The relevance and quality of training curricula in the field oflaw enforcement has been significantly enhanced in recent years. The major contributing factor to this success is that lawenforcement trainers now employ more sophisticated procedures andprocesses to develop various curricula. This work has beenlargely accomplished through an empirical research method ofvalidation known as job task analysis.
This article provides an historical and conceptual overview ofjob task analysis, or the analytical process of determining theduties and activities of a job performed by the incumbent, andhow it is used to develop curricula and testing instruments inthe field of law enforcement. Specifically, the article focuseson how the State of Illinois employed job task analysis to thepolice patrol position.
An Historical Perspective
The need for job task analysis studies in the field of lawenforcement arose as a result of Equal Employment OpportunityCommission (EEOC) standards. With the advent of EEOC standards,law enforcement employers were placed under pressure to validatethe process by which they select and train employees.
Police officer standards and training (POST) commissions, one ofwhich is located within the structure of each respective Stategovernment, are responsible for establishing minimum levels oftraining applicable to local law enforcement officers. If anofficer does not meet the criterion of training established bythe POST commission, then that officer is ineligible to practiceas a police officer within the given State. Serving in thiscapacity, POST commissions have assumed the role of an employer. As a State regulatory agency, the POST commission must abide byState and Federal EEOC standards, while seeking to ensure thatonly competent recruits are certified as law enforcementofficers.
However, with the advent of EEOC standards, it became necessaryfor POST commissions to prove that their minimum trainingrequirements are non⌐discriminatory; that the recruit basiccurriculum used to train and certify officers is valid and job-
related; and that the testing procedures designed to evaluate arecruit's level of knowledge and skill during and following therecruit basic training course are reliable and valid instruments
of measurement.
Defining Content Validity
The validation process consists of determining whether aparticular standard measures the quality it is designed tomeasure. The EEOC Uniform Guidelines on Employee SelectionProcedures indicate that the first step in the validation processis conducting a job analysis to define the job domain; that is,the tasks which constitute the job and the knowledge, skills andabilities which an individual must possess to perform the jobeffectively.(1) Once the critical tasks, knowledge, skills, andabilities are identified for a particular job, educators andtrainers have an empirical base from which to develop job-relatedcurricula and testing instruments.
EEOC guidelines on employee testing procedures specify that oneof the following types of validation procedures must be usedempirically for purposes of meeting Federal Governmentstandards: criterion referenced validity, construct validity, orcontent validity. In developing training curricula and testinginstruments, the POST commissions have most often opted for thedemonstration of content validity. Content validation is thebest approach for developing statewide training and examinationstandards.(2) EEOC guidelines define content validity as: "Ademonstration that the content of a selection and trainingprocedure is representative of important aspects of performanceon the job."(3)
In establishing content validity in training and testing, thedefinition of a direct link between tasks performed on the joband curriculum and testing items is critical. In the case ofKirkland v. Department of Correctional Services, the judgeemphasized this point in discussing the method by whichexaminations should be validated. He stated that:
"The cornerstone in the construction of a content⌐validexamination (and curriculum) is the job analysis. Without suchan analysis to single out the critical knowledge, skills andabilities required by the job, their importance relative to eachother, and the level of proficiency demanded as to eachattribute, a test (curriculum) constructor is aiming in the darkand can only hope to achieve job relatedness by blind luck.(4)''
In attempting to demonstrate content validity and jobrelatedness in curriculum and test development projects in thefield of law enforcement, a variety of methodologies have beenemployed. However, the three validation studies completed by thePOST commissions in California, Michigan and Illinois were allsimilar in purpose and design. All were conducted for thepurpose of developing a content valid recruit basic trainingcurriculum. Each employed a job task inventory checklistapproach for purposes of identifying the job information and jobknowledge critical to the law enforcement occupation. Each
study also used the obtained job information as a data base inthe development of the curriculum.(5)
The Illinois Study
Because of the close similarities between the three validationresearch projects mentioned above, only the most recent research,the Illinois study, will be discussed in detail. The Illinoisstudy utilized much of the job task information that wasidentified in the California and Michigan studies, but expandedthat information by adding a number of job task statements. Anadditional reason for closely examining the Illinois study isthe fact that the Illinois POST commission has now instituted acomprehensive written examination that must be successfullycompleted by all newly hired police officers as a condition toreceiving their certification to practice within the State. This written examination was validated through the Job TaskInventory Checklist approach and provides a reliable assessmentof an officer's level of attained job knowledge and skill.
The Job Task Inventory approach to curriculum and testdevelopment allows relevant job information to be obtained for alisting of job tasks. The researcher develops a list of tasksthat are performed on the job by practicing police officers. InIllinois, these job tasks were either taken from task analysislistings that were previously developed in other Statespertaining to the law enforcement function or were generated bya representative panel of practicing police practitioners. Inexcess of 600 such tasks were identified.
A job task was defined in the Illinois study as "a meaningfulunit of work activity that can be readily observed and measured,as generally performed on the job by one worker within somelimited period of time."(6) Examples of such task statementsidentified include:
Conduct a field search of an arrested person
Arrest persons without a warrant
Issue traffic citations
Stop vehicle to arrest, cite, or warn occupants
Testify before grand juries
Once identified, the job task statements associated with thepolicing function were then collected from two sources. First, arandom sample of 2,451 police patrol officers were asked, via thequestionnaire, to review each of the job tasks listed within thequestionnaire and to rate the frequency with which they performedeach specific job task. In addition, a random sample of 685police supervisors was performed, via the questionnaire, to ratethe job tasks in terms of how critical the consequences ofinadequate performance would be.
