Observational Behavior Assessment for Psychological Competencies in Police Officers:A Proposed Methodology for Instrument Development

This paper proposes and showcases a methodology to develop an observational behavior assessment instrument to assess psychological competencies of police officers. We outline a step-by-step methodology for police organizations to measure and evaluate behavior in a meaningful way to assess these competencies. We illustrate the proposed methodology with a practical example. We posit that direct behavioral observation can be key in measuring the expression of psychological competence in practice, and that psychological competence in practice is what police organizations should care about. We hope this paper offers police organizations a methodology to perform scientifically informed observational behavior assessment of their police officers’ psychological competencies and inspires additional research efforts into this important area

Contraction pressure analysis using optical imaging in normal and MYBPC3-mutated hiPSC-derived cardiomyocytes grown on matrices with tunable stiffness

Current in vivo disease models and analysis methods for cardiac drug development have been insufficient in providing accurate and reliable predictions of drug efficacy and safety. Here, we propose a custom optical flow-based analysis method to quantitatively measure recordings of contracting cardiomyocytes on polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), compatible with medium-throughput systems. Movement of the PDMS was examined by covalently bound fluorescent beads on the PDMS surface, differences caused by increased substrate stiffness were compared, and cells were stimulated with β-agonist. We further validated the system using cardiomyocytes treated with endothelin-1 and compared their contractions against control and cells incubated with receptor antagonist bosentan. After validation we examined two MYBPC3-mutant patient-derived cell lines. Recordings showed that higher substrate stiffness resulted in higher contractile pressure, while beating frequency remained similar to control. β-agonist stimulation resulted in both higher beating frequency as well as higher pressure values during contraction and relaxation. Cells treated with endothelin-1 showed an increased beating frequency, but a lower contraction pressure. Cells treated with both endothelin-1 and bosentan remained at control level of beating frequency and pressure. Lastly, both MYBPC3-mutant lines showed a higher beating frequency and lower contraction pressure. Our validated method is capable of automatically quantifying contraction of hiPSC-derived cardiomyocytes on a PDMS substrate of known shear modulus, returning an absolute value. Our method could have major benefits in a medium-throughput setting.</p

Fit for duty: towards optimal testing in the safety domain

This thesis aims to gain more insight into how public safety organizations can increase the predictive value of their test practices for operational performance. It addresses the challenge for public safety organizations to develop test contexts that are representative for duty. The thesis also addresses a second challenge for public safety organizations, namely that they must be able to interpret complex and dynamic behaviour in order to arrive at assessment conclusions. The two challenges of representativeness and interpretation of complex behaviour are not separate but go hand in hand. Representative contexts usually consist of complex and dynamic situations in which a variety of skills, such as decision-making and situational awareness, are crucial to the result. This thesis therefore aims to answer two questions: • How can public safety organizations develop test contexts representative for duty? • How can public safety organizations score and interpret complex and dynamic behaviour in such representative contexts? The first study of this thesis (Chapter 2) investigated whether a fitness test (ProfFit) physically challenges police officers to become optimally fit rather than "just" fit enough for duty. The results showed that the ProfFit measures an all-round range of fitness characteristics of recruits and is perceived as more demanding than the standard job-specific fitness test. This finding can be a starting point for further discussion about, and research into, the development of testing practices aimed at optimising performance beyond minimum standards for duty. In Chapter 3, a representative test context was developed to investigate the ability of correctional officers to apply self-defence skills from their training in practical situations. By stressing representativeness in the test environment, it could be revealed that the training did not sufficiently prepare the correctional officers to adequately solve practical situations. Chapter 4 investigated the effects of wearing a uniform during the Physical Competence Test (PCT) of the Dutch National Police compared to wearing sportswear (as currently done during the test). It was found that the police officers were slower in police uniform than in sportswear and also experienced the test as more physically demanding. Wearing a police uniform during the test therefore seems an essential way to increase the representativeness (for duty) of the PCT. Taken together, Chapters 3 and 4 show the importance of representativeness in test situations and provide insight into factors that influence employees' test performance. Understanding these factors and how to incorporate them into testing practice can help safety organizations increase the predictive value of their testing practice for performance on duty. Chapters 3 and 5 provide insight into how safety organizations can score and interpret complex and dynamic behaviour in a representative test context. An important first step in this direction is to have scoring methods that allow the evaluation of a multitude of complex and dynamic skills for duty, rather than evaluating a single, isolated skill. Chapter 3 describes a scoring method in which performance characteristics (e.g., environmental awareness, positioning, communication) are defined to help assessors evaluate performance in representative contexts. Chapter 5 proposes methodological steps on how safety organizations can (usefully) derive performance from a rich and detailed account of observed behaviour. The scoring methods in Chapters 3 and 5 contribute to the knowledge and practice of methods that enable the evaluation of whether employees are capable of solving complex situations using a multitude of (nested) skills. Together, the chapters highlight a variety of testing practices in the safety domain and help to increase the predictive value of testing for complex and dynamic work situations. In this way, this thesis contributes to the testing of professional fitness and skills in the safety domain

