A Vocal Fatigue Scale for Chinese University Music Teachers: Development and Psychometric Validation

Vocal fatigue (VF) is a common occupational health issue among university music teachers, whose work can involve specialized speaking and vocal-demonstration demands. Existing vocal-fatigue measures provide useful general assessment, but may not fully represent the task-specific demands of Chinese university music teaching. This study aimed to develop and provide initial psychometric validation of a contextually relevant Vocal Fatigue Scale for Chinese university music teachers. A mixed-methods sequential exploratory design was used, involving item generation, pilot testing, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).In the item-generation phase, 40 initial items were developed through a structured literature review and scale mapping, thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with 8 Chinese university music teachers, and interdisciplinary expert consultation. Content-validity evaluation by 6 experts yielded an S-CVI of 0.94 and an overall mean I-CVI of 0.91, supporting favorable content-validity evidence. A pilot study with 115 participants showed high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha: 0.913-0.931) and corrected item-total correlations of at least 0.40 across the four provisional dimensions.EFA was performed on a randomly assigned subsample of 158 participants and supported an interpretable four-factor structure: Vocal Effort and Endurance Decrement, Teaching Voice Quality and Communication Control Changes, Laryngeal Discomfort and Somatic Symptoms, and Functional Impact and Recovery. CFA was then conducted on a separate randomly assigned subsample of 168 participants. Fit indices for the four-factor model were favorable (χ²/df = 1.103, CFI = 0.979, TLI = 0.978, RMSEA = 0.025). AVE values ranged from 0.514 to 0.578, CR values from 0.913 to 0.932, and the square root of AVE exceeded inter-construct correlations.The findings provide initial evidence that the scale has a coherent four-factor structure, strong internal consistency, and contextually relevant item content in the samples studied. The instrument may be useful for research and descriptive needs assessment among Chinese university music teachers; broader clinical, longitudinal, or comparative applications require additional validation.