The need for change: a call for action in community oriented police training.

In this new millennium, the law enforcement profession faces the need for complex change. Police agencies are moving away from just responding to incidents. Today, they must address causes of crime and social unrest. Community oriented policing evolved as a means to resolve these underlying problems. Involved citizens, businesses, political figures, and other social service organizations jointly must address issues handled by law enforcement officers. (1) Although this is not a new concept, it is receiving increasingly more attention.

Answering difficult social problems requires not only collaboration with other social agencies and the public but creative and critical thinking. Many view the community police officer as a critical social scientist--someone who solves social, economic, or political problems through socially active change. (2) The critical social scientist is an educator and a content expert, both of which describe community police officers. (3)

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For years, academicians and police trainers have suggested changes not only in academy content but also in methods of educating officers to meet changes in society, technology, law, and crime. Many academies have made the content changes, but what about the methods? (4)

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Pedagogy Versus Andragogy

Numerous references over the last two decades have espoused the need to switch from lecture-based, memorization, and grade school-style teaching to methods more appropriate for officers faced with making immediate discretionary decisions, interacting with all strata of society, and resolving social conflict from the benign to the lethal. Instructors should implement such suggestions about how they should train and modify, rather than totally change, current methods employed to prepare officers for 21st century challenges. Some experts have attacked traditional pedagogical techniques as primary teaching methods inadequate for producing critical thinkers necessary for community oriented policing. They repeatedly have presented adult learning as the appropriate alternative, but agencies seemingly have implemented little change. Additionally, the dichotomy between the approaches often presented is actually less definitive than alleged. Instructors should advocate an andragogical framework for academy training, employing pedagogical methods as needed within the context of community oriented policing. (5)

The word pedagogy is a combination of the Greek words paid meaning child and agogus meaning leader. This "art and science of teaching children" was used in Europe by churches educating young boys in the 7th and 12th centuries. (6) Eventually, pedagogy became the teaching standard from the preschool to the university level. In pedagogy, the teacher is in charge of the educational experience, controlling content, methods, and evaluation of learning. Further, passing a teacher-designed exam determines what students have learned; use of knowledge or skill beyond successful testing is of minor interest.

Police recruits are in a teacher-student setting, fostering dependence with the instructors clearly in charge. (7) Instructors often ignore recruits' prior experience as irrelevant to police work and tell them what is important and whether or not they have learned it adequately. The recruits' goal is academy graduation and then getting their "real" education on the street.

State mandates and instructors' decisions about what students need to become a police officer determine academy content. Course design and development typically are based on module or lesson-block systems of discrete topics sequenced by instructors. Lectures, employing associated texts and handouts, provide the learning tools, while firearms, defense tactics, and driving are taught through practical exercises.

Pedagogy is not always an inadequate instructional choice; it has a place with children, who lack a broad and deep experiential base, and in some adult settings. Strict control is necessary for some topics in the interest of safety, such as potentially lethal activities like firearms training. The problem lies in using only pedagogy for all topics with adults.

The word andragogy is based on the Greek word aner meaning man and is defined as "the art and science of helping adults learn." (8) The andragogical model is based on six basic principles.

1) Adults take interest and invest time and effort in topics they know have applicability for them.

2) Adults are responsible for their actions and deciding their own direction, and they want to be treated accordingly, which is contradictory to being dependent.

3) Adults have experience bases instructors should tap, and they can contribute to problem solving and aiding peers.

4) Adults are ready to learn knowledge and skills that will help them in the real world.

5) Adults center their learning on life issues and problems, rather than on isolated subject matter.

6) Adults are motivated more effectively by internal factors, such as job satisfaction, self-esteem, and quality of life. (9)

The andragogical model is ideal for learning community oriented policing. Unlike pedagogy, it fosters an orientation to problem solving, application, recognition of the students' experiences as a source of input, and a teacher-student partnership.

