Guided Immersive Virtual Reality for Flooding-Response Training in Commercial Fishing

Commercial fishing is among the world’s most hazardous occupations, yet classroom-based safety training provides limited opportunities to practice responding to rare, life-threatening emergencies such as vessel flooding. This paper presents an immersive virtual reality (VR) flooding-response training module built in Unreal Engine and examines whether embedded instructional guidance improves trainee performance and user experience. A between-subjects study (N = 16) compared guided VR, featuring contextual text prompts displayed near interactive objects, with unguided VR. Participants in the guided condition reportedsignificantly greater usability and immersion and significantly lower cognitive load than those in the unguided condition (all W = 0, p < .05). They also completed the flooding-response task significantly faster (t(7) = 2.14, p = .034, one-tailed). These preliminary findings suggest that instructional scaffolding embedded withinVR simulations may improve the usability and training effectiveness of high-risk safety training. Guided VR may therefore offer a promising complement to traditional drill-based programs.