A study on the effectiveness of non-verbal teaching materials in construction accidents prevention education: through an International comparative experiment

Abstract

Safety is a top priority in the construction industry; therefore, safety training is essential to prevent construction casualties as the employment of foreign and young workers on construction sites worldwide increases. More studies are necessary to identify the effective training methods among novices and foreign workers. To address the gap, a rigorous comparative study of verbal and non-verbalized materials from two different countries was conducted. Statistically significant differences were found between nationalities in non-verbal materials due to different safety culture and background, and insignificant differences were found between both safety training materials with the same nationality. By comparing the outcomes of both training materials, the non-verbalized materials work effectively among the construction novices to provide visual aid to relate similar attitudes like technical trainees to the scenarios even without field experiences. The non-verbalized materials provide an alternative to passive learning methods to enhance the other safety training activities in the construction industry. The findings provide an initial stage for creating effective teaching materials that can be generally applied in other countries to capture the issues by a heterogeneous workforce personalized to suit the scenario of each country for better outcomes.