Driving digital transformation in construction education: Design and development of a 360° virtual reality construction site experience

The increasing digitalization of the construction industry is reshaping how professionals are trained and educated. As a key component of construction education, traditional site visits provide students with valuable first-hand exposure to real-world construction environments. However, despite their educational value, such visits present multiple challenges, including scheduling difficulties, limited site capacity, health and safety restrictions, induction requirements, and high logistical costs. In recent years, Virtual Reality (VR) has offered new opportunities to deliver remote, realistic, and interactive site experiences that replicate the authenticity of on-site learning without requiring physical presence. Previous studies have primarily focused on fully computer-generated VR environments developed using platforms such as Unity or Unreal Engine. While these models offer flexibility and interactivity, they often lack the contextual realism of actual construction sites. Addressing this gap, the present study designed and developed a VR immersive construction site experience tailored to the Australian construction industry, built from 111 high-resolution 360° panoramas captured at a real construction site. The system architecture was developed using an incremental development approach to manage complexity, refine functions, and ensure continuous feedback. Drawing on insights from a systematic literature review, the system architecture specifically targeted barriers to VR adoption in construction education. The resulting prototype was evaluated by 31 students, revealing positive perceptions across all key constructs, with mean scores of 4.31 for usefulness, 4.30 for ease of use, and 4.28 for learning impact (five-point Likert scale). This study represents a pioneer exploration in establishing a scalable and educationally aligned framework for VR-based construction learning. Future development stages will focus on expanding the system to cover diverse project types, integrating adaptive learning features, and linking it with learning management systems to enhance engagement and learning analytics.