The effects of industry risk level on safety training outcomes: A meta-analysis of intervention studies

•This meta-analysis summarizes the effect of workplace safety training interventions on safety performance.•In high-risk industries safety performance saw smaller gains.•In high-risk industries safety climate saw larger gains after safety training compared to low-risk industries.•In high-risk industries motivation saw larger gains after safety training compared to low-risk industries. This meta-analysis quantitatively summarizes the effect of workplace safety training interventions on safety performance antecedents (safety motivation, knowledge, and climate) and safety performance (safety compliance and participation). One hundred unique samples from 90 published reports representing a wide variety of industries were included in this meta-analysis. While we found that safety training improved all the studied outcomes (d statistics ranging from 0.25 for safety participation to 0.87 for safety knowledge), the effect of industry risk-level was not consistent across the outcomes assessed. In high-risk industries (compared to low-risk industries), safety performance saw smaller gains (in line with Homeostasis Theory), but safety climate and motivation saw larger gains after safety training (contrary to the predictions of Homeostasis Theory) compared to low-risk industries.