The Virtual Man Project's CD-ROM "Voice Assessment: Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology & Medicine", Vol.1

Abstract

The CD-ROM “Voice Assessment: Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology & Medicine” was developed as a teaching tool for people interested in the production of the spoken or sung human voice. Its content comprises several subjects concerning the anatomy and physiology of spoken and sung voice. A careful assessment becomes necessary in order to ensure the effectiveness of teaching and learning educational materials, whether related to education or health, within the proposal of education mediated by technology. Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of the Virtual Man Project’s CD-ROM “Voice Assessment: Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology & Medicine”, as a self-learning material, in two different populations: Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology students and Lyrical Singing students. The participants were instructed to study the CD-ROM during 1 month and answer two questionnaires: one before and another one after studying the CD-ROM. The quantitative results were compared statistically by the Student’s t-test at a significance level of 5%. Results: Seventeen out of the 28 students who completed the study, were Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology students, while 11 were Lyrical Singing students (dropout rate of 44%). Comparison of the answers to the questionnaires before and after studying the CD-ROM showed a statistically significant increase of the scores for the questionnaire applied after studying the CD-ROM for both Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology and Lyrical Singing students, with p<0.001 and p<0.004, respectively. There was also a statistically significant difference in all topics of this questionnaire for both groups of students. Conclusion: The results concerning the evaluation of the Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology and Lyrical Singing students’ knowledge before and after learning from the CD-ROM allowed concluding that the participants made significant improvement in their knowledge of the proposed contents after studying the CD-ROM. Based on this, it is assumed that this didactic material is an effective instrument for self-learning of this population.

Elaboration and Evaluation of Contents about Hearing Health Inserted in Cybertutor

“…Other studies agree with this finding, demonstrating that students have considered several ICTs effective for the transmission of knowledge, because they make learning with interactive resources dynamic. 25 26 …”

Intervenção fonoaudiológica por meio da teleducação sobre a muda vocal e hábitos vocais

“…The same happened with junior high and high school teachers via a distance learning course about vocal health and expressiveness (3) . Another interactive resource used was the CDROM Homem Virtual Voz (Virtual Man Voice), Volume 1, released by Speech and Language Pathology students, to instruct about anatomophysiology of the voice and speech, and about singing voice (4) . A virtual learning environment (ambiente virtual de aprendizagem, AVA (5) , in Portuguese) was developed with the intention to prepare undergraduate students of Speech and Language Pathology to carry out a perceptive-auditory assessment.…”

Educação mediada por tecnologia em Fonoaudiologia: impacto na motivação para aprendizagem sobre o Sistema Miofuncional Orofacial

“…In addition to the aforementioned results of the use of computer games in teaching and learning, studies have also shown that the integration of computer simulators (e.g., animations, visualizations, and interactive laboratories) in these contexts may provide students with opportunities to foster their comprehension of non-observable phenomena in science and make abstract concepts visible (8) . In Speech-Language and Hearing Sciences, recent work on Anatomy and Physiology has suggested that there has been a substantial increase in students' theoretical knowledge after the use of computer 3D models, and that such models seemed to be more effective in learning than the exclusive use of the traditional methods (9,10) . There are few but recent studies in this area; for this reason, more studies are necessary to confirm that learning using simulators is comparable to traditional learning (11) .…”