Abstract
Significant population growth has occurred, and is set to continue across all major Australian cities. Currently, the State of Victoria is the fastest growing amongst all the Australian states and territories, recording the highest growth of 2.3% in 2017, with forecasts indicating a 50% increase of the state’s current population over the next three decades. These demographic changes have necessitated higher demand for critical building and infrastructure services. However, there is endemic shortage of skilled labour across the entire construction industry, which could impact ongoing development and delivering of strategic infrastructure over the coming years. This occupational skills shortage has further economic implications by reducing productivity and delaying development and growth. The lack of investment in training in recent decades, the increase in rework, the decline in interest in site roles and the continued growth in the industry means that it is not well placed to deal with current requirements. This paper outlines the case for an alternative education method and presents an innovative framework to create transformation change for workforce training and skills development for the construction industry through the “Maker Immersion Project”. The innovative project, funded by the state government, will developed a world-first fully deployable, technology enhanced education package that creates an immersive learning by blending traditional face-to-face training with Virtual Reality simulations.
Keywords
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The Program is being developed by Exner Education in conjunction with Real Serious Games, Built and AECOM through funding by the Victorian state government. The University of Melbourne will evaluate the program.
- 2.
TAFE is the acronym for Technical and further education. It relates to post-secondary (high school) level education and provides a range of vocational based programs.
References
Annetta, L. A. (2008). Video games in education: Why they should be used and how they are being used. Theory into Practice, 47(3), 229–239.
Australian Bureau of Statistics (2018). Australian demographic statistics. Cat. No. 3101, Commonwealth of Australia: Canberra.
Barber, P., Sheath, D., Tomkins, C., & Graves, A. (2000). The cost of quality failures in major civil engineering projects. International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management, 17(4–5), 479–492.
Bilginsoy, C. (2003). The hazards of training: Attrition and retention in construction industry apprenticeship programs. ILR Review, 57(1), 54–67.
Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Cole, H., & Griffiths, M. D. (2007). Social interactions in massively multiplayer online role-playing games. Cyber Psychology and Behaviour, 10(4), 575–583.
Commonwealth of Australia (2017). CPC40110 Certificate IV in building and construction (Building), Release 7. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia.
Connolly, T., Boyle, E., MacArthur, E., Hainey, T., & Boyle, J. (2012). A systematic literature review of empirical evidence on computer games and serious games. Computers & Education, 59(2), 661–686.
Curry, L. (1990). One critique of the research on learning styles. Educational Leadership, 48(2), 50–56.
Dalton, T., Hurley, J., Gharaie, E., Wakefield, R., & Horne, R. (2013). Australian suburban house building: industry organisation, practices and constraints., AHURI Final Report No. 213. Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Melbourne.
Darling-Hammond, L. (2011). Watch it, do it, know it: Cognitive apprenticeship, in the learning outcomes series. Stanford University School of Education.: Stanford University School of Education.
Darling-Hammond, L., Rosso, J., Austin, K., Orcutt, S., & Martin, D. (2011). How people learn: Introduction to learning theory., in the learning outcomes series, Session 8, Stanford University School of Education.: Stanford University School of Education.
De Freitas, S., Rebolledo-Mendez, G., Liarokapis, F., Magoulas, G., & Poulovassilis, A. (2010). Learning as immersive experiences: Using the four-dimensional framework for designing and evaluating immersive learning experiences in a virtual world. British Journal of Educational Technology, 41(1), 69–85.
Deloitte Access Economics (2016). The current and future state of Victoria: A macro perspective, Deloitte Australia, Victoria.
Department of Environment, Land , Water and Planning (2016) Victoria in Future 2016 - Population and household projections to 2051. Victoria State Government: VIC.
Department of Education and Training (2017). Victorian Employer Skills and Training Survey 2017. Victoria State Government: VIC.
Duncan, T. G., & McKeachie, W. J. (2005). The making of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire. Educational Psychologist, 40(2), 117–128.
Gazzard, A. (2009). The avatar and the player: Understanding the relationship beyond the screen. In 2009 Conference in Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious Applications. IEEE.
Georgiou, J. (2016). Legislative control and the quality of housing in Victoria. PhD Thesis. The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia
Goozee, G. (2001). The development of TAFE in Australia. National Centre for Vocational Education Research, NCVER: Adelaide.
Infrastructure Victoria. (2016). Victoria’s 30-Year Infrastructure Strategy. Victorian Government, Melbourne: VIC.
Lajoie, S., & Derry, S. J. (1993). Computers and cognitive tools, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, New Jersey.
Love, P. E. D. (2002). Auditing the indirect consequences of rework in construction: A case-based approach. Managerial Auditing Journal, 17(3), 138–146.
Love, P. E. D., & Li, H. (2000). Quantifying the causes and costs of rework in construction. Construction Management Economics, 18(4), 479–490.
Mangan, J., & Trendle, B. (2008). Surviving apprenticeship training: A duration analysis of apprenticeship contracts in Australia. Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics, 19(4), 379–398.
Mangan, J., & Trendle, B. (2017). Attrition and retention of apprentices: an exploration of event history data using a multi-state modelling framework. Education Economics, 25(4), 406–417.
Master Builders Association (2018). Home page Retrieved June 22, 2018 from https://www.mbavtraining.com.au/courses/builder-registration/cpc40110-certificate-iv-in-building-and-construction-building/.
Oakes, J., & Lipton, M. (1999). Teaching to change the world (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Publishing.
Salas, E., Cooke, N. J., & Rosen, M. A. (2008). On team, teamwork, and team performance: Discoveries and developments. The Journal of Human Factors and Ergonomics, 50(3), 540–547.
Schleicher, A. (2012). Preparing trainers and developing school leaders for the 21st century: Lessons from around the world, Paris: OECD Publishing.
Smith, E., Grollman, P., Snell, D., & Hart, A. (2007). Vocational training in Australia: is there a link between attrition and quality? Education + Training, 49(6), 500–512.
Toner, P. (2003). Declining apprentice training rates: Causes, consequences and solutions, in Dusseldorp Skills Forum, Sydney, NSW.
Van Eck, R. (2006). Digital game-based learning: It’s not just the digital natives who are restless. Educause Review, 41(2), 16–30.
Velde, C. (1999). An alternative conception of competence: implications for vocational education. Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 51(3), 437–447.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Francis, V., Paton-Cole, V. (2021). Innovation and Immersive Vocational Education Training for Construction Site Supervisors. In: Ahmed, S.M., Hampton, P., Azhar, S., D. Saul, A. (eds) Collaboration and Integration in Construction, Engineering, Management and Technology. Advances in Science, Technology & Innovation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48465-1_30
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48465-1_30
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-48464-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-48465-1
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)