What students who perform in “secondary roles” can learn from scenario training in vocational education

Context: Learning through scenario training and live simulation in vocational education is generally regarded as an effective tool for developing professional knowledge. However, previous research has largely overlooked the learning of students in secondary roles in scenario training. The objective of this study is to explore learning for students who act in secondary roles during scenario training in vocational educational settings.  Method: The studied case entails scenario training for police students in a Swedish police education programme. A case study design, which included both participant observation and a questionnaire, was used. The analytic lens applied was inspired by practice theory and focused on how structural and situational arrangements of the training activity affect learning.  Results: Our findings show that students who act in secondary roles learn from their scenario training experiences, but this learning often is overlooked in the design of training activities. Due to the structural arrangements of training activities, learning emerged as students in secondary roles were tasked to support the primary participants in relation to their learning objectives. In addition, it emerged in how students in secondary roles used previous scenario training experiences in relation to the current scenario and its learning objectives. Examples of learning from situational arrangements emerged as students in secondary roles formulated and provided feedback to primary participants and through informal discussions and reflection processes. Learning also emerged as students in secondary roles embodied the “other” during scenario training, something that provided the students with new perspectives on police encounters.  Conclusions: We theorize and extract three dimensions for how learning emerges in this case for secondary participants. It emerges through embodying the “other”, in students’ sensory experiences, and through reconstruction of knowledge through repetition. However, our findings also show that learning for students in secondary roles can be improved through mindful set-up and design. Based on the findings, our article provides a discussion and suggestions on how scenario training can be planned and set-up to develop professional knowledge for students in secondary roles.

Leadership in Swedish Public Organizations: A Research Review in Education and Care

This article is a review of recent Swedish leadership research in two large public-sector areas: education and care. By comparing and contrasting research in these areas, we unveil the specifics and commonalities of research in public-sector leadership. We reviewed research articles from 2018 to 2020 and analyzed theories used, data-gathering methods employed, and topics researched. The results show some fundamental differences between the two areas. Compared to research on education, research on care is to a larger extent non-theoretical and is often focused on change management, quality assurance, and leaders’ roles in employee health. Conversely, studies on education are theory driven and mostly focused on leaders’ roles in learning and shared leadership. We discuss the state of Swedish public leadership research and make suggestions for mutual learning and moving forward in this research field

A framework for team-level reliability through a lens of collaboration

The aim of this paper is to develop a behavioural framework for team-level reliability assessment in which different forms of collaboration are used as measures. The paper draws on current theorising on collaboration wherein the concept is divided into a regulatory and a social dimension. This definition of collaboration is further related to research on team-level reliability, and principles and conditions for reliable collaboration are proposed. The framework is tested empirically in an explorative observation study conducted in the context of a police operational command centre during large-scale critical incident management. In the study, frequencies and variance in interpersonal collaboration are examined. Further, an assessment of team-level reliability is conducted based on the findings. The paper concludes by discussing the potential for using collaboration as an empirical framework for the assessment of team-level reliability

Sensemaking and organising in the policing of high risk situations : Focusing the Swedish Police National Counter-Terrorist Unit

Specialised policing of critical incidents has previously been underexplored within scholarly research. Simultaneously, this type of policing has been recognised as a highly complex endeavour which hinges on an organisationalability to make sense of uncertainty and external contingencies. To build knowledge on the subject of specialised policing, the present thesis aims to explore processes of sensemaking and organising in the work context of specialised police units dedicated to the policing of high risk incidents. Two research questions have guided the thesis project viz.: 1) what ascribed meanings are coupled to specialised police unit work practice and; 2) how can organising of specialised police units be enacted in a reliable manner. These questions are empirically addressed through four part-studies: Study A amounts to a contextual literature study of previous research on specialised police units and aims at conceptual development of anomenclature describing police specialisation as a professional context. Study B in the thesis examines symbolic meanings connected to specialised police units and how such meanings relate to constructions of occupational identity of police officers working in a specialised police unit. With these studies as a contextual frame, study C within the thesis examines how leadership, management and ICT system within a specialised police unitimpacts organisational reliability and sensemaking during incident management. Finally, study D examines organisational reliability on an interpersonal level during incident management as it entails a study of collaboration between police practitioners conducting an intervention. The thesis employs a mainly ideographic and close practice approach to researchas the empirical examinations are focused upon one specific specialised police unit, namely the Swedish police’s National Counter-Terrorist Unit (NI). Using data collected through interviews, observations and archival sources, the thesis aims to contribute both to organisational developmentand to knowledge development within the scholarly community. In overview, the results of the thesis indicate that specialised policing on a level of ascribed meaning tend to be represented as exceptional, sensational and surrounded by inferences of elitism, machismo and violence. In extent, such representations inform serving police officers occupational identity workeither by spurring identification or dis-identification with prevailing accounts of meaning. On a level of organising, resilient policing of high risk incidents is shown to be dependent on an ability to favour flexibility, both through the organisational frameworks that frames incident management and in interpersonal enactment during task execution. This conclusion challenges day-to-day conceptualisation of specialised police units’ work practice as instrumental applications of coercion

Polisiär cykelpatrullering : en kunskapsöversikt och explorativ fallstudie om trafiksäkerhetsarbete i gång- och cykelnätverk

