Immersive virtual reality is increasingly used for safety training, yet many initiatives remain technology-led pilots that enhance scenario realism and engagement without explaining how training becomes embedded in everyday work (e.g., alignment with SOPs, assessment routines, scheduling, and accountable debrief practices) or how skills reliably transfer back to duty. This paper addresses that gap by introducing Work-Integrated Safety Training (WIST) as a socio-technical training approach that couples IVR-based immersion with work-integrated routines to develop competence in safety-critical, passenger-facing work. Using Action Design Research (ADR) with Sweden’s national rail operator (SJ), we iteratively designed and evaluated a gamified immersive prototype for onboard conflict management, drawing on interviews, incident reports, co-design workshops, and in situ evaluations. We formalize four transferable design principles—specified with mechanisms and boundary conditions that guide how immersive training can (i) scaffold composure before intervention, (ii) make dynamic risk legible through interpretable cues, (iii) support SOP-aligned adaptive communication with replay-based reflection, and (iv) strengthen team coordination through role-specific checkpoints and psychologically safe debriefs. The paper contributes design knowledge for moving from isolated IVR demonstrations to work-integrated training systems that are implementable in organizations and testable in further longitudinal evaluation.

Train managers face a challenging work environment, characterized by a heightened risk of passenger aggression within spatially confined environments. Further, the rarity of threatening incidents makes skill development difficult. This paper presents the design and development of a Virtual Reality (VR) training artifact aimed at equipping train managers with de-escalation skills through immersive VR simulation of threatening onboard scenarios. Developed in collaboration between SJ (Sweden's largest train operator), University West, and VR developer Tenstar, the project operationalizes Design Thinking (DT) as the micro-level method within an Action Design Research (ADR) framework. Two Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) were developed as boundary objects to surface tacit practitioner knowledge and validate scenarios before committing to costly VR development. A modular JSON-based architecture decouples scenario content from the VR implementation, enabling rapid iterations without modifying the underlying VR environment. Evaluation indicates strong perceived utility and confirms that the design process successfully captured the complexity of real onboard work practices. The paper contributes a methodological approach for developing VR training artifacts in complex, practice-embedded contexts.

This study examines how immersive virtual reality (IVR) mediates the formation of embodied meaning in conflict management training. Drawing on post-phenomenology, particularly Don Ihde’s concept of embodied technics, this study analyzes how processes of sense-giving and sense-making unfold in IVR-mediated training situations. The empirical material is based on a three-year design research project conducted with Sweden’s largest train operator (SJ), involving workshops, observations, and focus group discussions with train personnel using an IVR training system for conflict scenarios. Through a post-phenomenological analysis, four interrelated themes of embodied meaning were identified: mediated attunement, mediated agency, mediated affective co-presence, and mediated transformative re-embodiment. These themes illustrate how IVR environments shape participants’ bodily orientation, intentional action, emotional engagement, and reflective interpretation of training situations. The findings from our analysis suggest that the IVR-mediated training examined in this study can be understood not merely as a tool for procedural training but as a mediating environment in which embodied meaning emerges through dynamic interactions between users, technology, and simulated social contexts. 

The Work-Integrated Safety Training (WIST) Framework offers an approach to immersive railway safety education. It emphasizes training and is not a universal safety model but a system for understanding how procedural safety skills can be developed through work. The framework is presented as provisional, reflecting an emerging, conceptually grounded, and action-oriented design research approach developed from ongoing research within a specific railway context, rather than a definitive theory. The primary goal is to define the core knowledge area in WIST, namely procedural safety competence underescalation, and the key practitioners needed to demonstrate this competence in role-specific ways. The framework, therefore, serves as a conceptual basis for analysis, design, and later evaluation by showing how work context, immersive technologies, immersive learning environments, learning mechanisms, procedural safety skills, gamified interaction, and workplace performance relate to one another in railway safety training.

To tackle emerging challenges related with traditional safety training for practitioners that work onboard trains in society; for this research, we developed an immersive virtual safety training environment with Immersive Virtual Reality technology. We employed the Action Design Research (ADR) approach to design an Alpha prototype in close cooperation with end-users and software developers. The end-users were train operators and safety trainers at a train operating company in Sweden known as SJ. Two research cycles were executed to develop and evaluate the prototype. Consequently, by following the ADR method, we developed and proposed four design principles for immersive virtual safety training environments: (1) Design for Virtual Safety Realism, (2) Design for Virtual Boundary Crossing, (3) Design for Virtual Multimodal Feedback, and (4) Design for Virtual Touchpoints and Collaborative Reflection. 

Purpose: The reemergence of immersive virtual technology (IVR) provides both opportunities and challenges for workplace learning (WPL). The purpose of this study is to explore and develop knowledge about how gamification influences the WPL experience by addressing two research questions: RQ1. What characterizes a gamified immersive safety training experience with IVR technology? and RQ2. How does gamified immersive safety training with IVR technology impact the WPL experience?

Design/methodology/approach: The study adopted a mixed methods approach by combining a systematic literature review with a case study on an empirical project about immersive fire safety training for train operators that are used at the Swedish train operating company SJ. The case study included data from semistructured interviews, Web survey and observation studies. The data was analyzed in two stages combining inductive and deductive data analysis for identifying themes and categories.

Findings: The findings of the study are twofold: (1) themes that conceptualize the gamified immersive safety training experience based on outputs from both the literature review and the first round of data analysis; and (2) a framework with three overarching categories that are mapped with the identified themes, and which were deduced throughout the second round of data analysis.

Originality/value: The originality of the findings stresses the implications of how a body of knowledge that synthesizes gamification concepts with immersive safety training, can inform the design of WPL experiences that are facilitated with IVR technology. As such, the implications of the findings are targeted toward both the advancement of the IVR discourse in the WPL field, but also toward practical considerations for design of immersive learning experiences that enrich WPL practices and culture

Gamification provides a prominent technique that can be used to provide Immersive Learning Environments (ILEs) for domains, where it is dangerous or expensive to learn in real environments. Especially industrial organizations (e.g., manufacturing, mining, construction) are a promising domain for implementing ILEs that combine gamification concepts with a pedagogical design to facilitate safety training under secure circumstances. Although there are design research studies that exemplify the utility of gamification of learning activities, or how to improve organizational safety training through gamification, there is a need to address how sustainable safe spaces can be designed for enhanced safety training in ILEs. Safe spaces are key elements of a successful safety training experience in ILEs as they provide safe and secure training environments, which in the physical world are typically considered too dangerous with high risk of injuring the training participants. This study reports findings from an ongoing DSR project that stresses the design of ILEs for sustainable safety training. Within the project, an artifact for immersive fire safety training in virtual reality has been designed, developed, and evaluated together with employees of a train operator company. The research responds to the need of producing design knowledge that moves beyond the highly contextualized designs principles that are particular for IVR applications. We use gamification concepts as a kernel theory for developing a mid-range theory of designing immersive virtual safety training environments.