The evaluation of the Turkish Music scoring program developed for the visually handicapped

This study aims to assess the "KAMHI Music Notation Program" developed for the visually impaired in line with the opinions of visually impaired music teachers. 16 visually impaired (12 blind and 4 partially impaired) music teachers, who received user training on the KAMHI program, which was developed within the framework of the "Touching Notes" (TREEST2.1.IQSES/152) project in cooperation with the Association of the Visually Impaired in Education and Bartın University in 2021-2023, participated in the study. During the trainings held between September and November 2022, teachers were informed on topics such as creating projects using KAMHI; entering notes via computer keyboard; editing, cutting, copying, pasting, and deleting durations and octaves of notes; writing lyrics as well as writing Turkish music notes and Braille and ink printing music sheets. Moral approval for the research was admitted by the acknowledgment of the Ankara Music and Fine Arts University Ethics Committee dated 16.11.2022 and numbered 2022/21. A semi-structured interview form developed by the researcher was used as the data collection tool. Informed consents of the participants were collected before the interviews. The data were analyzed using the content analysis method. The study first examines the problems visually impaired music teachers encountered while teaching music lessons before being introduced to the KAMHI program. It also attempts to convey the methods and techniques used by the teachers to overcome the problems they face, per teachers' opinions. In the second part, the teachers' views on the KAMHI program for reading and writing Western classical music, Turkish classical music, and Turkish folk music notes were presented in separate chapters. In addition, their opinions on the KAMHI program for Braille and ink printing were studied. In the last section, the advantages that the program will provide to visually impaired music teachers to conduct their courses and teachers' opinions on the aspects of the program that need improvement are elaborated in separate chapters. The study concludes that blind teachers had difficulties in teaching the symbols of notes before being introduced to the KAMHI program and they needed assistance from a sighted person while teaching notes, whereas problems encountered by partially impaired teachers were mostly related to the physical environment. It was observed that teachers could easily read and write the notes of Western classical music, Turkish classical music, and Turkish folk music using the KAMHI program. In this respect, it could be argued that the KAMHI program can eliminate problems that teachers face in teaching notes. The teachers who participated in the research stated that they had difficulties printing the notes in Braille or ink before using the KAMHI program, however, they had no problems while printing the notes in Braille or ink utilizing the program. In line with these statements, it could be claimed that the KAMHI program also eradicates the problems visually impaired people experience in printing Braille and ink notes. It is concluded that the KAMHI program is beneficial to visually impaired teachers in terms of teaching note symbols, preparing materials for visually impaired students, and demonstrating the notes to students during the lesson. It also significantly contributes to overcoming problems experienced in measurement and evaluation by enabling simultaneous monitoring of the student and eliminating communication problems with the non-impaired student. At the end of the research, suggestions are offered for improving the KAMHI program and regarding further results of the study.