Online site visits are becoming an increasingly viable educational tool for construction educators, particularly when traditional site visits face logistical challenges, are inaccessible, or pose safety hazards to students. Given the multidisciplinary nature of construction, successful project execution requires collaboration and problem-solving among experts from diverse fields. Recent research has begun to explore integrating collaboration and communication tools into virtual reality (VR) site visits to simulate the real-world interactions students would experience on physical site visits. However, there remains a limited understanding of how students perform and engage in collaborative problem-solving within these virtual environments. This gap in knowledge may affect the design of learning content that effectively integrates collaborative communication tools, potentially hindering the development of students' problem-solving skills in a virtual setting. This study investigated how construction students engage in collaborative problem-solving during an online site visit delivered through an online VR collaborative platform. The online site visit focused on building mechanical systems and an observational experiment was conducted with student pairs completing collaborative tasks. A mixed-method approach was used, combining behavioral observations, instructor assessment based on the PISA framework, and post surveys. The result indicated the critical importance of integrating collaborative communication tools, such as real-time voice chat, virtual pointers, and text-based chat, within online site visits. Instructor scaffolding was also found to be essential for supporting collaborative learning and addressing technical challenges. Key collaborative behaviors, including building shared understanding and enacting plans, were positively correlated with learning outcomes. Survey results further revealed high levels of student engagement, self-efficacy, and system usability. The finding from this research has the potential to advance understanding of the effectiveness of online site visits in developing students’ collaborative problem-solving abilities, a critical component of construction education.

Abstract Virtual site visits have become an essential innovation in construction education, offering safe, repeatable, and flexible alternatives to physical site visits, which are often limited by safety concerns, logistics, and access restrictions. Although immersive technologies and collaborative virtual platforms have expanded these opportunities, the instructional organization of learning content within such environments remains underexplored. This study addresses this gap by comparing the impacts of systematic and nonsystematic learning progressions on students’ knowledge development and collaborative problem-solving during online construction site visits. A virtual learning platform focusing on building mechanical systems was developed, incorporating four learning objectives progressing from declarative to procedural knowledge. Using a between-subject experimental design, undergraduate construction students experienced either a systematic or nonsystematic learning sequence. Results indicated that both learning progressions effectively supported students’ knowledge development within the online construction site visit environment; however, notable differences emerged in higher-order reasoning and collaborative practices. Students in the systematic learning progression condition demonstrated stronger performance on tasks requiring conceptual integration and procedural reasoning. They also exhibited more structured collaborative behaviors, such as referencing two-dimensional (2D) drawings while manipulating three-dimensional (3D) models and collaboratively verifying calculations. These behaviors suggest that systematic sequencing may reduce cognitive load and facilitate schema integration during complex tasks. In contrast, learners in the nonsystematic condition engaged more freely in exploratory navigation but showed less coordinated reasoning and weaker linkage across concepts. Overall, these findings highlight the critical role of instructional sequencing design in virtual construction education and provide insights for designing adaptive scaffolding frameworks in future online site visits.

Traditional construction field trips are integral to construction education, providing students with firsthand exposure to real-world job sites. However, these visits are often hindered by logistical, safety, and accessibility challenges that limit their feasibility and effectiveness. This paper proposes integrating robotic-assisted virtual field trips to overcome these challenges. We examine the limitations of both traditional and existing virtual field trips and explore the potential of robotic systems such as aerial drones and ground robots for construction education. Recognizing the importance of authentic learning experiences, we propose a comprehensive system architecture grounded in Situated Learning Theory. This architecture integrates technological, pedagogical, and compliance considerations to bridge classroom learning with real-world construction environments. The proposed approach aims to enhance students' learning experiences by providing authentic contexts and engaging them in real-world tasks through a community of practice, while ensuring safety and regulatory compliance. A preliminary pilot study demonstrated the feasibility of the proposed architecture. Initial testing confirmed that the robotic platform, real-time data transmission, secure access, and basic communication features performed as intended.

