the same trend was observed for long term retention of information. It was also observed that VR training provided a higher increment of self-efficacy right after the training. The VR group participants had maintained the same level of self-efficacy even 3-4 weeks after the training, while the video group had shown a significant drop of self-efficacy.

Innovating Occupational Safety Training: A Scoping Review on Digital Games and Possible Applications in Agriculture

“…Regarding game assessment, nearly half of the studies evaluated the games in terms of usability, playability, satisfaction and players’ propensity to adopt games as a new safety training method [ 23 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 ]. Other forms of evaluation included training effectiveness through game performance (based on scores and player’s ability to complete levels) [ 37 , 47 , 48 , 52 , 58 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 , 69 , 70 , 71 ] or through the comparison between safety game training with traditional training (i.e., performed through lectures, videos and power-point presentations) [ 22 , 23 , 42 , 47 , 51 , 53 , 60 , 72 ].…”

“…Finally, the last group of studies included the smallest number of studies, in which a control group (trained with traditional methods or devices) was compared with an experimental group (trained with a game). Participants who received game training performed a statistically significantly better hazard perception compared with the in-class lecture group [ 42 , 72 ], video-media group [ 22 , 23 ] and those who read the users’ manual [ 51 ]. Moreover, in [ 23 ] a follow-up test was proposed, demonstrating that VR training allows users to maintain longer memories of safety issues compared with video media.…”

“…• even though different technological supports (computer, VR and AR) have proved to be effective and satisfactory [22,23,45,47,56], the computer game technology can be detected as the most used and "practicable" one both in terms of ease of use and play rules (e.g., the game could be downloaded and can be played on one's own personal computer) and in terms of costs; • the game may allow the players to look around to become aware of their environment and has to be able to recreate the decision making processes that operators encounter in different hazardous situations, with the aim to improve operators' capability to react to hazards in real situations [43,54,75]; • games should be developed with multiple levels and should be structured with different and increasing levels of difficulty to be more appreciated [47,51,68]; • the game scene needs to be well contextualized within a suitably designed work environment allowing the player to identify specific hazards [43][44][45]71]; • simulated characters (NPCs) should be present since they motivate trainees by being credible, trusting and helpful [37,45,46,56,60];…”

“…Previous studies showed that serious games and gamified learning methods have been particularly and successfully applied in different business fields [ 11 , 16 ] and in sectors where technologies and mobile applications are used, such as automotive manufacturing [ 18 ], occupational health settings including medicine, surgery and rehabilitation [ 19 , 20 ], sports (e.g., baseball, [ 21 ]) and in hazardous working sectors such as firefighting [ 22 ], construction [ 1 ] and mining [ 23 ].…”

The Evaluation of Virtual Reality Fire Extinguisher Training

“…In the recent literature on the use of VR for fire extinguishing training, the advantage of this method compared to less interactive methods has been found. “VR training provided a more effective training result in terms of knowledge acquisition and retention, and self-efficacy” ( Lovreglio et al, 2020 , p. 12) in comparison with traditional video training. It was also suggested that VR training increased motivation and perception of threat compared to video training.…”