Designing a graduate entry route for police recruits: lessons from a rapid evidence assessment of other professions

ABSTRACT

Policing in the UK is currently undergoing changes to the training and attained qualifications of entry level police officers. The College of Policing is in the process of developing three entry routes into the profession, one of which is a graduate conversion course for those new recruits who hold, at a minimum, a Bachelor’s degree. The objective of this research was to gather evidence on existing conversion courses to inform the development of this route. A rapid evidence assessment was undertaken to a narrative synthesis of the literature on graduate conversion courses in other professions. Fifty-one studies were identified and coded. Four main themes emerged from the available evidence as being central. These themes – learning styles, translating theory into practice, teaching methods and assessment were cross cut by pedagogical sub-themes of collaborative learning, and reflective practice. Policy and practice implications for a policing conversion course are drawn out to guide development and delivery of police training and education in the 21^st century.

KEYWORDS:

• Rapid evidence assessment
• police
• graduate conversion course
• teaching

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank MOPAC and the College of Policing for making this research possible. We are especially grateful to Profs. Betsy Stanko, Mike Hough, Almuth McDowell and Jennifer Brown, as well as Tiggey May, Ray Clare and Levin Wheller for their valuable comments on earlier drafts. We would also like to express our gratitude to the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions.

Supplemental data

All studies included in the Rapid Evidence Assessment can be accessed here.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The Association of Chief Police Officers Submission to the Police Remuneration Review Body (January 2015) cited in College of Policing PEQF Consultation (2016).

2. According to www.prospects.ac.uk/, targetpostgrad.com, www.findamasters.com, and www.allaboutcareers.com/.

3. Our search syntax was: (((postgraduate OR professional OR graduate OR vocational) PRE/1 (certificate OR diploma)) AND (‘conversion course’))) AND (law OR property OR psychology OR IT OR teaching OR accountancy OR medicine OR business OR engineering OR ‘human resources’ OR HR OR marketing OR nursing OR physiotherapy OR ‘social work’).

4. The search terms used to search the non-education databases were closely modelled on the ones in footnote 3.

5. This is a web-based software program developed by the Social Science Research Unit at the Institute of Education, University of London. https://eppi.ioe.ac.uk/CMS/Default.aspx?alias=eppi.ioe.ac.uk/cms/er4&.

6. Action research methodology is a method used within education settings usually for updating or revising a course or curriculum involving participation of the students and teachers to encourage collaboration and dialogue. It involves repeated cycles of planning, analysis, evaluation, reflection and implementation (Hramiak, 2010; Trevitt, 2005).

7. Phenonography ‘seeks to describe the conceptions of any phenomenon by individuals in order to generate different variations in the way in which this phenomenon can be experienced’ (Van Wyk, 2013: 51).

8. A video-paper is when text is accompanied by video within a single electronic document so that the reader is able to ‘activate different modes of presentation, watching the context in which the text is placed as well as presenting authentic examples to improve the validity of text’ (Krumsvik & Smith, 2009: 271).

9. See College of Policing: Professional Profile Police Constable at https://profdev.college.police.uk/professional-profile/police-constable/.

Additional information

Funding

Home Office Police Innovation Fund.

Notes on contributors

Jyoti Belur

Dr Jyoti Belur, formerly of Indian Police Service, is a Senior Lecturer in Policing at the University College London, Department of Security and Crime Science. She has undertaken research for the UK Home Office, and the Metropolitan Police Service.

Winifred Agnew-Pauley

Winifred Agnew–Pauley is a policing and criminology researcher, with experience working across a range of criminal justice projects in Australia and the UK. She currently works at Anglia Ruskin University (UK) within the Policing Institute for the Eastern Region (PIER). She is completing her PhD at Flinders University (Australia), within the Centre for Crime Policy and Research, conducting a comparative study on the use of stop and search in Australia and UK.

Lisa Tompson

Dr Lisa Tompson is an Associate Professor at the University College London, Department of Security and Crime Science. Her research interests include embedding evidence into police practice and policymaking, evaluating police practice, and translational criminology.