Date

5-22-2024

Department

Helms School of Government

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy in Criminal Justice (PhD)

Chair

Jarrod Sadulski

Keywords

Police hiring standards, police and education, training academy performance, educational standards for recruits, recruits academy performance

Disciplines

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Abstract

This study will examine cadet/recruit academic performance while attending the Illinois State Police Training Academy. The focus will be primarily on the academic testing portion of the academy training. This quantitative study will evaluate whether there is a correlation between the academic achievement of the recruit before entry into the academy and academic performance while attending the academy training. This research will explore questions such as: What is the relationship between educational levels and academic performance among recruits while in the police academy? Does having a college education impact the recruit’s ability to score higher on academic testing sections within the academy? Do college graduates have an advantage over recruits who do not have a college degree in terms of educational testing while attending the primary police academy? The prospective cohort will include all recruit officers who have entered recruit training at the Illinois State Police Academy from 2018 through 2023. All participants will be 21 years or older, which is the age for hiring police recruits. All sampling information collected from the recruit’s class training records will be abstracted from an electronic database without using any personal bio identifiers. The samples will be given a corresponding number to the test score. Recruit papers will be reviewed with the assistance of I.T. staff at the academy for data to be extracted from recruit databases. Information will be analyzed and reported using SPSS software to correlate the individual trainee summary.

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