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

Abstract

Digital games have been successfully applied in different working sectors as an occupational safety training method, but with a very limited application in agriculture. In agriculture and other productive sectors, unintentional injuries tend to occur with similar dynamics. A literature review was carried out to understand how occupational risks are addressed during game-based safety training in different productive sectors and how this can be transferred to agriculture. Literature about “serious game” and “gamification” as safety training methods was searched in WEB OF SCIENCE, SCOPUS, PUBMED and PsycINFO databases. In the forty-two publications retained, the computer was identified as the most adopted game support, whereas “points”, “levels”, “challenges” and “discovery” were the preferred game mechanics. Moreover, an association can be detected between the game mechanics and the elements developed in the game. Finally, during the game assessment, much positive feedback was collected and the games proved to be able to increase the operators’ skills and safety knowledge. In light of the results, insights are provided to develop an effective, satisfying and engaging safety game training for workers employed in agriculture. Games can be best used to learn and they are certain to improve over the next few years.

Augmented and Virtual Reality Games for Occupational Safety and Health Training: A Systematic Review and Prospects for the Post-Pandemic Era

“…However, concerns are growing about the viability of augmenting educational and training content with augmented reality-that is, whether translating the information to AR format is worthwhile [27]. Additionally, these findings support the earlier systematic review of 42 publications conducted by Vigoroso et al [6]. They demonstrated digital games could help operators improve their abilities and safety knowledge.…”

“…Gamification is increasingly being utilized to educate participants in Occupational Safety and Health training on various aspects of workplace safety and risk. Prior research has established that gamification has been successfully used as an instruction delivery technique in the fields of safety, health and rehabilitation [6] [7].…”

Do teachers believe that video games can improve learning?

“…We found that teachers assume that verbal learning is the easiest to achieve, followed by procedural and finally attitudinal learning . Therefore, we see teachers focus more on data and conceptual learning , as in most of the research on the educational use of VG ( Boyle et al., 2016 ; Clark et al., 2016 ; Vigoroso et al., 2021 ). This kind of learning represents a huge part of the content in the traditional curriculum, specifically the lower-level verbal learning ( data learning ) instead of more complex learning ( concept understanding ).…”

“…It has been widely studied that VG improve verbal learnings in STEM areas (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), especially factual knowledge over concept acquisition . This is also the case in second language learning or even in professional contexts ( Vigoroso et al., 2021 ). Some studies state that VG, and especially commercial off the shelf ones, have greater positive impacts when accompanied by scaffolding practices: instructional designs and interventions that mediate play ( Clark et al., 2016 ) and which provide added values for learning ( Barzilai and Blau, 2014 ; Mayer, 2019 ).…”

The Enhancement of OSH Training with an Augmented Reality-Based App

“…According to a review of the literature, gamification is increasingly being used to educate OSH training participants about different forms of workplace safety and risk. For example, research by Vigoroso et al [34] demonstrated that gamification, as a method of delivering training, has been successfully implemented in safety, health, and rehabilitation. Shirokov [35] argued that a high volume of occupational safety and health training material can increase the cognitive load on training participants.…”