NCJ Number
122739
Journal
American Journal of Police Volume: 8 Issue: 2 Dated: (1989) Pages: 49-62
Date Published
1989
Length
14 pages
Annotation
This meta-analysis of five studies of the relationship between police educational level and police performance concludes that much of the apparent discrepancy in the studies may result from distortions due to artifactual errors.
Abstract
Results of the five studies were cumulated by first adjusting individual study correlation coefficients for attenuation (error of measurement). Ninety-five percent confidence intervals were also constructed for uncorrected and corrected coefficients. A weighted average correlation from all of the corrected individual correlations was computed, as was the weighted average observed variance across studies. The error variance was calculated and subtracted from the average observed variance to derive an estimate of the population variance. This analysis finds consistent agreement that education and police performance are moderately related. This finding contradicts narrative reviews of the studies that report negative or nil findings. Future researchers in this area should provide readers of their findings with the means, standard deviations, and reliability coefficients for each variable. Also, the entire zero order correlation matrix should be presented. 2 tables, 46 references.