Training for the job: evaluation of a self-defence training programme for correctional officers

We investigated to what extent correctional officers were able to apply skills from their self-defence training in reality-based scenarios. Performance of nine self-defence skills were tested in different scenarios at three moments: before starting the self-defence training programme (Pre-test), halfway through (Post-test 1), and after (Post-test 2). Repeated measures analyses showed that performance on skills improved after the self-defence training. For each skill, however, there was a considerable number of correctional officers (range 4–73%) that showed insufficient performance on Post-test 2, indicating that after training they were not able to properly apply their skills in reality-based scenarios. Reality-based scenarios may be used to achieve fidelity in assessment of self-defence skills of correctional officers. Practitioner summary: Self-defence training for correctional officers must be representative for the work field. By including reality-based scenarios in assessment, this study determined that correctional officers were not able to properly apply their learned skills in realistic contexts. Reality-based scenarios seem fit to detect discrepancies between training and the work field. Abbreviations: DJI: Dutch National Agency for Correctional Insitutes; ICC: Intraclass Correlation Coefficient

Training for the job: evaluation of a self-defence training programme for correctional officers

We investigated to what extent correctional officers were able to apply skills from their self-defence training in reality-based scenarios. Performance of nine self-defence skills were tested in different scenarios at three moments: before starting the self-defence training programme (Pre-test), halfway through (Post-test 1), and after (Post-test 2). Repeated measures analyses showed that performance on skills improved after the self-defence training. For each skill, however, there was a considerable number of correctional officers (range 4–73%) that showed insufficient performance on Post-test 2, indicating that after training they were not able to properly apply their skills in reality-based scenarios. Reality-based scenarios may be used to achieve fidelity in assessment of self-defence skills of correctional officers. Practitioner summary: Self-defence training for correctional officers must be representative for the work field. By including reality-based scenarios in assessment, this study determined that correctional officers were not able to properly apply their learned skills in realistic contexts. Reality-based scenarios seem fit to detect discrepancies between training and the work field.  Abbreviations: DJI: Dutch National Agency for Correctional Insitutes; ICC: Intraclass Correlation Coefficient

Changing perspectives: enhancing learning efficacy with the after-action review in virtual reality training for police

The After-Action Review (AAR) in Virtual Reality (VR) training for police provides new opportunities to enhance learning. We investigated whether perspectives (bird’s eye &amp; police officer, bird’s eye &amp; suspect, bird’s eye) and line of fire displayed in the AAR impacted the officers’ learning efficacy. A 3 x 2 ANOVA revealed a significant main effect of AAR perspectives. Post hoc pairwise comparisons showed that using a bird’s eye view in combination with the suspect perspective elicits significantly greater learning efficacy compared to using a bird’s eye view alone. Using the line of fire feature did not influence learning efficacy. Our findings show that the use of the suspect perspective during the AAR in VR training can support the learning efficacy of police officers