Self-regulated vocal health in undergraduate vocal music education: a qualitative needs analysis

Self-regulated vocal health is an important but underdeveloped dimension of undergraduate vocal music education. While vocal training commonly emphasizes technique, repertoire, interpretation, and performance competence, less empirical attention has been given to how students learn to monitor vocal condition, regulate practice behavior, manage emotional readiness, and protect the voice across daily learning and performance preparation. This qualitative needs analysis examined how vocal health self-regulation is understood, represented, and required within undergraduate vocal music education. Drawing on document mapping of ten selected vocal music textbooks and semi-structured interviews with five vocal music education experts, the study examined contextual issues in vocal music education, expert-identified vocal health needs, and the target needs and learning needs required to support students' self-regulated vocal development. The results indicate that vocal health is widely recognized as essential for learning continuity, performance quality, psychological confidence, and long-term vocal sustainability. However, selected instructional materials and expert accounts gave limited systematic attention to self-monitoring, preventive behavior, rest management, anxiety regulation, and decision-making during practice. Experts associated students' vocal fatigue, hoarseness, strain, and misuse with incorrect technique, excessive practice, insufficient rest, weak self-protection awareness, performance anxiety, and limited metacognitive monitoring. The needs analysis identified vocal health as a necessary learning domain, current material and behavioral gaps as key lacks, systematic and practical resources as expert-recommended wants, and self-monitoring, behavioral regulation, emotional readiness, and sustainable practice as central learning needs. The study contributes to educational psychology and performance-related music education by identifying expert-informed psychological learning needs related to vocal health self-regulation. Rather than demonstrating psychological processes empirically, the findings provide a needs-based foundation for conceptualizing vocal health as a learning domain involving awareness, self-monitoring, behavioral regulation, emotional readiness, and sustainable vocal practice.