Objective: It is known that teachers report more vocal complaints and are exposed to more risk factors for voice problems. Several studies have implied that the teaching situation (e.g. grade level, pedagogical approach) may enhance the risk factors for voice problems. However, little is known about Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy (PESP) teachers as an independent population. Their unique working environments with large rooms or outdoors, high levels of background noise, poor room acoustics, and high physical demand could increase the risk of developing voice problems. Hence, the aim of the present study is to evaluate the impact of increased vocal demand during the practical semester on vocal fatigue symptoms in PESP.

Methods: In this ongoing longitudinal study with a sample of 150 students from all years of PESP (30 per year), we created an online survey to administer the Vocal Fatigue Index, Room Acoustics related questions, and an online PsychoPy experiment (running on Pavlovia) designed with sliders to report vocal hygiene behaviors, and an automatic self-record item to assess voice quality through a subsequent acoustic analysis (LTAS, CPPS, and perturbation measurements). The survey and experiment were administered twice, once before and once at the end of the practical semester.

Results: Repeated measures Anova were used to compare the VFI results between pre and post practical semester and between years. Further, regression models allowed us to control the effects of confounding variables. This then shows the comparisons between before and after practical semester and between year of the degree.

Conclusion: Understanding the diverse vocal demands faced by different types of teachers is important to building training programs for student teachers as well as creating targeted interventions and supports for current teachers.