Intellectual Potential, Personality Traits, and Physical Fitness at Recruitment: Relationship with Academic Success in Police Studies

Abstract

This study investigated whether intellectual potential, personality, and physical fitness at recruitment predicted study success in police students (future officers), and whether biological sex influenced these factors. The intellectual potential (high school success and Serbian language test), personality traits (Big Five), and physical abilities (standing long jump, push-ups in 10-seconds, 30-seconds sit-ups, 12-min Cooper running test, and a whole body contract-extend test) of 115 students were assessed on their day of recruitment. Academic success (time-to-graduate and grade point average) were collected at graduation. An independent sample t-test and linear regression were used to determine between-sex differences and predict academic success. Between-sex differences occurred in Serbian language test, the extraversion personality trait, standing long jump, 10-second push-ups, 30-second sit-ups, running, and grade point average. Recruitment measures significantly predicted ( p < .05) grade point average in male ( R2 = 0.344) and female ( R2 = 0.636) students. High school success was the most significant predictor in males, while high school success, Serbian language test, and 10-seconds push-ups were significant predictors in females. Personality traits and physical abilities may differ between male and female police students, but individually they do not significantly predict the academic success, regardless of sex. However, higher prediction power in academic success in female students may reduce the cost of training and improve workforce employment, while higher levels in physical abilities may reduce the dropout rate, improve health, and provide the potential their ability to complete physically demanding tasks.

Expanding Research on Firefighter Trainee Fitness, Reasons for Academy Release, and the Predictive Capabilities of Fitness Tests

“…Although fitness is important, it is one component that could influence a trainee's ability to successfully graduate from academy (15). Future research should include other factors such as academics (10,31), skills test performance (31), and even factors such as motivation (4) within fire academy graduation predictive models. Receiver operating curves can be implemented to investigate the effectiveness of diagnostic tests (45).…”

Personality Traits and Job Performance of Police: A Systematic Literature Review

“…Detrick et al, 20042006-20105 Cuttler et al, 2006Richardson et al, 2007;Sanders, 2008;Forero et. al., 2009;Weiss et al, 200820113 Ono et al, 2011Tarescavage et al, 2015;Chiorri et al, 2015Chiorri et al, 2016Chiorri et al, -2020 0 None 2021-2023 6 Melinder et al, 2020;Huhta et al, 2021;Koropanovski et al, 2022;Speer et al, 2022;Sorengaard et al, 2022;Nurrohmat, 2022 Research Question 1: How many relevant literature studies on personality traits and job performance of police have been published in online data from the years 2000-2023? Table 3.0 above illustrates the trend of journal articles on police personality and job performance in two reputable online databases (Scopus and Web of Science) from 2000 to 2023.…”

“…Articles on this topic have greatly increased from the year 2021 to 2023. Recent interest has focused on analyzing police personality and job performance about topics such as health-related, hazardous job conditions, intellectual potential, and police professionalism (Sorengaard et al, 2022;Koropanovski, et al, 2022;Huhta et al, 2021;Melinder et al, 2020). An earlier study was undertaken in the years 2000 to 2010, with significantly more emphasis on testing personality measurement tools towards the performance of police in job-specific tasks as well as the pre-employment performance of police recruits (Detrick & Chibnall, 2002;Detrick et al, 2002;Sanders, 2008;Cuttler et al, 2006).…”

Body Composition and Physical Activity of Female Police Officers: Do Occupation and Age Matter?

“…They are allowed to use physical force to enforce the laws of the Republic of Serbia. Although physical fitness assessment is part of their recruitment and initial training at the academy [15], once they enter the force, their fitness is not rigorously or frequently checked.…”