Följande rapport undersöker erfarenheter och möjliga tillämpningsområden för polisiär patrullering med cykel. Specifikt undersöks frågan om hur cykelpatruller kan arbeta för ökad säkerhet inom cykel och gångtrafiknätverk i storstadsområden. Studien är explorativ till sin art och fokuserar på hur poliser med erfarenhet av cykelpatrullering uppfattar metodens inverkan på sociala normer, regelefterlevnad och riskbeteenden i cykel- och gångtrafiknätverk. Metodologiskt är studien kvalitativ och baseras på intervjuer med poliser, observationer av cykelpatrullering samt videodokumentation av polisens trafiksäkerhetsarbete med cyklar. Resultaten tyder på att cykelpatrullering är en lovande och innovativ åtgärd för att fokusera gångoch cykelnätverk i polisens arbete. De intervjuade poliserna rapporterade cykelpatrullering innebar ökad tillgänglighet och täta kontakter med allmänheten. Poliserna uppgav att deras närvaro hade en normativ effekt på beteenden hos cyklister och fotgängare. I rapporten diskuteras hur polisiära cykelpatruller kan vara en viktig källa för tyst kunskap om gång och cykeltrafik. Rekommenderade områden för fortsatta studier är hur cykelpatrullering kan riktas mot högriskområden, så kallade trafik ”hot spots” samt vilken signalvärde polisiära cykelpatruller har ur allmänhetens perspekti

The miscellany of militaristic policing : a literature review

This article reviews how the subject of paramilitary policing and paramilitary police units (PPUs) has been addressed during the last ten years of criminal justice, criminological and policing research. In this paper, the term ‘paramilitary policing’ is discussed in relation to previous debates concerning militaristic policing and police militarisation. Drawing on these debates, articles from a number of journals addressing the phenomena are reviewed with the aim of answering how paramilitary policing has been studied, defined, and contextualised in recent research. The results show that no consensus or universal definition of what paramilitary policing is seems to exist, as studies denote the subject differently depending on applied theoretical and empirical perspectives. This article discusses the apparent differences and offers a conceptual scheme explaining the main intersections and different dimensions encompassed in the subject

Collective reflection in practice : an ethnographic study of Swedish police training

Although reflection has been viewed as an individual process, increased attention has been given to how reflective processes are socially anchored. The present article contributes to this knowledge through an examination of how collective reflection is enacted in the context of police education. The article is based on a one-year ethnographic study of police recruits undergoing training, and the main sources of data collection were participant observations and field interviews. The data were inductively analysed, and a model that differentiates amongst ‘specular’, ‘dialogic’ and ‘polyphonic’ reflection processes is presented. The findings suggest that collective reflection involving multiple individuals adds complexity to reflective processes and that these processes may take on more diverse forms than has been acknowledged, as previous research has mainly focused on dialogic collective reflection. The implications of these findings, such as how increased complexity may counteract the benefits of collective reflection, are also discussed.Framtidens polis - polisers utvecklande av reflexiva förmågor i utbildning och yrkesli

Liminal practice and reflection in professional education : police education and medical education

This paper reports on a study of how liminality relates to the facilitation of reflective practice in professional education. Liminality refers to sites and positions that exhibit 'in-betweenness', or bordering positions, that might draw together different institutional conditions. The present project aims to examine the role of liminality in professional educational practice with a specific focus upon how liminality may support student reflection. Using a qualitative and comparative research approach, we analysed interview and observational data from police education and a medical programme. Observations and interviews explore practices of collective interactional (and hence observable) reflection at sites that are characterised by ‘betweenness’ of work and education. Findings indicate that situations that afford reflection are characterised by a sense of undeterminedness in terms of either the subject, space or activity. Thus, we conclude that there is some evidence that liminality affords reflection, but also that liminality and underminedness are fragile states that are not easily organised in a professional education curriculum.Special issue: Professional Practice, Education and Learning: A Sociomaterial Perspective</p

Motivating Police Reform Through Multimodal Sensegiving How Change Was Promoted Through Videos in the Swedish Police Reorganisation

In this paper, we contribute to understanding of how video films were used by change management as a communication strategy to portray and promote the organisational reform of the Swedish police in 2015. Based on a multimodal analysis of 44 video films, we theorise how the Swedish police change management “gave sense” to the transformation and future state of the police service. The findings show how change was motivated through descriptions of contexts, the problematisation of the present situation, prescriptions of the change process, and forecasts of an ideal future status for the Swedish police. These messages were reinforced visually using stereotypical images and by layering multiple modes of communication. The paper contributes to the literature on organisational change and police reform by describing how change can be motivated and legitimised through persuasive portrayals of the present and the future. We conclude that multimodal communication through video is a powerful technique for sensegiving, with the potential to construct credible, but not necessarily accurate, accounts of organisational change

Understanding technology use through multimodal layers : a research review

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the use of digital technologies by teachers and students in teaching and learning from a multimodal layer perspective. Design/methodology/approach: The article reviews 64 studies on technology use. A content analysis based on the theoretical concepts of "multimodal layers" was used to synthesise previous research. Findings: The findings indicate that the use of technology in classroom practices by teachers and students is multifaceted and that transitions exist between technologies and sign-systems and are differently related to sign-making activities and thus constitute different uses. Between layers, traces can be made that connect the use of technology to differences in sign-making activities. Practical implications: A multimodal layer perspective on technology use is fruitful to understand what happens at the intersection of technology and human activities in school practices. Moreover, more attention to multimodal layers can inform future effective technology usage and design. Originality/value: The review offers comprehensive insights on how previous research has studied technology using multimodal layers as an analytical lens.lic