From Engagement to Endurance: Modeling the Long-Term Sustainability of VR Training in Construction through an Ecological Systems Perspective

Ensuring safety in the engineering and construction sector requires sustained improvement in workers’ on-site practices. Although virtual reality (VR) training has shown promise in enhancing construction proficiency and risk awareness, its long-term utilization remains limited. This study addresses this gap by proposing and empirically testing a novel theory-driven framework for the sustainable adoption of VR training technologies in construction. Grounded in Ecological Systems Theory (EST), the research introduces five previously underexplored constructs, namely, virtual competition (VC), customized learning path (CL), virtual socialization (VS), virtual labor market (VL), and ecosystem incentive (EI), and formulates six hypotheses concerning their interrelationships. A questionnaire survey was conducted across 17 large-scale construction projects in China, and the data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM). The results revealed that VC, CL, and VS significantly promote the sustainable use of VR training, with VC emerging as the most influential factor. Notably, EI demonstrates a pivotal mediating effect, enhancing the impact of other variables by embedding motivational feedback and institutional incentives into the training ecosystem. Although VL does not exert a direct effect, its influence is realized through EI. This study contributes a multilevel explanatory model of sustained VR engagement and offers practical strategies for engineering managers to institutionalize immersive safety training. The findings advance both theoretical understanding and managerial practice in promoting long-term, technology-enabled safety performance in high-risk construction environments.