Influence of Cues on the Safety Hazard Recognition of Construction Workers during Safety Training: Evidence from an Eye-Tracking Experiment

Abstract

Worldwide, construction site accidents cause many casualties among construction workers every year. Although many safety guidelines that construction workers are urged to read and keep in mind have been formulated, it is still difficult for the traditional construction safety education mode to quickly and accurately improve the hazard recognition ability of construction workers. Taking appropriate intervention measures in construction safety education helps improve the learning effectiveness of construction workers. Cue design is a teaching design included in digital learning resource design. Therefore, this study combines information processing learning theory with the expertise reversal effect. Eye movements of two groups, inclusive of experienced and novice workers, were monitored during a safety education mode using two different cues (i.e., visual and question cues). Average pupil diameter, time to first fixation, and recognition accuracy were used as indicators to measure the cognitive load and adaptation level and to test the outcome of all workers receiving safety education. The study results showed that (1) compared with question cues only, visual cues are more intuitive and more accessible for construction workers to understand; (2) experienced workers performed better than novice workers in all aspects of the safety education mode using two cues, and the work experience of the learning group plays an essential role in the cognitive load, adaptation level, and test outcome of workers in safety education; and (3) compared with the two cues, novice workers’ ability improved more obviously after receiving the safety education mode with visual cues. In contrast, experienced workers’ ability improved more obviously after receiving the safety education mode that uses question cues only, and this phenomenon is associated with expertise reversal effect in the field of education. This provides a meaningful suggestion for personalized intervention measures in safety education in the construction safety field in the future. Because of the difference of tacit knowledge brought by experience, novice and experienced workers have different learning styles and applicable educational modes in hazards recognition education. Cue design is a classic educational strategy in pedagogy. This study explores the effects of education cues and work experience on the safety hazard recognition of construction workers during safety training. Through construction safety education based on eye-tracking technology for novice and experienced workers, workers can recognize hidden hazards in construction sites more quickly and accurately with the help of different types of education cues (i.e., visual and question cues) from the field of pedagogy during safety education, and eye-movement data of construction workers can be monitored by eye tracking. Visual cues are more suitable for novice workers, while question cues are more suitable for experienced workers. In the future, the content and mode of construction safety education can be reasonably set based on cue design, and personalized training methods can be carried out according to the experience level of construction workers.