C Company: time to wake up for safety: an investigation into the influence of virtual reality safety training on the safety of its workers

• Autor(a) principal: Teixeira, João
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/21073
• topic: Virtual reality; Safety behaviours; Safety attitudes; Safety knowledge; Safety climate; Formação em segurança; Realidade virtual; Comportamentos de segurança; Atitudes de segurança; Conhecimentos de segurança; Clima de segurança

The evolution of the programs and methodologies used in safety training has allowed Organization workers to improve their information, knowledge, and safety behaviours. Attention to the costs that work accidents entail for Organizations has helped them to perceive safety as a central issue and the need to reduce work accidents. The present investigation was carried out in partnership with the C Company and aims to determine whether safety training in Virtual Reality has a positive influence on safety behaviours, knowledge and attitudes, when compared to a methodology that uses written narrative. We also tried to understand if this relationship was moderated by the safety climate of C Company workers. To this end, an experimental study was carried out, with 61 workers from the stores, in which the experimental group, of 30 participants, experienced a safety training session in Virtual Reality, while the control group, with 31 participants, had safety training in written narrative. Afterwards, the participants had to answer a questionnaire and a retention test with 8 questions applied in two situations, immediately after the training and two weeks after the training. The results did not reveal differences between the two groups for the variables, not confirming the hypotheses under study. The moderating effect of the safety climate was not demonstrated. Believing in the possibility of these results being different from those obtained, suggestions are made for future investigations to overcome the limitations found.