Course Curriculum

Week 1 will be in-person at WSU’s campus in Spokane. The schedule is detailed below, but the overarching goals for this week are for cohort building, baseline assessments, learning the history of policing and evidence based practices in the US, overviews of research methods and data collection, and sharing out of your “problem statement” which will be your research project for the remainder of the program.

• Define procedural justice and explain the primary domains of procedural justice
• Describe how bias (implicit and explicit) may influence organizational and operational decision making
• Understand disparities in police-community interactions, and how bias can contribute to these disparities

• Discuss data management, data collection, and data analysis applied in the context of public safety
• Describe issues and challenges associated with data management management, collection, and analysis applied in the context of public safety
• Collaborate to identify strategies for improving data management, collection, and analysis in the context of public safety

• Describe quantitative and qualitative data collection methods which are often applied in the context of public safety
• Explain the value of integrating applied statistics into operational and organizational decision making
• Translate for different stakeholders the results of applied statistical analysis

• Identify best practices and standards associated with data visualization
• Understand how to best prepare and depict data for stakeholders

• Explore the development of research-practitioner partnerships
• Discuss factors contributing to effective and ineffective research-practitioner partnerships
• Propose strategies for developing and sustaining research-practitioner partnerships

• Understand risk factors associated with police health, wellness, disease etiology, safety, and performance
• Explore strategies to promote police health, wellness, safety, and performance
• Propose strategies and interventions for promoting workplace health and wellness, change management, and organizational performance

• Identify the impact of human factors on risk
• Identify areas of tension between risk management and community engagement, and how to build trust and legitimacy within communities
• Understand the current climate of social justice and how that affects policing

Students will be divided up into small groups (~4 students per group), and 1-hour time blocks will be available for sign up throughout the week, based on work schedule. Small groups will sit in for presentations from their peers, as well as give their own short presentation of their preliminary report on projects. Feedback will be given via discussion board for the other attendees in your group.

Continue working on projects or take some well earned time off!

The remainder of students who didn’t present during Round 1 will be divided up into small groups (~4 students per group), and 1-hour time blocks will be available for sign up throughout the week, based on work schedule. Small groups will sit in for presentations from their peers, as well as give their own short presentation of their preliminary report on projects. Feedback will be given via discussion board for the other attendees in your group.

Law enforcement and leadership executives will participate in a moderated panel discussion to include the topics below. This will be recorded for students who cannot attend the live event. Guided discussion topics will be assigned in the discussion board.

• Understand the “policing culture” and barriers to change, as well as evolution of that culture
• Understand the need for culture change in order to shape the future of policing and avoid cuts or abolition to funding
• Develop Field Training Officer (FTO) strategies for mentoring in the context of promoting police legitimacy

A guest speaker will provide a workshop for the class, to include the following topics. This will be recorded for students who cannot attend the live event, and guided discussion topics will be assigned in the discussion board.

• Understanding systemic barriers to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in policing
• Develop strategies for promoting DEI in recruitment, retention, and promotion

• Discuss external and organizational influences on public safety agencies
• Discuss strategies for evaluating progress towards the six pillars from the 21st Century Taskforce Report:
  • Building Trust & Legitimacy
  • Policy & Oversight
  • Technology & Social Media
  • Community Policing & Crime Reduction
  • Training & Education
  • Officer Safety & Wellness

• Small group research based around an assigned pillar, with a report back to the entire cohort:
  • Building Trust & Legitimacy
  • Policy & Oversight
  • Technology & Social Media
  • Community Policing & Crime Reduction
  • Training & Education
  • Officer Safety & Wellness

• Understand the history of policing and how the challenges facing this profession developed
• Develop strategies for policing evolution that are in line with public safety and community expectations

Assignment:

• Student teach-backs:
  • Students will identify programs that are working, and WHY they’re working, based on the 6 pillars

Students will upload a video to the Learning Management System reporting out on their implementation plan progress and next steps for summer. Each will be assigned a few student videos to review and feedback will be provided via discussion board; rubric will be provided.

The teaching team will communicate out to the group expectations for summer work, instructions for voluntary individual meetings over the summer, and expectations for project review which will kick off Session 3.

Using guidelines supplied by instructors at the end of Session 1, students will record a video update on their research progress and upload it to the LMS. Students will again be assigned peer videos to review and provide constructive feedback which will occur in Week 2.

Using guidelines supplied by instructors at the end of Session 1, students will evaluate peer videos and provide constructive feedback on their capstone projects via the discussion board, and help brainstorm with peers who encountered barriers and/or challenges.

As you’ve learned throughout this program, even the best structured research projects encounter obstacles and barriers. This week the teaching team will review factors to consider for use in evaluating your project critically, utilizing your experiences to date, your peer feedback, and additional objective measures to set you up to finish this program successfully.

Now that you have some data, this week will help students:

• Understand how to query data using a statistical program
• Be able to conduct basic statistics to test for group differences, associations, and differences within your dataset

Using your dataset and what you learned last week, this week will help students:

• Understand basic models for inferential statistical testing
• Be able to conduct basic modeling for program evaluation

Students will learn to write a concise, yet representative, literature review for a grant or manuscript. This is also useful in creating a fact-based case for leadership to bid for a specific program or project within your department. Students will be able to use databases to find articles, summarize and synthesize information from articles, and write a critical review of previous literature.

Using skills learned in Week 6, students will move forward to writing a brief “white paper” that summarizes a proposed project. In addition to communicating projects and needs assessments to leadership, this will also be both useful and essential for drafting grant proposals to be submitted for federal or foundation funding programs.

Students will further learn the importance of mentorship within policing and research-practitioner partnerships, and their impact for shaping the future of the policing profession. These partnerships are also important in strengthening applications and improving chances of receiving grant funding for programs, as learned in Weeks 6 and 7.

• Develop strategies for promoting DEI in recruitment, retention, and promotion
• Know how to evaluate efficacy of DEI strategies, as well as how to tailor interventions to your community or department

• Know how to prepare a document that describes program evaluation findings and intervention effectiveness
• Know how to present information that effectively describes your findings, including areas for improvement and next steps in program implementation

Final report out of projects