Immersive Virtual Reality Serious Games for Evacuation Training and Research: A Systematic Literature Review

TL;DR

This systematic review explores how immersive virtual reality serious games are developed and used for evacuation training, highlighting their potential to improve engagement and learning outcomes in emergency scenarios.

Contribution

The paper presents a comprehensive framework for designing and implementing IVR serious games for evacuation training based on a systematic literature review.

Findings

Develops a conceptual framework for IVR serious games in evacuation training

Identifies key factors influencing effective design and implementation

Highlights the pedagogical and behavioral impacts of IVR serious games

Abstract

An appropriate and safe behavior for exiting a facility is key to reducing injuries and increasing survival when facing an emergency evacuation in a building. Knowledge on the best evacuation practice is commonly delivered by traditional training approaches such as videos, posters, or evacuation drills, but they may become ineffective in terms of knowledge acquisition and retention. Serious games (SGs) are an innovative approach devoted to training and educating people in a gaming environment. Recently, increasing attention has been paid to immersive virtual reality (IVR)-based SGs for evacuation knowledge delivery and behavior assessment because they are highly engaging and promote greater cognitive learning. This paper aims to understand the development and implementation of IVR SGs in the context of building evacuation training and research, applied to various indoor emergencies such as fire and earthquake. Thus, a conceptual framework for effective design and implementation through the systematic literature review method was developed. As a result, this framework integrates critical aspects and provides connections between them, including pedagogical and behavioral impacts, gaming environment development, and outcome and participation experience measures.