Virtual site visits are increasingly becoming a viable educational tool for educators to supplement or replace traditional visits when these are challenged by logistical issues, inaccessibility, or safety hazards. Recent research has explored the integration of theory-based learning strategies, such as collaborative problem-solving and multimedia learning, in online construction site visits to support construction students’ collaborative skill development and learning effectiveness. However, there remains a lack of understanding of how to guide students systematically from conceptual knowledge to more complex, hands-on, or procedural knowledge, which often leads to a fragmented learning experience in current online site visit designs. This study aims to integrate active learning approaches (i.e., systematic learning progression) into online site visits to facilitate students’ development of situated knowledge. In this project, a collaborative online site visit focused on building mechanical systems was created, where students worked in pairs to achieve four specific learning objectives, progressing from conceptual to procedural knowledge regarding building mechanical systems. The findings provide insights into the integration of systematic learning progression within virtual collaborative spaces for online site visits and demonstrate the effectiveness of such site visits in supporting students’ situated knowledge.

This paper presents a framework for creating a human-centered digital twin using task detection and human posture estimation (HPE) with Gaussian Splatting from 360-degree videos. Participants performing ladder-related tasks—ascending, working on, and descending a ladder—were recorded using a 360-degree camera. The framework employs HPE to extract key landmark points, and a kinematics-based model detects tasks based on postural transitions observed in the videos. These detected tasks, combined with posture data, enable dynamic visualizations of human movements using Gaussian Splatting. The proposed approach facilitates the creation of a real-time digital twin that visualizes human-environment interactions, capturing the time-series progression of tasks and postures. This method offers scalable real-time monitoring and simulation of human actions, with potential applications in safety training, ergonomics, and human-machine interaction.

For many years, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and construction safety experts have advocated for implementing the Prevention through Design (PtD) concept in the United States. PtD aims to eliminate construction hazards during the design phase to prevent or reduce occupational injuries, illnesses, and fatalities during the construction phase. PtD is achieved by incorporating prevention considerations into all designs that may impact workers' safety. Civil and architectural engineers are considered the primary initiators of PtD in the construction industry, with the ability to educate project owners and construction practitioners about its benefits and importance. However, this group has a few, if any, educational interventions or training opportunities to develop PtD knowledge and skills in the United States. As a result, faculty members who may be willing to teach the PtD concept in their design courses (e.g., concrete, steel, foundation and traffic design courses) have limited exposure to the PtD concept and no clear guidelines to integrate PtD into their courses. This study surveys engineering department chairs in the United States to assess their perceptions about integrating PtD into the engineering curriculum. The findings showed that most participants do not favor incorporating PtD as a standalone course in the engineering curriculum. However, they expressed their support for integrating the concept as small modules within existing engineering design courses. Faculty members, teaching engineering design, should be provided the necessary resources to achieve this. This study contributes to our understanding of PtD integration strategies within engineering programs.

Fall accidents remain the leading cause of fatalities in the United States. Training programs are often used to mitigate fall accidents, but they lack effectiveness in terms of engagement experienced by trainees. This pilot study developed an immersive storytelling safety training approach to increase trainee engagement during safety training focusing on residential industry fall hazards. A between-subject experimental design was used to comparatively evaluate trainee engagement across two conditions: (1) immersive storytelling, and (2) immersive non-storytelling. Trainee behavioral, cognitive, and emotional engagement was measured using eyetracking data and surveys. Twenty students from construction-related programs participated in this pilot study. While the results suggest some portions of the training that can benefit from the use of the storytelling technique, no significant statistical differences were observed across behavioral, cognitive, or emotional engagement. This study highlights how immersive storytelling safety training can be used as an alternative method for fall hazard safety training.

