•A new multimedia simulation-based safety training framework (NIS) is proposed.•NIS increased situational interest (SI) among construction workers.•Increase in positive emotional can increase feeling-based maintained SI.•Emotional arousal may not influence triggered SI and value-based maintained SI.•Demographic factors moderate the association between change in emotions and SI. Safety training within the construction industry is often quite mundane and generic which is a problem for an industry combatting with high fatality rates on job sites for decades. Recent studies have found construction safety training programs severely lacking in developing hazard recognition and risk assessment skills among its workforce. Moreover, techniques used in these training programs are not geared to help adult learners engage or retain information provided. To address these shortcomings, this paper tests the efficacy of a multimedia simulation-based training program: Naturalistic Injury Simulations (NIS) in inducing interest among construction workers. NIS has been empirically shown to elicit targeted negative emotional experience among construction workers and the work presented here tests if NIS can also generate situational interest in construction workers regarding safety. This paper collected data from 489 construction workers on a construction job-site in an interventional experimental design. Analysis revealed that NIS were able to increase situational interest among workers and that these findings were consistent across all demographic dimensions captured in our study. Multiple linear regression analysis did not show clear evidence of a relationship between change in emotions and increase in situational interest among workers. This work shows that NIS will promote learning among workers by keeping them interested in the safety training process while also generating risk-averse behavioral patterns through emotional manipulation.