The objective of assessing the performance frequency and theconsequences of inadequate performance for each task was to
identify those tasks that had statewide significance as beingrelevant to the job domain of policing. A statistical decisionrule was developed based on the mean score of the rating forconsequences of inadequate performance and performance frequencyfor each individual job task. In this manner, all of the jobtasks a police officer must be able to perform were identified. In the Illinois study, a total of 317 job tasks were identifiedas being relevant to the policing function. Many of these hadbeen previously identified in both the California and Michiganstudies, a finding that indicates the tasks associated with thejob of policing are fairly consistent from State to State.
After identifying relevant job tasks, a number of workerrequirements were generated for each task. Worker requirementsare those observable behaviors that must be performed toaccomplish a given job task. For example, in considering thosebehaviors that must be performed to "arrest a person without awarrant," the following worker requirements would apply:
Establish probable cause that the crime was committed and thesuspect committed the crime as indicated by physical evidence,witness statements, and/or personal observations.
Determine whether appropriate to arrest without a warrant byconsidering type of crime and time factor involved (e.g., availability of suspect, time elapsed from commission of crime).
Arrest person by advising person that he/she is under arrest andtaking person into physical custody.
Worker requirements are essential in identifying the knowledge,skills, and abilities relevant to the performance of the task andare effective in enumerating very specific behaviors which mustbe mastered in order to perform the specific job task. In thecurriculum development process, worker requirements serve as adirect link between the job task statement and the studentperformance objectives. In the Illinois study, panels ofpracticing police officers were convened to write the workerrequirements for each of the job task statements.
Having identified the worker requirements for each of the jobtask statements, the final step in the curriculum developmentprocess was translating worker requirements intotraining/learning objectives. This translation process limitsthe amount of conjecture concerning what should and should not beincluded in the curriculum and does not allow curriculumdevelopers to speculate or generalize regarding appropriatetraining content. Training/learning objectives were specified tothe greatest possible degree by employing a process whereby 1)job tasks were identified; 2) a list of relevant workerrequirements was generated for each job task; and 3) each workerrequirement was translated into a training objective.
The Illinois study organized all of the learning objectives into
29 separate training groups and developed a recruit basictraining curriculum. With a job⌐related curriculum in place,Illinois wished to develop an examination instrument to assessthe degree to which individual students had achieved theidentified training objectives and to assess the policeofficer's attained level of job knowledge and skill.
The State of Minnesota was the first to require that policeofficers demonstrate a minimum level of acquired knowledge andskill related to the policing function as a condition to theirlicensure within the State. This requirement was incorporated aspart of legislation pertaining to the licensure of policeofficers, which was passed by the Minnesota General Assembly in1977. Since that time, Illinois and Texas have been the onlytwo additional States to require police officers to complete aState licensure examination.
The process of developing the licensure examination in Illinoiswas simplified by the fact that Illinois had completed a job taskanalysis in developing a content valid recruit basic trainingcurriculum. A complete listing of learning objectives had beenderived based upon the data obtained via the job task analysis. Those learning objectives specified the knowledge and skills thatwere relevant to the individual tasks of the policing function. In analyzing the content of the learning objectives, examinationitems were developed to assess the extent to which the studenthad attained each specific objective. By writing suchexamination items, the Illinois project developed a 200⌐itemmultiple choice written licensure examination that could beproven to be job related and content valid.
The learning objectives, as well as the examination items, arewritten to assess the ability to recall facts, to translate thisinformation, and the ability to apply the information. Theselearning objectives directly correlate to Bloom's Taxonomy ofEducational Objectives by their use of one of the three verbs"define," "identify," or "recognize." (7) These terms, or verbs,as employed in the Illinois project have specific anddifferential meaning as given below:
Define
Given a term, select the correct meaning
Given a meaning, select the correct term
Given a term, select antonyms and synonyms
Given a term, select definitional elements of the term
Identify
Given a procedure or process, select the best means ofaccomplishment
Recognize
Given a hypothetical fact situation, select the best descriptor
Given a hypothetical fact situation, select the best procedureor process to effect resolution
Conclusion
It is apparent that law enforcement trainers are indeedemploying the most sophisticated methods and processes availablein the development of training curricula and testing instruments. The result of this effort is that police recruits are exposed toa curriculum that is truly "on target" in terms of preparing themfor their careers. As such, police recruits, once graduatingfrom the academy and becoming certified by the POST commission,are prepared to "work the streets." They are not the product of"ivory tower" teachings. Rather, they have been exposed to acurriculum that is assuredly job relevant.
Footnotes
1. EEOC Guidelines on Employment Testing Procedures. Title 29Code of Federal Regulations, Section 1607.1 et seq. Washington,D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, July 31, 1970. And, EqualEmployment Opportunity Commission, Testing and SelectingEmployee Guidelines, Department of Justice, CommerceClearinghouse, Inc., August 25, 1978, Section 4010.05, pp. 2223-2--2223-4.
2. Illinois Local Governmental Law Enforcement Officer'sTraining Board, Illinois Basic Police Training ValidationProject, vol. 1, Administrative Documentation, (Springfield, IL.: State of Illinois, 1981).
3. Supra note 3.
4. Kirkland v. Department of Correctional Services, 7 FEP 694(1974).
5. California Commission on Peace Officer Standards andTraining, California Entry⌐level Law Enforcement Job Analysis,Technical Report 1, (Sacramento, CA: State of California, 1979);the Michigan Law Enforcement Officer's Training Council, 1979;Supra note 3.
6. Supra note 3, at p. 14.
7. B.S. Bloom, Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: Handbook,Cognitive Domain, (New York: David MacKay Co., Inc., 1956).