Recruits' Backgrounds

Consistent with Malcolm Knowles' view of adult learners, agencies should recruit creative problem solvers who independently work through problems. (10) The Police Officer Screening Test for the 21st Century (POST-21) assesses applicants for aptitude in community policing. It is based on the premise that skilled community police officers are oriented to provide a service, not just be crime fighters, by resolving problems using various approaches, communicating with citizens and other government agency representatives, approaching problems with flexibility, and maintaining equity despite cultural differences, all of which are consistent with andragogy. (11)

Instructors should use recruits' experiences and involve them in setting objectives for their own education. (12) Recruits need to see future use of class content, and the teacher-student relationship should include respect for each other's input. (13) Experts have suggested that instructors use the andragogical approach for field training, in-service, and basic training level courses where new officers should address real-world problems. (14) Instruction should focus on issues officers routinely face on the job and facilitate the study and development of actions to solve them. (15) The subject-centered method of pedagogy is counterproductive to developing these needed abilities and skills. (16) Pedagogy is incapable of fostering problem solving and critical thinking. (17)

Recruits can draw from their life and work experiences when problem solving, rather than exclusively from police regulations and instructions. (18) Instructors can facilitate small groups using andragogical methods when educating recruits about community policing strategies. (19) The need for pedagogical methods remain for other topics, such as firearms, driving, defense tactics, and arrest techniques. (20)

The adult-learning model constitutes active learning for students by instructors aiding their education, rather than lecturing them. This model uses problem-based methods and scenarios with students working through issues the same way they will in the real world--by their own means. Learners develop critical-thinking skills and replace memorization with knowledge of resources--where to find answers based on the latest data and how to implement what they discover. Subject-matter experts provide feedback to students, who present required material after finding answers on their own. For example, both the Maryland Police Corps and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have instituted this type of approach. (21) The Maryland Police Corps based its program on longitudinal problem solving. Rather than delivering lectures on discrete topics, instructors integrated major topics, such as interrogation, throughout the curriculum. This approach recognized the value of students' prior lives and how they could apply past experiences to current training, demonstrating the application of andragogy. (22)

Because students learn in a thinking mode, not a passive one, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's 900-hour basic training course includes only 4 hours of lecture. "For their mental health issues training, the students previously listened while an expert lectured them on various disorders. Now, they research the topic themselves. Students are encouraged to go beyond library resources and contact mental health facilities for information on topics, such as paranoia and Alzheimer's disease. They then gather as a class and present their findings with experts present to give them feedback." (23)

An Integrated Model for Police Education

Agencies should ensure that they do not view pedagogy and andragogy as distinctly separate concepts used in an all-or-nothing fashion as often presented in police training literature. Although pedagogy lacks elements of andragogy, an andragogical model can incorporate pedagogical methods as needed. (24) Effective instruction occurs in a setting where andragogy prevails, such as with learner input, confidence, mutual respect, and critical thinking aimed at both personal and problem issues. (25) Officers need these basic qualities to meet the demands of their mission, especially community policing. Just as academies must incorporate community oriented policing as a theme through the training experience, rather than just as a few hours of instruction, the components of andragogy also must remain a central focus.

Self-concept, how people view themselves relative to learning, is key to becoming an "independent and proactive learner." (26) Intimidation as an educational tactic prevents individuality. (27)

Recommendations

The notion of adult learning (andragogy) as a necessary component to police training has been presented periodically for over a decade, often with a sporadic and limited application. Perhaps, part of the reason for its presentation as something innovative, rather than as a standard similar to other new concepts, lies in its appearance primarily in practitioners' publications. The audience of police trainers (often current or former officers) typically have backgrounds in law enforcement, not adult education, and, generally, law enforcement, not education specialists, operate police academies. Therefore, those anxious to implement what they read and learned furthering their individual educations must battle with bureaucracy when suggesting such sweeping changes; identifying the cost of designing, developing, implementing, and evaluating new curriculum methods, and presenting the idea of change in a tradition-bound profession. Therefore, how can this "new" old concept be integrated?

Collaboration must occur between law enforcement trainers who possess police subject-matter expertise and academicians with a command of educational methods. The police subculture might not encourage contacting the local university's education department for assistance with an academy curriculum review, but reaching out to the criminal justice department might help. The criminal justice department then serves as liaison between the two experts, each having some understanding of both worlds. Agencies can defer costs in creative ways through university-community partnership programs, grant proposals, and even involving graduate students in education and criminal justice programs through their thesis and dissertation research. Fighting tradition will prove more difficult, but presenting rigorous reviews of andragogy's success in police training, such as in Maryland's Police Corps program and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police experiences, could win support.

