## 1 Introduction  
The construction industry often requires several workers to perform hands-on tasks to produce a final product. This makes construction workers especially vulnerable to occupational accidents, such as falling or electrocution [1]. According to a report from the Korean Ministry of Employment and Labor (MoEL), the construction industry recorded 9.41 accidents per 1000 workers in 2018, while the average rate for all industries was only 5.36 [2]. Furthermore, according to [PERSON] and [PERSON] [3], 80% of the occupational accidents in the construction industry are caused by human error, with at least 49% being due to unawareness or misjudgment, meaning that they are preventable. Over the years, various efforts to improve the safety of construction workers have been made, one of them being the implementation of mandatory safety training. Since 2012, construction workers in South Korea have been obligated to complete a four-hour basic safety and health training. The training focuses mainly on introducing various hazards in a construction site and ways to prevent accidents from happening therein. The workers must also complete additional training every time they change workplaces or when they operate special equipment, such as excavators. However, despite these training sessions and their content, the current safety training has not resulted in an improvement in accident rates in the construction industry. According to the Korean MoEL, the construction industry exhibited an increase in the number of accidents per 1000 workers from 7.48 in 2015 to 9.41 in 2018, in contrast with the downward trend of accident rates in other industries [2]. The increase in accident rate implies that the knowledge and skills garnered from the safety training are not being transferred to the workplace. To enhance the effectiveness of safety training and promote safe working practices of construction workers, different training methods and technologies are being employed and tested with the current safety training. For example, advances in the IT sector have promoted the use of e-learning as a tool for safety training. Compared with the traditional training method, the use of e-learning has reduced training costs dramatically while the quality of the training has improved [4]. Recently, the e-learning trend has further advanced with the adoption of virtual reality (VR) technology. VR safety training allows construction workers to interact in a virtual environment using a head-mounted display and a controller [3; 5]. This allows them to experience various workplace hazards and practice safe working procedures in a safe, controlled environment [6; 7]. In addition, a systematic review of literature on VR/AR use in the educational context found that the use of VR/AR technology enhances interactivity, encourages collaborative learning, and increases learner satisfaction [8]. Furthermore, owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of VR as a training tool is gaining attention because it can be conducted with minimal human contact [9]. Although the adoption of VR safety training in the construction industry is rapidly increasing, studies on understanding the factors that increase VR safety training effectiveness are still lacking. Some studies have focused on developing a VR training system and comparing its effectiveness to that of other training methods using ANOVA or a paired sample \(t\)-test as analysis methods; nevertheless, simply demonstrating that the VR method is more effective fails to explain the reason for its effectiveness. For example, [PERSON] et al. [10] found that trainees who completed VR safety training showed higher test scores for certain construction tasks compared with those who received traditional classroom training; however, the researchers failed to explain the reason for the effectiveness of the VR-trained group in selective tasks. This type of methodological approach to understanding effectiveness has led researchers to assert that research on training effectiveness lacks a theoretical basis [11].