Higher order, critical thinking skills in national police academy course development

Law enforcement requires the officer to invoke reason and critical thinking skills in order to solve intricate problems in real time, on the job. This study examined the course development of a large national organization (State Police Academies) to ascertain what strategies are being used in their courses to promote training for higher order, critical thinking skills. By administering a mixed methods questionnaire to participants, data was collected to answer the following research questions: (1) What instructional strategies are included in the course development of State Police Academies to teach higher order, critical thinking skills to learners? and (2) How are the State Police Academies assessing whether the learners have acquired these higher order, critical thinking skills? The results of the study affirmed that specific critical thinking strategies are included in the design of State Police Academy instruction. However, the results regarding the selection of the assessment instruments noted that the selection was not based on scholarly research which questions their validity and reliability. The recommendation is to focus on using the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) which will provide a more accurate assessment, thus leading to a standardized instructional design for use by this particular populace which could be extended to all criminal justice agencies nationally.