Making sense of evidence: using research training to promote organisational change

Abstract

Many have argued that the development of evidence-based policing (EBP) depends on those in law enforcement agencies receiving appropriate training in research methodologies and data analysis. Despite this, there are few detailed accounts of such training and its delivery. This paper describes and evaluates the contribution of training workshops for police officers and staff in driving forward EBP. The workshops, developed based on a model used in healthcare, sought to provide attendees with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to engage with research evidence during their work, and sat within a wider plan for organisational change within one force in England. We outline the development and delivery of the workshops, which were undertaken using an action research approach, and assess their impact including subsequent changes to practice. Finally, we consider the role these workshops played within organisational change, and reflect on how EBP can be promoted within academic-police collaborations.

Keywords:

• Police
• research evidence
• training
• organisational change
• evidence-based practice

Notes

1. Just as EBP has been a long standing matter of consideration, so too has the promotion of police-university research collaborations. In the case of the US, for instance, Rojek et al. (2012) traced recent substantial efforts to link police practitioners and university researchers to a 1967 President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice recommendation that criminal justice agencies make more use of social science research as well as the subsequent federal funding that accompanied the establishment of National Institute of Justice. Since that time, the need for greater collaborations has resurfaced as a major theme from time to time within the agendas of criminal justice organisations.

2. In practice, the elements of the project were inter-related and in particular in relation to promoting organisational change. The workshops elaborated in this paper, for instance, supported other forms of collaboration (e.g., the police-academic secondments).

3. http://clahrc-peninsula.nihr.ac.uk/making-sense-of-evidence.

4. Still, some concerns of AR in the police have been identified. These have included the limitations of case studies that typically characterise AR, the potential for closing working partnering researchers to refrain from criticism, and the danger that action-orientated research slides into law enforcement practice (Rosenbaum, 2010).

5. The full workshop programme can be found here: http://socialsciences.exeter.ac.uk/sociology/research/projects/policingandevidencegroup/makingsenseofevidenceandresearchworkshops/.

6. In relation to this session, while participants were eager to devise their own research projects, it initially proved difficult to get them to think about how to utilise existing secondary literature so the structure of the session was amended to support this further.

7. Referring to EBP as evidence-informed practice will help to support this, by recognising the equal importance and contributions of professional expertise and service-user experience in addition to evidence gathered through research.

8. Our thanks to Nicky Miller, College of Policing, for this suggestion.