Development of Safety Training in Construction: Literature Review, Scientometric Analysis, and Meta-Analysis
Jing Lin, Yuhang Cai, Qinyuan Li
Abstract
The construction industry has a high accident rate, making safety training for construction workers increasingly important in addressing this issue. Previous research on construction safety training has made significant progress, but existing literature reviews lack a comprehensive summary of the development of construction safety training, an evaluation of the effectiveness of current training methods, and an analysis of potential improvements in the future. Therefore, this study addresses these challenges through systematic literature review, scientometric analysis, and meta-analysis. A total of 92 publications since 2001 were included in this study after searching and selection based on the preferred reporting items commonly used in psychological and medical systematic reviews and meta-analyses. This study identified three phases of construction safety training research: determination of the necessity and significance of construction safety training, exploration of different methods for construction safety training, and development of construction safety training tools using advanced technologies. Findings from the scientometric analysis revealed that prevention and hazard recognition are key research topics in the field. Critical findings of prevention and hazard recognition were summarized and discussed to have a comprehensive understanding of current progress. The results of the meta-analysis indicated that current safety training methods are generally effective in improving construction safety, though the effectiveness in field studies is lower than in laboratory studies. Thus, researchers should understand why safety training performance is different between laboratories and construction sites and then control the differences to enhance the effectiveness of construction safety training in the future. This study identified that personalized safety training is a foreseeable development trend and suggested more efforts on the improvement of long-term safety training effectiveness. Additionally, safety training methods should be revised and optimized for the needs of intelligent construction and prefabricated construction. These findings offer new insights into construction safety training for researchers and policymakers.