Background: Teaching is a voice intensive profession, however the extent to which teachers understand their voice and their vocal health remains under studied. This study employed focus groups to understand teacher’s understanding of their voice and to discuss what teachers can do to promote vocal health. Further, this study examined how other variables might impact a teacher’s vocal health, such as outside activities and the physical environment within the school.

Methods: Ten focus groups were created to examine these questions. The sample, recruited from a national database of schoolteachers, consisted of 48 teachers in 10 sessions, (77% women, aged 27 to 63). The focus group moderator employed semi-structured interviews, but was not a subject-area expert, so while he facilitated the discussion, he did not offer ideas nor suggestions on how to respond.
Results: The respondents were surprised at the idea that their voice is a working tool for their profession, and at the beginning they questioned this assertion. However, as the focus groups continued, the teachers began to express when and how they engaged with vocal issues and vocal problems. Many participants noted that they experience voice problems at the beginning of the schoolyear, and they know other teachers sometimes take time off to care for their voice. Others noted that their outside activities, typically sports or singing, could help to exacerbate vocal fatigue. The teachers with larger classrooms, both physical size and the number of students, were also were aware that these factors could play havoc with their voices. None of the participants recalled any instruction on vocal health during their college education.

Discussion: The need to educate teachers on vocal health and vocal care is evident from this study. Once these teachers came to understand that their voice is a working tool for their profession, they began to ask questions of each other to learn strategies for vocal care. While these teachers reported that they could not change their working conditions, they can change their approach to vocal health by making changes such as drinking water or perhaps taking advantage of microphones in their classrooms.