The Vocal Fatigue Index for Teachers (VFI-TEACH): Development and Validation

There is no established valid perceptual, physiological, or acoustic sign to identify vocal fatigue in teachers despite how frequently teachers experience the phenomenon. In recent literature, vocal fatigue has been defined as a symptom, meaning that it can only be assessed via patient-report. For such subjective but authentic experiences like vocal fatigue, patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) may be the most valid method of assessment. The original Vocal Fatigue Index (VFI) was a PROM designed to reliably identify vocal fatigue in a population with voice disorders. In recent years, it has been used in studies regarding teachers and vocal fatigue. Although the domain of voice has several PROMs including the VFI, there are concerns with their content validity as the majority have been developed without patient-respondent input. Furthermore, the VFI has not been validated on the teacher population. This dissertation summarizes the development and validation of the Vocal Fatigue Index for Teachers (VFI-TEACH). Results implied high internal consistency and reliability, good construct and convergent validity, and established a proposed cut-off score for specificity and sensitivity.