The aim of this dissertation is to build knowledge about the transition from an educational to an occupational context. More specifically, the dissertation focuses on the transition from police education to police practice by studying the way police students and police officers perceive the importance of a number of professional competences related to their future occupations. The aim is also to study whether the importance of these competences has changed between the time of their police education and their work as police officers and to what extent the respondents perceive that police education contributed to the development of these competences.
Methodologically, this dissertation is in some parts based on cross-sectional data. In other parts, it is based on longitudinal data and uses a combination of both quantitative and qualitative data. The quantitative data are based on questionnaires given to police students at the beginning and end of their police education and to police officers after a few years of police practice. The questionnaire used in sub studies B, C and D is part of the European cooperation project called Recruitment, Education, and Career in the Police (RECPOL). The qualitative data are based on interviews. Theoretically, a frame factor perspective is used to analyse and understand the dissertation’s empirical data.
The results show a change in the way the respondents perceive the importance of the studied competences over time. The police students generally valued theprofessional competences higher at the beginning of their education and significantly lower at the end of their education. As police officers, however, they valued the importance of these competences almost as high as they did at the beginning of their education. The results show small differences between how male and female police students and police officers valued these competences. When the respondents reflected on the reasons why the significance of the competences changed over time, different themes emerged. The results also show that police education’s contribution to the development of these competences is clearly lower than the extent to which they are perceived as important for work as police officers. In the interviews, reflections on the reasons for this indicated a discrepancy between the educational and occupational contexts.
One conclusion is that police students at the end of their education need to better understand that they have not fully learnt everything they need to know and that they are becoming police officers with the capacity to continue developing professionally and contributing to the police as a learning organization.
This study is about police students’ and professional police officers’ experienced competence in mental preparation training. The aim with the study is to compare how police students’ in the beginning and in the end of the Basic Training Programme for Police Officers perceive their competence in mental preparation training and how a selection of these students perceive their competence after one respectively two and a half year as police officers. The aim is also to compare the formal competence required of students who have passed the Basic Training Programme for Police Officers with the competence students actually think they have, and the formal competence required within the police profession with the competence police officers with differently long time as professionals experience that they have. Moreover the study includes a comparison between the formal and experienced competence in the Basic Training Programme for Police Officers and in the police profession. The empirical data of the study is based on a web questionnaire to the different groups of students and follow-up interviews with a selection of these students. The results show that the students’ perceived competence increases during the Basic Training Programme and that the experienced competence at the end of the programme to a relatively large extent corresponds to the formal competence of the programme. The difference between the formal competence required in the police profession and the police officers’ experienced competence is relatively small. The police officers’ experience though is that their competence in mental preparation training is not requested in the profession to any larger extent.
Key words: Police, competence, mental preparation training.
The aim of the present follow-up study on a cohort of Swedish police students is to build knowledge of how they now as police officers perceive the importance of competencies like specific knowledge, practical skills, and reflexivity in relation to their police work. The aim is also to study whether the importance of these competence dimensions has changed from the time of their police education to their police work. To what extent do the respondents perceive that their police education has contributed to the development of certain competence dimensions? Based on both qualitative and quantitative data, the results show that respondents in their roles as police officers estimate the importance of the competencies’ specific knowledge, practical skills, and reflexivity higher than they did as police students. The results also show that in general, police education’s contributions to the development of these competencies are clearly lower than the extent to which they are perceived as important for work as police officers. In the interviews, reflections on the reasons for this indicate a discrepancy between the educational and occupational contexts. A conclusion from this study is that the police occupational culture seems to affect police students more than the formal police education. Another conclusion is that police education needs to clarify the difference between the educational practice designed to optimize a learning situation and the occupational practice in which knowledge should be applied.
This study is part of the European cooperation project, Recruitment, Education, and Career in the Police. The overall aim of this study is to compare how Swedish and Catalan police students perceive different competence dimensions in relation to their future profession, and how the perceptions of these competence dimensions change from the beginning to the end of the training program. The empirical data is based on identical questionnaires that were distributed to police students in Sweden and Catalonia. The results show different patterns in how Catalan and Swedish police students perceive the importance of the different competences at the beginning and at the end of their basic training programs. The implications of this study show that more knowledge is needed about the next step; that is, how the police students use these competencies in their professional work.
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.
Ledarskap har i ett internationellt perspektiv studerats över tid men hittills vet vi ganska lite hur det svenska forskningslandskapet ser ut. Svensk ledarskapsforskninghar anekdotiskt konstaterats vara svag samtidigt som Sverige, med en arbetsmarknad präglad av samförstånd och korta beslutsvägar, utgör en intressant kontext för ledarskapsstudier. En delaspekt av forskning om ledarskap är hur fenomenet studerats i avhandlingar. Givet dessa konstateranden syftar följande forskningsöversikt till analysera doktorsavhandlingar om ledarskap skrivna 2003–2014. Specifikt besvaras fyra frågor: 1) Vilka ämnen och institutioner studerar ledarskap? 2) Vad studeras i avhandlingar om ledarskap? 3) Hur har ledarskap studerats? 4) Vilka kunskapsbidrag kan identifieras i de analyserade avhandlingarna? Totalt analyserades 70 avhandlingar i studien och valet att analysera avhandlingar motiveras av att doktorsavhandlingar kan spegla lokal praxis och trender i kunskapsbildning inom akademin. Resultatet visar på att ledarskap som forskningsfält är fragmenterat mellan olika ämnen och forskningsbedrivande institutioner, att kvalitativa metoder var vanligare än kvantitativa samt att förvånansvärt lite av forskningen relaterar till, eller tar avstamp ifrån, andra svenska eller skandinaviska forskargruppers arbeten. I artikeln diskuteras avslutningsvis hur bristande kommunikation mellan forskningsmiljöer kan hänga ihop med att ledarskap i många av destuderade avhandlingarna studerats instrumentellt som en delmängd av andra ämnesområden.