Creating Meaningful Learning Experiences Through Evidence-Based Student-Involved Applied Criminal Justice Capstone Research

Abstract

This paper discusses an educational project that involved students surveying and interviewing police officers to measure occupational stress and resilience. The class worked collaboratively to develop survey and interview instruments. Students worked in pairs to write literature reviews that contained information to be included in the agency reports. Each pair was also responsible for conducting and transcribing two interviews. The class worked together to interpret the findings and make recommendations to the agencies involved. The project resulted in products that were curated and provided to the participating agencies which included practice recommendations grounded in an anonymous survey and confidential interviews. This learning experience has many observable, positive outcomes for students which are also discussed.

Keywords:

• Teaching
• capstone course
• evidence-based
• surveys
• interviews

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 There is a selected bibliography in Appendix A to give the reader some idea of the type of literature students were assigned specific to the project described here.

2 The capstone experience described later in this article was offered in the fall of 2017 and was the first time the course was taught after revising the department’s curriculum.