The presence of hazards in the workplace is inevitable. Some hazards are visible and easy to recognize. Other hazards, such as noise, radiation, and air quality, are invisible. When invisible hazards do not possess acute health concerns, they might go unnoticed, leading to chronic health conditions often detected after years of exposure. Certified Industrial Hygienists and some seasoned occupational safety professionals with a proper academic background are capable of identifying these hazards, evaluate their extent, and recommend controls for reducing risk levels. However, even seasoned occupational safety professionals might struggle in interpreting data collected from monitoring the workplace for these invisible hazards.
AssessVR (the Simulator) is a virtual reality simulator that utilizes a technology that integrates VR video with VR digital elements to allow interaction in the VR video environment. The Simulator enables students and safety personnel to experience hazard recognition processes (e.g., noise, particles, radiation), design evaluation strategy, and recognize risk levels from analyzing data collected within simulations.
A desktop version of the Simulator was made available to students in an Industrial Hygiene course at Iowa State University. The Simulator was modulated to serve for the assessment of noise hazards. The simulation scene was of an industrial machine room with multiple typical sources of noise. Students were tasked to examine the machine room for hazardous noise and deploy a set of sound level probes to monitor the machine room.
The quality of noise-probs placement had low-to-moderate correlations with a few aspects of Presence and interactivity indices. Perceptions of simulator affordances were not correlated with characteristics of Presence and interactivity indices. Perception of simulator utility had moderate correlations with features of Presence; these correlations were highly significant.