Course Details

Course TitleSPCP 2024 - Session 12: Police Wellness and Leadership Development - Experimenting a selection and skills development support tool for police candidates
Date 9/27/2024
ProviderSociety for Police and Criminal Psychology Annual Conference
Phone 
Emailbrewstja@jmu.edu
Website https://www.policepsychology.org/SPCP-2024
LocationLouisville, KY
Credit Hours0.25
Instructor(s)Annie Gendron, PhD; Yanick Aubert, MPS; Francis Lapointe, PhD; Sonia Ouimet, MPS
Method of InstructionWorkshop/Seminar
Approving Agency---
Course Syllabus

Course Description

In 2019, the École nationale de police du Québec (Quebec police academy) initiated a first phase of work aimed at defining the profile of characteristics and skills desired in future police officers. This profile is represented by four pillars comprising interpersonal, intrapersonal and cognitive skills (Gendron et al., 2023). In a second phase of work, the Quebec police academy has set up a pilot project using the Successfinder psychometric tool, which looks promising for measuring and supporting the development of desired competencies. More specifically, the test measures the fit of candidates on 20 behavioral traits related to the four pillars of competency, which have been identified as being particularly important for the patroller function, and found in those considered high performers. Since the spring of 2023, all police candidates admitted at the police academy were asked to fill in the Successfinder test in an experimental context. This approach has three objectives: 1) to describe the distribution of candidates on the traits measured by the test, 2) to explore association of the traits with the other components of the police academy ranking score; 3) to measure the appreciation of the tool by stakeholders (candidates, police academy and police forces). Preliminary results show that certain traits, such as flexibility and practicality, are lower among aspiring police officers, while team spirit and openness to criticism are among the traits where they score highest. Moreover, dimensions of the ENPQ ranking score are weakly correlated with the behavioral traits measured by the tool. This presentation will also discuss the deployment of the pilot project at ENPQ.

Course Objectives