Mini-Fest on Student Engagement
and Co-Design

To forge a stronger connection between operational policing and academic policing, a study was developed to examine the use of problem-based learning using a bespoke experiential lesson scenario. The 90 minute scenario required students to become counter-terrorist police officers, dealing with intelligence and responding to unfolding terrorism incidents. Results from post-lesson surveys indicate that problem-based learning has the potential to make academic policing more relevant to student police officers by linking theory with practice and thereby being ‘more policey’. This study comes at a critical time in UK policing with falling trust and confidence due to a series of high profile offences involving serving officers as well as doubt amongst chief officers of the policing degree programme which began in 2020. This study seeks to demonstrate the potential for a combination of traditional academic teaching methods and PBL to develop the requisite skills of professional police officers of the future.