This study investigates the use of immersive storytelling videos that leverage virtual humans and 360-degree panoramas to deliver easy-to-access learning contents for construction safety training. A pilot study using a pretest-posttest design was completed with residential construction professionals to understand the safety learning, hazard identification, and usability from interacting with immersive training videos. A 1-h training session was held with eight participants with over five years of experience in residential construction trade work (e.g., laborer, carpenter, and plumber). Metrics regarding safety learning, hazard identification, and usability were collected from participants using surveys. The results showed significant statistical differences in the safety learning scores. However, no statistically significant differences were found for the hazard identification scores. Participants rated the immersive storytelling videos as highly usable. It was concluded that immersive safety storytelling provides an easy-to-access and effective method for construction professionals to learn safety concepts through using 360-degree interactive videos.

Third-party damages to the subsurface infrastructure are a persistent issue that negatively impacts the integrity of the underground infrastructure and its vital services. Hundreds of thousands of third-party damages occur every year in the United States. These damages are more likely to reoccur when ignoring the value of learning from them. Therefore, this study investigates 16,937 damage reports that occurred in North Carolina in 2020 and were reported to North Carolina 811. The findings suggest that undesirable excavator practices contribute the most to third-party damages, followed by locator practices, general industry practices, and utility owner practices. In addition, the finding shows that most of the reported causes represent the direct causes of damages, not the root causes. Identifying the root causes is critical for a sustainable approach to significantly reducing damages to underground utilities. Overall, this study identifies the current direct causes of damages and weaknesses that hinder the industry from acquiring the needed knowledge to prevent damages to subsurface utilities.

Virtual safety training environments are increasingly utilized to support the development of safety knowledge and increase hazard identification skills in construction. One of the emerging techniques for virtual safety training is immersive storytelling. However, current studies have not explored how the inclusion or exclusion of storytelling within immersive safety training systems produces learning gains. Specifically, this study explores learning through the lens of engagement - behavioral, cognitive, and emotional. The residential construction industry was used as a case study to explore this research gap. Residential workers were assessed through a between-subject experimental design. Two safety training conditions were employed for this evaluation using a between-subject experiment - (1) immersive storytelling; and (2) immersive non-storytelling. The experimental comparison revealed that using immersive storytelling led to increases in behavioral learning and cognitive learning, allowing trainees to effectively identify openings and scaffold fall hazard categories. On the other hand, trainee emotional learning engagement did not change between immersive storytelling and immersive non- storytelling conditions. This study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by providing evidence on how using or not using storytelling can affect learning in the context of safety for fall hazards in residential construction. Practical implications for academicians and industry practitioners for the implementation of storytelling in immersive training systems are provided in the study.

This study examines the perceived expertise of diverse construction professionals across gender and race in the construction industry. While expertise assessment is essential, contextual factors such as race and gender can influence the perceived expertise of individuals. An online study was conducted, employing an immersive storytelling tool in a between-subject experimental design with four different conditions. Construction-related discipline students were randomly assigned to experience an immersive story narrated by a female African American, female White American, male African American, or male White American construction expert. Results reveal no statistical differences, yet female professionals received lower expertise ratings based on gender and race. Furthermore, students provided negative feedback predominantly for female professionals. These findings underscore the importance of raising awareness among students regarding potential biases in evaluating diverse construction professionals.

Various industries involve overhead tasks using ladders, presenting potential risks of imbalance and falls, which are crucial factors impacting worker safety. This study proposes employing a 360-degree camera with augmented reality (AR) headset-driven imagery to conduct posture estimation for multiple on-site ladder workers. By utilizing posture estimation and identifying factors contributing to fall risks, the study aims to monitor worker movements to improve safety and task performance. The proposed system entails deploying 360-degree cameras mounted on an ergonomist's headgear, who monitors the workplace while wearing an AR headset. The head-mounted camera captures comprehensive footage, while the ergonomist views the estimated posture overlayed real-time in AR. Posture estimation models assess workers' joint movements, generating scores based on the Assessment of Repetitive Tasks (ART) metric. This system also assesses and generates feedback concerning workers' use of personal protective equipment. This proposed solution can potentially improve ladder safety and advance AR technology in occupational safety.

