Gender, Immersion, and Change: Evaluating the Impact of VR Training on Self-Efficacy and Gender Stereotypes

The construction industry faces workforce challenges including an aging workforce, declining interest among younger generations, and gender disparities, with women comprising less than 11% of workers. While automation and teleoperation emerge as strategies to address workforce shortages, psychological barriers—low self-efficacy (SE) and gender stereotypes (GS)—continue to limit prospective groups, particularly women, from choosing construction as a career path. This study explores the impact of training at various immersion levels on boosting SE and mitigating GS across gender groups. Using a between-subjects experimental design, participants were randomly assigned to two immersion levels of VR technology with balanced gender distribution and completed two sessions of tower crane operation simulations. SE and GS were assessed before and after the intervention. Results demonstrate that training with both VR immersion levels significantly increased SE across all participants, with women showing greater improvements than men—effectively eliminating pre-existing gender gaps. For GS, while main changes were not statistically significant, analyses revealed marginally significant interaction effects. Post-hoc comparisons showed that women and those in the immersive VR condition demonstrated significant improvements post-training. This research provides valuable insights for developing inclusive training approaches in increasingly automated construction environments, potentially helping address industry-wide labor shortages.