Safety at Work

This project was conducted by Professor Jeni Paay and Professor Rachael McDonald, in partnership with SCOPE Australia, and was funded by the Victorian Government. The research aims to reduce barriers to effective VR training for Disability Care Workers.  

The world of Virtual Reality (VR) shows much promise for training, and users are overwhelming positive about the levels of physical engagement and sensory immersion that VR provides.  

However, there are several barriers to fully realising the potential of VR as a uniquely experiential and hence powerful form of learning in areas requiring empathy and interpersonal interactions.  

It is also a challenge to deliver this training remotely in order to reduce costs and enable scalability.  

Overcoming barriers to remote training through VR

The Safety at Work project is addressing these barriers to the widespread deployment of VR training for Disability Support Workers.  

The current research provides an evidence base to demonstrate how VR can be successfully developed and deployed in Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) training.  

Our research will also provide the basis for innovative VR design that can be applied to specific Certificate and Diploma courses, and workforce training delivery envisaged by SCOPE and Swinburne’s PAVE division.  

In the project, five VR scenarios have been created to give trainees the experience of dealing with various challenging situations they are likely to face in their real client interactions. 

VR gives these trainees a safe environment to try out different responses, learn from mistakes and become more effective and empathetic in their workplace.

This project is a collaboration between CDI and the Centre for Transformative Media Technologies.