Summary
"The focus of this thesis is the assessment of student police officers against the National Occupational Standards for policing, which are intended as a common minimum standard of police performance. The work of student police officers is a relatively recent phenomenon within the police service and came about as part of the requirements of the initial Police Learning and Development Programme, an initiative designed to modernise police training. The thesis explains these requirements and sets the assessment of student police officers within the national and local assessment contexts as well as a wider policing context. By doing so, this thesis will argue that although there is certain logic with the use of the National Occupational Standards because of their intrinsic link with work-based performance and activity, they are not an adequate measure of a student police officer’s competence as they do not cater for alternative views of competence and because they are a means of curriculum control. This will shown through interviews with assessment practitioners, operational police officers and student police officers from a Home Counties constabulary as well as by examining local and national police complaint data, the commendations awarded by the constabulary and letters of appreciation written by members of the public."--Abstract.