Abstract:

In Europe, construction activity is the sector with one of the highest accident rates. It is well-known that this situation need be addressed from several areas of influence and by different actors: public organizations, companies, workers, manufacturers, etc.

To give appropriate instructions to the workers is a general principle of prevention listed in the Directive 89/391/ECC. Health and Safety training has been continuously introduced within education and training programs for students, trainees and workers in the previous two decades. Nevertheless, workers still report high levels of exposure to physical risks in spite of they seem to be well informed about health and safety in the workplace.

On the other hand, training field is also evolving, and game-based learning has been considered in recent years an innovative and useful way of learning, since three key aspects are achieved: a knowledge transfer method by using “game play”, an exchange among players which includes some form of competition, and a reward/penalty system as an assessment method. In addition, the development of the game in a software designed for mobile phones, will allow any person (not necessarily a construction worker) access this knowledge anywhere, anytime.

Serious Games on Health and Safety for mobile learning Project is developing twelve games for mobile phones to acquire basic health and safety skills in construction topics (falls from height, personal protective equipment, mobile plant and vehicles, etc.). The target that these games has been developed for are workers that are starting working within the construction sector, or intend to, and those workers interested in learning basic vocabulary in this field, since the games will be available in six languages: English, Spanish, German, Italian, Romanian and Finnish.

Fundación Laboral de la Construcción is the project coordinator of Serious Games on Health and Safety for mobile learning and is closely working with the rest of the project partners: Sataedu Satakunta Educational Federation, Open Universiteit Nederland, Westdeutscher Handwerkskammertag, Fundatia Romano-Germana Timisoara, Warrington Collegiate and Centro Edile Andrea Palladio.

Keywords:

health and safety, lifelong learning, game-based learning, m-learning, construction sector.