Conclusion

The law enforcement profession must change how they educate officers. Community policing is receiving increased attention and funding and, ideally, the concept is taught using an adult-learning model. Why not shift the entire academy experience to such a model?

If efforts are made to change, future research may focus on evaluating the effects of the adult-learning model as just another standard of police training. Community college and university criminal justice departments can partner with adult education colleagues, introducing them to law enforcement instructors and their curriculum and explaining community oriented policing. Further, agencies must have administrators' support for this frequently presented idea to become a reality.

As the 21st century begins, law enforcement continues to become more proactive. Community oriented policing and police corps programs require people capable of critical and independent thinking who can work with professions other than law enforcement and with culturally diverse community members. Although content changes have kept up with new knowledge and technology, teaching methods appear to lag behind in many law enforcement academies. The use of andragogy, or adult learning, can help establish a new model of police education through a partnership between law enforcement trainers and adult educators.

Pedagogical Assumptions and Design Elements Compared with Traditional
Police Academy Philosophy

Assumptions and           Pedagogy                 Police
Design Elements

Self-concept     Dependency                  Dependent for
                                             direction,
                                             objectives, and
                                             evaluation

Experience       Of little worth             Focus on lectures,
                                             films; little if
                                             any experiential
                                             learning *

Readiness to     Biological, developmental,  Do what they are
learn            and social pressure         told to graduate *

Time             Postponed application       Same
perspective

Orientation to   Subject centered            Focus on content
learning                                     versus learner *

Climate          Authority oriented,         Authority in
                 formal, and competitive     charge, formal, and
                                             competitive

Planning         By instructor               By instructor and
                                             lesson plans

Formulation of   By instructor               Established and
objectives                                   lesson plans

Diagnosis of     By instructor               Mandated
needs                                        requirements

Design           Logic of subject-matter     Training modules
                 content units               and objective
                                             based

Activities       Transmittal techniques      Lectures, films,
                                             and text

Evaluation       By instructor               Exams and
                                             instructor

Motivation       Instructor and grades       Instructor; grades;
                                             graduation is
                                             requisite for
                                             continued
                                             employment

* Denotes information derived from J.E. Regali, "Models of Police
Training and Education," Police Chief, December 1998, 60-62.

Source: R.G. Dwyer and V.E. Dorworth, "Police Training Revisited: An
Andragogical Approach to Police Education," March 1991, paper presented
at the annual meeting of the Academy of Criminal Justice
Sciences, Nashville, TN.

A Proposed Andragogical Model for Recruit Training Designed to Promote
the Development of Innovative Problem Solvers

 Assumptions and       Organization       Instructor        Recruit
 Design Elements

Self-concept        Innovative;         See recruits    Problem solver;
                    proactive versus    as adults;      creative
                    reactive            foster          thinker; adult;
                                        independence;   independent;
                                        collaborative   inductive
                                        versus          learner
                                        authoritarian

Experience          Values innovation   Values          Shares previous
                    through assessment  recruit's       related
                    of past             input;          experience
                                        capitalize on
                                        recruit's
                                        previous
                                        experience

Readiness to        Static to           Encourages      Developmental
learn/time          innovative          proactive       understanding of
perspective                             learning;       how social/
                                        emphasizes      professional
                                        internal        role affects
                                        motivators      society; relate
                                                        to academy need
                                                        to know

Orientation to      Humanistic          Present         Collaborative
learning                                problems        versus
                                        versus          competitive;
                                        subjects;       problem versus
                                        value           subject
                                        creativity and  centered
                                        individuality;
                                        job relevant

Climate             Open                Facilitator;    Collaborative;
                    communication;      respect versus  free from
                    flexible; people    intimidate      intimidation;
                    oriented            recruits        mutuality

Planning            Cooperative;        Instructor      Creative input
                    decision making;    with recruit
                    problem solving     input

