Development and Validation of a Questionnaire in Malayalam to Assess the Listening Difficulties in Mainstreamed Children with Hearing Impairment.

Abstract

Adverse listening environments in the classroom can pose difficulties in listening for children with normal hearing (NH) and even more for children with hearing loss (HL). Listening difficulty in the classroom environment can be assessed using a culturally sensitive questionnaire in one's native language. Currently, no questionnaires are available in Malayalam, the language spoken in Kerala, India. Development and validation of Malayalam questionnaires to assess listening difficulties among children (6-12 years) with hearing loss from self, peer and teacher perceptions. Cross sectional study design was used. Items representing the construct for self, peer, and teacher perception were generated by deductive literature search. Simple, unambiguous sentences were constructed and logically sequenced; leading or biased, double-barrelled questions were avoided. Content validation was done by six experts, followed by a pilot study and cognitive interview, before administering the developed questionnaire to 60 participants. Content validation was done following Yusoff (2019) guidelines. Internal reliability and consistency were calculated using the split-half method and Cronbach's alpha. Item content validity index for self, peer, and teacher perception was 1.00, 0.97, and 1.00, respectively. Split-half method and Cronbach's alpha scores for self, peer, and teacher perception were 0.978, 0.819, 0.815, 0.791, 0.734, and 0.822, respectively. The developed questionnaire for self, peer, and teacher perception has good content validity, internal reliability, and consistency. Understanding classroom listening difficulties will facilitate devising measures for a favourable listening environment.