Terry M. Mors

Publication Date

2002

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Niemi, John A.||Jeris, Laurel

Degree Name

Ed.D. (Doctor of Education)

Legacy Department

Department of Counseling, Adult and Higher Education

LCSH

Police--Education (Continuing education)--Study and teaching

Abstract

Continuing professional education (CPE) has long been recognized as a means of updating and maintaining professional competence. However, there is not sufficient bottom-up information to construct authentic metapolicies regarding law enforcement CPE. New policies are necessary to fit temporal contextual problems. The persons in the best position to provide the necessary information are the actual police officers. This study seeks to identify police officers' contextual issues as they relate to law enforcement CPE. The purpose of this study is to examine the content and processes of law enforcement CPE and to examine the dynamic interactions of police administrators, instructors, and learners in the design and delivery of CPE in law enforcement and criminal justice training. Law enforcement officers and trainers were interviewed. In addition, the researcher participated in several law enforcement training sessions to observe the interaction between students and instructors. The data were compared to the researcher's personal experiences and analyzed using constant comparison. Themes that emerged included but were not limited to: education needing to be interesting, meaningful, and purposeful; training needing to be application driven; the severe lack of instructor development; education often being used as a form of punishment; the flawed process of selecting officers for training; police officers not being empowered to use new knowledge; and the insufficient accountability of law enforcement CPE. The themes were then grouped into three broad categories: educational, administrative, and personal. From the themes, eight policy areas for guiding future CPE in law enforcement were identified. Metapolicies were formulated to assist law enforcement policymakers in setting CPE policy that should provide guidance to drive the profession forward. Metapolicies are policies designed to assist in policy making. The eight metapolicies proposed from this research are learning effectiveness, learning alliances, outcome generation, transcendence, training the trainer, educational merit, assessment, and organizational security. The metapolicies are intended to correct deficiencies that currently exist in law enforcement CPE in hopes of advancing the profession forward.

Comments

Includes bibliographical references (pages [102]-105)

Extent

v, 109 pages

Language

eng

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

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