An engaging Serious Game made with BIM simulating fire evacuation safety practice training for university students.
Term
4. term
Education
Publication year
2024
Submitted on
2024-05-24
Pages
36
Abstract
This project investigates engagement and informing university students about evacuation safety practices through a realistic virtual fire evacuation simulator. The created application is a first-person serious game, that simulates a fire evacuation in a realistic location using BIM to construct a realistic 3D environment, with typical evacuation scenarios based on theoretical evacuation behaviors. 57 within-group participants were used for a pre/post-test knowledge assessment questionnaire comparison and a post-test engagement questionnaire. This data was supplemented with data collected from the game, including choices made during evacuation and time taken to evacuate. The data was not normally distributed, and the game proved to be sufficiently engaging with positively skewed results. Learning outcomes were generally positive though one of the six success criteria was not met, with the knowledge question associated requiring a re-evaluation. Unforeseen implementation of BIM of a building plan following safety guidelines made decision-making and risk-taking easier for the player than expected, when always given the choice of taking the stairs or taking the elevator, resulting in a lack of experience when participants were asked not to use an elevator in the knowledge assessment questionnaire. The research question "Can a serious game be engaging and used to improve the knowledge about fire evacuation procedures at a university campus?" was considered a success with five out of 6 success criteria achieved. Potential further research into smaller, more focused simulations rather than a single, larger simulation as done in the project.
Keywords
Documents