Municipal Police Evaluation - Psychometric Versus Beha vioural Assessment (From Police Selection and Training, P 251-265, 198 6, John C Yuille, ed. - See NCJ-104142)

• NCJ Number: 104157
• Author(s): P Serrano; L Garcia-Se villa; J L Pe rez; M Pina; J R Ruiz
• Date Published: 1986
• Length: 9 pages
• Sale Source: Martinus Nijhoff Publishing
• Language: English
• Country: Netherlands

Annotation

This study examined the factor structure of psychometric versus behavioral police selection and performance measures.

Abstract

Subjects were 195 on-duty police officers in a Catalan (Spain) municipality. Each officer was rated on a 147-item descriptive assessment by 2 to 6 supervisors. All personnel also were tested on a psychometric battery that included personality inventories, intelligence tests, and perceptual-motor measures. Factorial analysis of the behavioral measure yielded seven factors. These included (1) the good policeman, which loads heavily on the ability to transmit orders and make decisions; (2) the bad policeman, a factor associated with authoritarianism, disrespect, and argumentativeness; (3) the good bureaucrat; (4) physical capacity; (5) traffic regulator; (6) bad demeanor (e.g. abuse of alcohol or authority, sloppiness, lack of concern), and (7) good demeanor. Psychometric assessment yeilded 11 factors. These were intelligence, mental disorder, manual dexterity, reaction time, short-term memory, extraversion, psychic anxiety, sensibility, rigidity, social conformity, and autonomy. Correlations were found between the factors of both analyses. Psychometric factors associated with the good policeman behavioral factor included intelligence, faster reaction time, and extraversion. 3 tables and 20 references.