FW-HTF-RM: Addressing and Amplifying the Skills of the Future Hispanic and Latino Construction Workforce Using BIM and Augmented Reality

Our nation currently faces a critical shortage of skilled trades workers as more are retiring than joining these critically important construction occupation fields. Additionally, a widening foreign language gap forces new construction workers, who are not native English speakers, to face a job market lacking the requisite skills gap creating staffing, and safety, and skill issues. This project addresses this gap created by the changing composition of the labor force by advancing the theory and knowledge required to train currently marginalized Hispanic and Latino workers utilizing augmented reality (AR) and building information modeling (BIM) technology. This new foundational knowledge will support the creation of an environment where all individuals can fully participate. Our interdisciplinary team is innovating by investigating how AR, with real-time voice translation can enable equity, and BIM technology can facilitate the learning of transferable retrofitting skills to expand individuals’ aspirational goals, by opening additional career paths to the ‘Missing Millions’ in the construction workforce. Increasing access to better positions for these workers by amplifying workers with what they bring to retrofitting jobs. Our goal is to empower non-native English-speaking workers by utilizing AR to access BIM data in their native language (Spanish), thereby assisting them to learn in-demand retrofitting skills. This project will utilize a novel interdisciplinary approach to advance the fundamental understanding of the learning science supporting in-demand retrofitting skills and designs at the edge of the AR+BIM human-technology frontier. We will conduct a language needs analysis to understand the subtleties and complexities of several Spanish dialects to identify strengths and weaknesses in future AR+BIM real-time translation interfaces. We will develop validated processes to leverage these translation capabilities for non-native English-speaking workers, while developing novel mini-labs to promote greater transferable retrofitting skills by testing impacts of workers’ first and second language comprehension on complex construction task completion. This research project will study how native language and physical actions embody and extend cognitive processes in complex construction environments and gaining understanding of the linguistic and cultural competencies of a diverse future workforce. Our approach is directly applicable towards providing insights into the alternative problem domains of manufacturing, nursing, and public safety, all of which are facing the challenges of skilled labor shortages and equitable access. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.