Immersive virtual reality serious games for evacuation training and research: A systematic literature review

Abstract

An appropriate and safe behavior for exiting a facility is key to reducing injuries and increasing survival when facing an emergency evacuation in a building. Knowledge on the best evacuation practice is commonly delivered by traditional training approaches such as videos, posters, or evacuation drills, but they may become ineffective in terms of knowledge acquisition and retention. Serious games (SGs) are an innovative approach devoted to training and educating people in a gaming environment. Recently, increasing attention has been paid to immersive virtual reality (IVR)-based SGs for evacuation knowledge delivery and behavior assessment because they are highly engaging and promote greater cognitive learning.This paper aims to understand the development and implementation of IVR SGs in the context of building evacuation training and research, applied to various indoor emergencies such as fire and earthquake. Thus, a conceptual framework for effective design and implementation through the systematic literature review method was developed. As a result, this framework integrates critical aspects and provides connections between them, including pedagogical and behavioral impacts, gaming environment development, and outcome and participation experience measures.

Motivational and cognitive benefits of training in immersive virtual reality based on multiple assessments

“…One explanation is that previous studies in this field vary greatly in the outcome measures that are used. Many of the previous studies that investigate the value of immersive VR safety training only assess trainee reactions (e.g., Feng et al, ; Lovreglio et al, ; Mól et al, ; Zaalberg & Midden, 2013). Others studies in VR safety assess learning criteria with MC questions (Mühlberger et al, ) or orally (Buttussi & Chittaro, ; Chittaro & Buttussi, ).…”

“…The New Media Consortium/Consortium for School Networking's Horizon Report , which investigates emerging technologies for their potential influence on and use in teaching, learning, and creative inquiry in schools, anticipates that VR will be adopted broadly in classrooms within 2 to 3 years (Freeman, Adams Becker, Cummins, Davis, & Hall Giesinger, ). VR offers a number of affordances such as providing familiarity with the associated real‐world environment, increasing the salience of particular cues in the environment, allowing learners to rehearse specific sequences of actions with a high level of physical and psychological fidelity, and enabling immediate feedback and broad accessibility in a safe and controlled environment (Feng, Gonzalez, Amor, Lovreglio, & Cabrera, ; McComas, MacKay, & Pivik, ; Rose, Attree, Brooks, Parslow, & Penn, ; Smith & Ericson, ; van Ginkel et al, ).…”

“…The list of fields and studies that have investigated the use of VR in safety training is rapidly increasing. For instance, VR has been used in training of aviation safety (e.g., Buttussi & Chittaro, ; Chittaro & Buttussi, ), fire safety (e.g., Backlund, Engstrom, Hammar, Johannesson, & Lebram, ; Gamberini, Cottone, Spagnolli, Varotto, & Mantovani, ), pedestrian safety (e.g., Schwebel, Gaines, & Severson, ), traffic safety (e.g., Backlund, Engstrom, Johannesson, & Lebram, ), emergency evacuation of buildings (e.g., Feng et al, ; Li, Liang, Quigley, Zhao, & Yu, ; Lovreglio et al, ; Mól, Jorge, & Couto, ), recognition of risks in work environments (e.g., Jorge et al, ), safety behaviour related to construction sites (Sacks, Perlman, & Barak, ), flooding (Zaalberg & Midden, ), individual behaviour in tunnel accidents (Kinateder et al, , ; Mühlberger et al, ), and general safety training (Leder, Horlitz, Puschmann, Wittstock, & Schutz, ). In this study, we are particularly interested in comparing the motivational and learning outcomes of administering a university laboratory safety‐training course using ether a text‐based safety manual, a desktop VR simulation, or an immersive VR simulation.…”

“…An analysis of previous studies that have investigated the value of immersive VR technology in safety training shows that many studies either use self‐report measures or simply provide a conceptual framework for using VR in safety training (e.g., Feng et al, ; Lovreglio et al, ; Mól et al, ; Zaalberg & Midden, 2013). These studies provide useful initial contributions given the limited number of studies that have investigated VR training in the respective fields; however, they do not go beyond Level 1 (reactions criteria) in Kirkpatrick's () model.…”

Effects of scripting on dialogues, motivation and learning outcomes in serious games

“…Serious games enable students to engage playfully in activities on meaningful topics. To achieve this, these games have features that can motivate and yield learning (Feng, González, Amor, Lovreglio, & Cabrera-Guerrero, 2018;Hummel et al, 2011;Tsekleves, Cosmas, & Aggoun, 2016). Just like computer games in general, serious games have entertaining qualities such as pleasing graphics, exciting plots and lively game characters that can keep students engaged for an extended period.…”