Persuasion Through Focus Groups: Helping Teachers Maintain Healthy Voices

Kenneth J Levine; Lady Catherine Cantor-Cutiva; Adrián Castillo-Allendes; Eric J Hunter

doi:10.1016/j.jvoice.2024.04.009

Persuasion Through Focus Groups: Helping Teachers Maintain Healthy Voices

J Voice. 2024 May 10:S0892-1997(24)00126-7. doi: 10.1016/j.jvoice.2024.04.009. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Kenneth J Levine¹, Lady Catherine Cantor-Cutiva², Adrián Castillo-Allendes³, Eric J Hunter²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Communication, University at Albany, SUNY, Albany, New York. Electronic address: klevine@albany.edu.
² Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Iowa, Wendell Johnson Speech and Hearing Center, Iowa City, Iowa.
³ Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan.

PMID: 38729777
DOI: 10.1016/j.jvoice.2024.04.009

Abstract

This study was designed to determine whether participation in a single, 1-hour focus group would spur a change in health-related behavior. All the respondents were teachers who had participated in a focus group designed to learn about teachers' understanding that voice is a working tool. In the discussions, health-related behaviors were discussed as ways to deal with possible vocal strain or injury. Two months later, a follow-up survey was distributed to these participants asking them if they recalled the discussion and if they had sought out more information and/or had changed their vocal behavior due to their participation in the focus group. The qualitative data shows that the majority of these respondents both recalled the messages and had engaged in some type of health-related behavior change due to their participation in the focus group. Behavior change included such modifications as drinking more water and use of voice-amplification equipment in the classroom. Implications of this finding are discussed.

Keywords: Focus-group research; Health-related behaviors; Persuasion; Teacher voice.