Injuries and fatalities resulting from work place accidents remain a global concern within the construction and engineering sectors. Education and training of personnel are two of the primary approaches for establishing a safe work environment. Virtual Environments (VE) are being increasingly investigated as a complementary approach for safety learning. Despite the proliferation of VE studies for safety learning, there is still limited evidence about their effectiveness or benefits, extent of coverage of the risk management process, and limitations. This articles poses the following research questions: (1) are VE providing an effective learning means to address safety risks in construction and engineering sectors?, (2) what are the areas that require improvement?, and (3) to what extent are VE addressing the established risk management process (i.e., risk identification, risk evaluation, risk response planning, and risk monitoring and control)? To address these the research questions, this research employs: (a) a systematic literature review and analysis of VE studies for safety learning; and (b) a gap analysis technique. The findings suggest: (a) the evidence of the effectiveness of VE as an intervention for safety learning across the entirety of the risk management process are still limited; (b) ‘risk identification’, where learners improve their abilities to spot hazards, is the most investigated phase in the risk management process, (c) VE applications in other risk management phases (i.e. ‘risk evaluation’, ‘risk response planning’, and ‘risk monitoring and controlling’) receive very limited attention compared to the risk identification phase. The areas of recommendations for future research included the need to: (a) intensify real-life observational studies to provide evidence about the comparative performance of learners in VE against those of learners by other means through the setting of control groups; (b) extend studies to, and concurrently address, all the risk management phases; (b) intensify studies in other sectors including chemical, oil and gas, and manufacturing; (d) address human factors such as communication, language and cognitive distraction. An analysis of the limitations of current VE studies in each of the recommendation areas accompanied with suggestions for future research is proposed.

中文翻译：

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用于建筑和工程安全学习的虚拟环境：寻找证据并找出未来研究的空白

工作场所事故造成的伤害和死亡仍然是建筑和工程领域的全球关注问题。人员的教育和培训是建立安全工作环境的两种主要方法。虚拟环境（VE）正在作为安全学习的补充方法而受到越来越多的研究。尽管用于安全学习的VE研究激增，但关于其有效性或益处，风险管理过程的覆盖范围以及局限性的证据仍然有限。本文提出了以下研究问题：（1）VE是否提供有效的学习手段来应对建筑和工程领域的安全风险？（2）需要改进的领域有哪些？（3）VE有多大程度解决既定的风险管理流程（i。例如，风险识别，风险评估，风险应对计划以及风险监控。为了解决这些研究问题，本研究采用：（a）对用于安全学习的VE研究进行系统的文献综述和分析；（b）差距分析技术。研究结果表明：（a）VE在整个风险管理过程中作为安全学习干预措施的有效性的证据仍然有限；（b）“风险识别”是学习者提高发现危险能力的能力，是风险管理过程中研究最多的阶段；（c）VE在其他风险管理阶段中的应用（即“风险评估”，“风险应对计划”以及“风险监控”）与风险识别阶段相比受到的关注非常有限。未来研究的建议领域包括：（a）加强现实生活中的观察性研究，以提供证据，证明通过设置对照组，通过其他方法，VE中学习者相对于学习者的相对表现；（b）将研究扩展到所有风险管理阶段并同时解决；（b）加强对其他部门的研究，包括化学，石油和天然气以及制造业；（d）处理人为因素，例如沟通，语言和认知分散。提出了对当前VE研究在每个推荐领域中的局限性的分析，并提出了对未来研究的建议。（a）加强现实生活中的观察性研究，以通过设置对照组，以其他方式证明学习者在VE与学习者之间的比较表现；（b）将研究扩展到所有风险管理阶段并同时解决；（b）加强对其他部门的研究，包括化学，石油和天然气以及制造业；（d）处理人为因素，例如沟通，语言和认知分散。提出了对当前VE研究在每个推荐领域中的局限性的分析，并提出了对未来研究的建议。（a）加强现实生活中的观察性研究，以通过设置对照组，以其他方式证明学习者在VE与学习者之间的比较表现；（b）将研究扩展到所有风险管理阶段并同时解决；（b）加强对其他部门的研究，包括化学，石油和天然气以及制造业；（d）处理人为因素，例如沟通，语言和认知分散。提出了对当前VE研究在每个推荐领域中的局限性的分析，并提出了对未来研究的建议。（d）处理人为因素，例如沟通，语言和认知分散。提出了对当前VE研究在每个推荐领域中的局限性的分析，并提出了对未来研究的建议。（d）处理人为因素，例如沟通，语言和认知分散。提出了对当前VE研究在每个推荐领域中的局限性的分析，并提出了对未来研究的建议。