Training for the job: evaluation of a self-defence training programme for correctional officers

Abstract

We investigated to what extent correctional officers were able to apply skills from their self-defence training in reality-based scenarios. Performance of nine self-defence skills were tested in different scenarios at three moments: before starting the self-defence training programme (Pre-test), halfway through (Post-test 1), and after (Post-test 2). Repeated measures analyses showed that performance on skills improved after the self-defence training. For each skill, however, there was a considerable number of correctional officers (range 4–73%) that showed insufficient performance on Post-test 2, indicating that after training they were not able to properly apply their skills in reality-based scenarios. Reality-based scenarios may be used to achieve fidelity in assessment of self-defence skills of correctional officers.

Practitioner summary: Self-defence training for correctional officers must be representative for the work field. By including reality-based scenarios in assessment, this study determined that correctional officers were not able to properly apply their learned skills in realistic contexts. Reality-based scenarios seem fit to detect discrepancies between training and the work field.

Abbreviations: DJI: Dutch National Agency for Correctional Insitutes; ICC: Intraclass Correlation Coefficient

Keywords:

• Reality-based scenarios
• self-defence training
• correctional officers
• performance
• representative learning design

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank Harry Hittema, operational manager of the Dutch National Agency for Correctional Institutes (Dienst Justitiële Inrichtingen, DJI) for his help in executing this experiment and Chakib El Aomari and Armand de Wit, instructors of the DJI, for their help with the assessment. We also would like to thank Monica Tesarova for her help in conducting the experiment. Finally, we thank Sidi Bensalah and Behrouz Seiri for all their efforts in acting as prisoner in the scenarios.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author, [M.K.]. The data are not publicly available due to [restrictions e.g. their containing information that could compromise the privacy of research participants].