Diagnosis of needs  Open to             Awareness of    Self-diagnosis
                    reassessment        individual
                                        needs; open to
                                        change;
                                        self-diagnosis

This model describes the ideal climate as one where there are no threats
or intimidation; critical thinking is encouraged, rather than
suppressed; cooperation is fostered; and innovative ideas are sought.
Instructors and students share reciprocal respect with no excessive
authority-subject relationship. Within the limits of mandated content,
recruits are allowed input into the planning process, given an
examination of individual needs, and prior experience is valued as a
resource. The application of training content is connected to actual
police work to help motivate learning. A problem-solving orientation to
learning forms the basis for presenting required subject matter, and
training is evaluated as an ongoing process.

Source: R.G. Dwyer and V.E. Dorworth, "Police Training Revisited: an
Andragogical Approach to Police Education," March 1991, paper presented
at the annual meeting of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences,
Nashville, TN.

Endnotes

(1) S. Trojanowicz and R. Trojanowicz, Theory of Community Policing; retrieved on March 4, 2004, from http://www.concentric.net/~dwoods/theory.htm.

(2) Ibid.

(3) Ibid.

(4) Recognizing that agencies have different training issues, the authors present an overview that concentrates on the use of adult learning to help improve the delivery method. Space does not permit an in-depth examination of all of the types of police training. Instead, the authors want to encourage agencies to use adult-learning principles in all phases of police training.

(5) Agencies can use the Police Corps philosophy of training as an example. For more information, see http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/opclee.

(6) Many theories exist of how people learn, and Malcolm Knowles is the theorist who brought the concept of adult learning to the forefront of education. Information in this paragraph came from Malcolm S. Knowles, The Adult Learner: A Neglected Species, 4th ed. (Houston, TX: Gulf Publishing Co., 1990).

(7) Information in this paragraph and the next two paragraphs was derived from R.G. Dwyer and V.E. Dorworth, "Police Training Revisited: An Andragogical Approach to Police Education," March 1991, paper presented at the annual meeting of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, Nashville, TN.

(8) Supra note 6.

(9) Supra note 6.

(10) H. Goldstein, Problem Oriented Policing (New York, NY: McGraw Hill Publishing Co., 1990); and W. Harris and A. Kolkman, "Selecting Community Oriented Officers," Law & Order 48, no. 4 (2000): 63-66.

(11) For more information, supra note 10 (Harris and Kolkman).

(12) W. M. Mohr, "Guidelines for Effective Classroom Instruction," Police Chief, September 1980, 48-52.

(13) Ibid.

(14) Supra note 12; P.A. Brankin, "Adult Developmental Theory and Learning Theories," Law and Order 37, no. 3 (1989): 43-44; and M.S. McCampbell, U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, Field Training for Police Officers State of the Art (Washington, DC, 1986).

(15) Supra note 7.

(16) Supra note 7.

(17) J.E. Regali, "Models of Police Training and Education," Police Chief, December 1998, 60-62.

(18) M.L. Birzer, "Police Training in the 21st Century," FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, July 1999, 16-19.

(19) Ibid.

(20) Ibid.

(21) R. G. Weinblatt, "New Police Training Philosophy," Law and Order 47, no. 8 (1999): 84-90. For additional information, see Malcolm S. Knowles, The Modern Practice of Adult Education: From Pedagogy to Andragogy (New York, NY: Association Press, 1970).

(22) J. Hoffman, "Special Report: Police Corps, An Update Two Years After the First Police Corps Graduation," Law and Order 48, no. 1 (2000): 50-58.

(23) Supra note 21 (Weinblatt).

(24) Supra note 6.

(25) Supra note 7.

(26) Supra note 7.

(27) Supra note 7.

By R. Gregg Dwyer, M.D., Ed.D., and Deborah L. Laufersweiler-Dwyer, Ph.D.

Dr. Dwyer, a former federal criminal investigator, currently is a resident physician in the General Psychiatry Program at the University of South Carolina.

Dr. Laufersweiler-Dwyer, a former police officer, currently is an associate professor in the criminal justice department at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock.