A comparison of self evaluations of teachers and student teachers about the effects of their voices on their quality of life

Teachers are professional voice users and their jobs have significant phychosocial effects on their lives. Teachers are considered to be in the high risk group for voice disorders. It can also be predicted that future teachers may have the same problems. This study was conducted in order to examine the self evaluations of teachers and student teachers about the effects of their voices on their quality of life and the two groups were compared with each other.This is a descriptive comparative study with both within-subjects and between subjects designs. For this purpose, the Turkish version Ses Handikap Endeksi (SHE) of Voice Handicap Index (VHI) was administered to the randomly assigned 144 teachers and 122 student teachers in Eskişehir and Kütahya.The results did not show a significant difference between teachers? and student teachers? total SHE scores (p= .841; p> 0.05). There wasn?t any significant difference among the functional, physical and emotional subscores between the groups (p=.985; p=.576; p=.509; p> 0.05). The two groups were examined on each index item as well. Only 4th and 21st item were found to be significantly different and with the teachers having a higher mean on these items. Functional, physical and emotional subscores were found to be significantly different in both teacher and student teacher groups (teachers: p= .032; student teachers: p= .027; p<0.05). Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test was used to find out where difference occured. It was concluded that the difference was between the functional-emotional and physical-emotional subscales for both groups. The means of emotional subscales were lower than physical and functional subscales in both groups. The results of physical and functional subscales were similar with no meaningful difference between them.The results seem to suggest that teachers and student teachers may not be aware of the functional, physical and emotional effects of their voice on their life quality. Both groups could benefit from information regarding professional voice use and prevention of disorders.Key Words: voice disorders, teachers, student teachers