Trends in the construction domain, educational enrollment, student graduation, student industry employment, and workforce retention demonstrate that minorities—Hispanics, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Native Americans—are often excluded, segregated, or ignored in this domain. A systematic literature review (N = 68) was conducted to investigate the causes and effects of racial disparities produced by systemic racism in the educational and workforce domains of construction. Particularly, this paper focuses on exploring how racial disparities in construction impact minorities, the current state of the racial divide, the practices that perpetuate racial inequities, and the strategies currently used to prevent, in a sustainable manner, such practices. The results of this systematic literature search revealed that exclusionary practices and ideologies cause an underrepresentation of minorities in construction that directly affects employment and industry representation in the United States. Previous studies show that systemic racism in construction has been supported by meritocracy and colorblindness ideologies, creating an unwelcoming environment where racial minorities have difficulties identifying with the construction domain. Furthermore, systemic racism affects students after graduation from construction programs, as industry trends showcase issues with minorities joining or staying in the field. Although racial disparities caused by systemic racism are an existing issue in the education and workforce domains of construction, there are a rising number of publications that strive to understand how to sustainably increase diversity, equity, and the inclusion of racial minorities. An increasing number of available tools, such as anti-bias and awareness training programs, are being used as a sustainable practice in construction education and in the construction industry to mitigate the effects of systemic racism. Ultimately, this paper’s contribution centers on describing the “who”, “how”, and “what” regarding the effect of racial disparities in the construction domain, which reduce the number of minority professionals coming into and staying in the industry.

The Hispanic construction workforce's contribution to the construction industry is significant. However, this significant contribution is threatened due to higher injury rates among Hispanic workers. One contributing factor to the higher rates of injuries is that occupational safety and health (OSH) research studies have not been sensitive to their working conditions and unique challenges. Social equity in construction-related research helps identify and address the inequalities and barriers that certain groups of workers (e.g., Hispanic construction workers) may face in terms of accessing adequate training, resources, and support to ensure their safety on the job. This study aims to demonstrate how social inequity in OSH research impacts research findings and recommendations. Accordingly, this study replicates a recent study conducted on personal protective equipment (PPE) noncompliance. The findings suggested several statistically significant and practical differences in perceptions between Mexican and non-Hispanic workers. These differences may lead to an insufficient understanding of PPE noncompliance factors if unaccounted for. It is concluded that inclusive research studies are essential for producing reliable findings and practical recommendations. The results of this study can help scholars create better OSH research designs sensitive to workforce components. This will produce high-quality training materials and strategies to reduce the higher probability of injuries among workforce minorities, particularly Hispanic workers in the United States. (c) 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.

The construction industry is facing workforce shortages and a low retention rate for new professionals. Embracing diversity has been identified as a critical factor that can remediate this situation. Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) are recognized as an important source to increase the diversity of minority representation to foster a next generation of diverse professionals. However, construction lacks an understanding of what MSIs actively take part of the current educational community across the U.S. This study investigates MSIs within the context of construction disciplines in the U.S. as an important part of the construction educational community. An exploratory analysis of the existing databases that contain MSI denominated institutions under the listings by the U.S. Department of Education was performed to identify the proportions of MSIs that offer construction programs, the types of programs being offered, the degree levels of the educational programs, and the participation of MSI within the Associated Schools of Construction (ASC) and the American Council for Construction Education (ACCE) academic communities. Based on the results from the MSI exploration in construction, a discussion is provided to stress the importance of connecting with these educational institutions to increase the number of new, diverse professionals into construction careers.

