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Comparison of the Effectiveness of Lecture, Case Study, and Video Tape as Inservice Police Training Methods

NCJ Number
120162
Author(s)
N L Goddard
Date Published
Unknown
Length
6 pages
Annotation
Over 200 inservice officers from 47 police agencies throughout Kansas voluntarily participated in an experiment to determine the relative effectiveness of lecture, case study, and video tape methods of police training.
Abstract
A 76-question test instrument to measure learning was later reduced to 36 valid questions by a panel of experts, two pilot tests, and computer item analysis. The test was given on a pre-post basis to the three experimental groups and as a test-retest to the control group. The major findings of this study indicate that police officers learned significantly from the inservice training. However, the videotape group reacted less favorably to that method than did the other two groups. During posttesting one year after the experiment, the case study group decayed only minimally on the learning retention measure, the videotape group decayed but not significantly, while the lecture group decayed almost to the pretest level. 10 references. (Author abstract modified)