NCJ Number
94284
Date Published
1983
Length
37 pages
Annotation
This British paper discusses the contents of a police human awareness training curriculum and teaching techniques appropriate for it.
Abstract
Police human awareness training consists of training in the areas of community relations, self awareness, and interpersonal skills. Training in community relations aims at developing an officer's knowledge of the police role within British culture, focusing particularly on racism. The second course element, self awareness, is accomplished through participation in a number of evaluative psychological tests (the results of which are presented privately for discussion with the recruit) and in 'structured' experimental learning exercises which encourage the recruits to assess their attitudes, become aware of their feelings, and learn how to express them. The third course element -interpersonal skills -- deals primarily with an introduction to the understanding of human communication, teaching the police officer how to handle successive encounters with changing exemplars of the public, providing guidance in applying interpersonal skills to police-citizen encounters. The discussion of course presentation and teaching techniques focuses on a qualitative approach to forming the course syllabus, qualitative staff deployment, creating an atmosphere conducive to learning, student-centered learning, examinations, team teaching and cross-assessment, the use of talk-back, psychometric testing, stimulating policy feedback, and research back-up. References are listed.