Collaborative problem-solving skills are required from learners in the 21st century, particularly in construction graduates upon entering the workforce. However, challenges associated with spatiotemporal contexts of construction sites and resource limitations of educational programs reduce the opportunities available for students to practice these skills. This study focuses on using 360-degree panoramic virtual environments enhanced with virtual humans to produce realistic site visits for practicing collaborative problem-solving opportunities (iVisit-Collaborate). The goal of this phenomenological research study is to understand the collaborative problem-solving process of student dyads within iVisit-Collaborate. The findings suggest that student collaborative behaviors did not directly result in successful problem-solving. A hierarchical relationship between student problem-solving and collaborative behaviors was observed, indicating that problem-solving behaviors must take place to enable the occurrence of collaborative behaviors. Moreover, it was also observed that instructor scaffolding helped reduce the degrees of freedom in complex problem-solving activities. Finally, it was observed that student discussion engagement supported the creation and maintenance of shared mental models.

PurposeThis study aims to explore DroneSim, a virtual reality (VR)-based flight training simulator, as an alternative for real-world drone-mediated building inspection training.Design/methodology/approachConstruction, engineering and management students were asked to pilot drones in the VR-based DroneSim space and perform common flight operations and inspection tasks within the spatiotemporal context of a building construction project. Another student group was also recruited and asked to perform a similar building inspection task in real world. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)–Task Load Index (TLX) survey was used to assess students’ inflight workload demand under both Real and DroneSim conditions. Post-assessment questionnaires were also used to analyze students’ feedback regarding the usability and presence of DroneSim for drone building inspection training.FindingsNone of the NASA–TLX task load levels under Real and DroneSim conditions were highly rated by students, and both groups experienced comparable drone-building inspection training. Students perceived DroneSim positively and found the VR experience stimulating.Originality/valueThis study’s contribution is twofold: to better understand the development stages involved in the design of a VR-based drone flight training simulator, specifically for building inspection tasks; and to improve construction students’ drone operational and flight training skills by offering them the opportunity to enhance their drone navigation skills in a risk-free, repeatable yet realistic environment. Such contributions ultimately pave the way for better integration of drone-mediated building inspection training in construction education while meeting industry needs.

Site visits or field trips have been a tool utilized by construction educators to engage students in active learning, assist traditional lessons, and attain stronger and deeper student learning experiences. Nevertheless, site visits present major logistical and accessibility challenges for educational institutions and instructors, reducing the number of students that have access to the benefits of such a technique. The limitations for site visits have further broadened recently, as the reality of the COVID-19 public health concerns has forced educators to move to online course delivery quickly and the majority of site visits have been canceled. The research goal of this paper is to present construction students with opportunities to enable online location-independent site visits where contextualized learning is dangerous, unsafe, or impossible to achieve. In this project, a virtual online learning environment was created to offer the affordances that provide an in-depth learning experience through collaborative communication for a plan-reading activity in a virtual space that resembles a real-world site visit to a building facility. This virtual online learning environment helped students to experience the physical and social aspects of the site visit while getting a collaborative opportunity to practice their plan-reading skills. A comparative study with a business-as-usual condition (online delivery through Zoom (R)) was conducted and the students' plan-reading performance and their feedback on the sense of presence, social presence, fatigue, and system usability was reported. The outcome of the study shows that such virtual collaborative site visits present unique opportunities to enable online delivery of spatiotemporal contexts of sites and offer an effective remote alternative when these learning opportunities are not available.

Online safety training is an increasingly utilized tool to deliver flexible learning opportunities for workers in the construction industry. Traditionally, online safety training relies mainly on text and images for delivering trainee learning and assessment methodologies. This study investigates the use of online virtual reality (VR) environments powered by virtual humans and omnidirectional images to offer an alternative safety training method for fall hazard identification. A pilot study using a between-subjects experiment design was completed with construction management students to compare online traditional and VR training approaches. Construction students trained using one of two online methods-traditional or VR-to identify fall hazards. Subsequently, student learning was assessed in an online virtual environment to determine their hazard identification capabilities. Metrics regarding hazard identification index (HII) and time of completion were collected from the students. The results of the training did not detect statistical differences between traditional and VR student scores for HII or the time required to complete the training and assessment activities. It was concluded that the VR delivery was equivalent in terms of hazard identification knowledge with traditional training.