A Virtual Reality Assessment of Teamwork in Laboratory Safety

作者：Aaron Y. Zhao, Joseph Collins, Joel B. Floyd, Xianming Tan, David S. Lawrence · 发表于：Journal of Chemical Education · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.1021/acs.jchemed.3c00191 · 被引用次数：6 · 研究领域：Chemical Safety and Risk Management

A variety of strategies have been introduced to tackle the issue of laboratory safety in academic settings. These strategies include innovative educational tools as students transition from the classroom into the laboratory, the introduction of policies designed to protect the researchers in the laboratory environment, and the creation of teams of peers at the departmental level that focus on creating a culture of safety. We recently developed, as a training exercise, virtual reality (VR) modules that replicate the visual and auditory complexities of authentic research laboratories ( J. Chem. Educ. 2022, 99, 1982−1989). We have now used the VR environments to compare the relative abilities of individuals and of teams to identify laboratory hazards by quantifying several variables: time spent in the virtual environment, percentage of total hazards identified, percentage of hazards correctly characterized, number of attempts to identify hazards, and number of requests for assistance. In addition, an online survey was used to assess the perceptions of individual and team performances by the participants. Quantitative measures demonstrated the superior performances of teams versus that of individuals. Intriguingly, the smaller coefficient of variance associated with these metrics for teams (versus individuals) implies a group dynamic that suppresses outliers. Finally, results from the online survey reveal that the team format is perceived to be more effective than individuals in ...