Test-retest reliability of the urban outdoor situated phoneme (SiP) test.

Objective: To introduce the urban outdoor version of the Situated Phoneme (SiP) test and investigate its test-retest reliability.

Design: Phonemic discrimination scores in matched-spectrum real-world (MSRW) maskers from an urban outdoor environment were measured using a three-alternative forced choice test paradigm at different phoneme-to-noise ratios (PNR). Each measurement was repeated twice. Test-retest scores for the full 84-trial SiP-test, as well as for four types of contrasting phonemes, were analysed and compared to critical difference scores based on binomial confidence intervals.

Study Sample: Seventy-two adult native speakers of Swedish (26-83 years) with symmetric hearing threshold levels ranging from normal hearing to severe sensorineural hearing loss.

Results: Test-retest scores did not differ significantly for the whole test, or for the subtests analysed. A lower amount of test-retest score difference than expected exceeded the bounds of the corresponding critical difference intervals.

Conclusions: The urban outdoor SiP-test has high test-retest reliability. This information can help audiologists to interpret test scores attained with the urban outdoor SiP-test.