Professor Barbara Kaminska

Areas of research:
1. The psychological foundations of music instruction and education
2. Musical psychometrics (the measurement and assessment of musical aptitude, achievement, attitudes and preferences)
3. Kodály's music education system

Selected publications...

I first dealt with music psychometrics in 1976 when I began to co-operate with the Artistic Olympics Executive Committee. It was my job to construct music tests for central and district preliminaries for music section participants. This gave me the opportunity to try out various methods and strategies for testing music achievement and to familiarise myself with adolescents of this age - their musical interests and inroads to music. My five-year-long co-operation with the Olympics Executive Committee led me to write a book (with Danuta Wasilewska, scientific secretary of the Olympics) called The Artistic Olympics - Music.
In 1978 I was able to present my work on the international forum for the first time. My paper Designing and Preliminary Verification of the Knowledge of Music Test was accepted for the ISME Scientific Research Committee Seminar in Bloomington, Indiana, USA. Thanks to this seminar I was able to make contact with the international community of music psychologists and educators and to get my hands on the then most up-to-date achievement tests for candidates for music studies. The author of this test, Doreen Bridges, gave me the test so that I could develop its Polish adaptation and verify its applicability in Polish music schools.
After years of work improving my knowledge and experience in the field of psychometrics I decided to construct my own test of music achievement. The Orientation in the History and Achievements of Music Culture Test has three parts: Perception. Musical Knowledge. Orientation in Contemporary Music Life. I tested 1500 pupils in the last grade of general secondary schools and presented the results in my doctoral thesis ”General Secondary School Pupils' Orientation in the History and Achievements of Music Culture” supervised by Professor Maria Manturzewska. The test was published and is now used in doctoral and habilitation theses and other research projects.
The ”psychometric” theme also includes my work in Halina Kotarska's team which developed test batteries for music schools, published by The Fryderyk Chopin Academy of Music and the Centre for Artistic Education in 1997: The General Music Education Test. Together with Halina Kotarska I also developed the Polish edition of Edwin E. Gordon's Intermediate Measures of Music Audiation.
I now help younger colleagues to construct their own tests.

Selected publications in this area::

1979

Design and Preliminary Verification of the Knowledge of Music Test. In: Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education.School of Music, University of Illinois, 59, pp. 48-50.

1984

Olimpiada Artystyczna - Muzyka [The Artistic Olympics - Music] (co-author D. Wasilewska). Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Szkolne i Pedagogiczne.

1984

Test Orientacji w Dziejach i Dorobku Kultury Muzycznej [The Orientation in the History and Achievements of Music Culture]. In: H. Kotarska, B. Kaminska (Eds.), Testy osiagniec dla mlodziezy szkolnej [Achievement tests for secondary school children]. Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Szkolne i Pedagogiczne.

1987

Orientacja mlodziezy liceow ogolnoksztalcacych w dziejach i dorobku kultury muzycznej [General secondary school children's orientation in the history and achievements of music culture]. Wychowanie Muzyczne w Szkole, 1, 21-36.

1990

Orientacja mlodziezy liceow ogolnoksztalcacych w dziejach i dorobku kultury muzycznej [General secondary school children's orientation in the history and achievements of music culture]. In: M. Manutrzewska, H. Kotarska (Eds.), Wybrane zagadnienia z psychologii muzyki [Selected issues in the psychology of music]. Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Szkolne i Pedagogiczne, pp. 277-292.

1990

Metody pomiaru i oceny zdolnosci oraz osiagniec muzycznych [Methods of measurement and assessment of musical aptitude and achievement] (co-author H. Kotarska). In: M. Manturzewska, H. Kotarska (Eds.), Wybrane zagadnienia z psychologii muzyki [Selected issues in the psychology of music]. Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Szkolne i Pedagogiczne, pp. 83-114.

2000

Srednia miara sluchu muzycznego. Podrecznik do testu Edwina E. Gordona [Intermediate measures of music audiation. Manual for Edwin E. Gordon's test] (co-author H. Kotarska). Warszawa: The Fryderyk Chopin Academy of Music, The Centre for Artistic Education.

2001

Testy zdolnosci muzycznych w badaniach zdolnosci i rozwoju muzycznego czlowieka [Music aptitude tests in the study of human music aptitude and development]. In: Uzdolnienia intelektualne i tworcze. [Intellectual and creative abilities]. J. Laszczyk (Ed.) Wydawnictwo Universitas Rediviva, pp. 85-90. Warszawa.

2003

Orientacja w muzyce artystycznej jako przedmiot badan empirycznych [Orientation in artistic music as an object of empirical research]. In: M. Demska-Trebacz (Ed.), Muzyka sztuka przezwyciezania czasu [Music - The art of overcoming time]. Warszawa: The Fryderyk Chopin Academy of Music, pp. 261-271.

Opracowanie: Akademia Muzyczna im. Fryderyka Chopina