A NEWLY released research study is proposing a paradigm shift in teaching and training for police officers in the Bahamas, while another has particular implications for the preservation of Bahamian familial history and national identity.
Four original articles, a short communication, a book review and a listing of doctoral dissertations produced between 2008 and 2012 by College of the Bahamas faculty make up the 18th volume of the newly released International Journal of Bahamian Studies (IJBS) – COB’s open access, online research publication.
“The journal is one shard of evidence of the scholarly activity in the college and it is with great pride that we can announce that all articles in this year’s volume were written by college faculty,” noted IJBS managing editor Virginia Ballance.
“Original articles come from the social sciences, history, education, and law. In all cases, the papers had been presented at conferences before being peer reviewed and accepted for publication. Conference presentations are an ideal way for a researcher to garner input, ideas and criticism from their peers. The feedback can help improve the paper before it is submitted to a journal.”
This year marks the fifth consecutive year of publication of the college’s research journal, which changed focus in 2010 to a niche attraction for published works by researchers on issues of interest to and about the Bahamas.
One of the studies, entitled ‘A paradigm shift in law enforcement training in the Bahamas: teacher-centred to learner-centred’ proposes a shift in teaching for Bahamian police officers as concerns about crime and violence remain a national priority.
The research was conducted by Dr Yvonne Hunter-Johnson, assistant professor in the School of Education at COB, and Dr Waynne B James from the University of South Florida.
It focuses on determining how prepared law enforcement officers are to fulfil their duties.
According to data collected from the Student Orientation Questionnaire (SOQ) administered to 168 law enforcement personnel on the Royal Bahamas Police Force, police officers prefer a student centred learning orientation, indicated by 56 per cent of the respondents.
Thirty-nine percent of the respondents said they preferred a teacher-centred approach to learning, while four per cent remained neutral.
“To this end, the training curriculum, instructional techniques, assessment methods, and the training environment should reflect this approach. This approach is beneficial not only to law enforcement training programmes, but can be utilised as a method to examine the training practices and learners’ preferences across many professions,” the researchers added.
Another study, conducted by associate professor in the School of Social Sciences Dr Nicolette Bethel, is based on a survey of 1,447 persons.
The research paper, entitled ‘Knowing your ancestors: a survey of Bahamians’ knowledge of their progenitor’s names’ concluded that while almost all participants (98.4 per cent) knew both their biological father and mother, few (7.6 per cent) knew the names of all their great grandparents.
Dr Bethel concluded in the research paper that this knowledge of names confirms the matrifocal nature of Bahamian families and indicates the need for families to take steps to preserve their own history, so as to provide a sense of identity.
The study was limited to participants who had access to the internet.
“This present study indicates the depth of this matrifocality, in that only the great grandmother on the maternal side was known to the majority of respondents. This suggests that not only are current families matrifocal in structure and function, but that this matrifocality is perpetuated over time.
Our results show that family history is also more firmly situated in female respondents, which may also be another reflection on the matrifocal nature of the family,” Dr Bethel wrote. She said the fact that less than five per cent of student households had no family photo album, puts them at risk of “losing touch with their history, and ultimately their identity”.
The full research studies can be accessed at: http://journals.sfu.ca/cob/index.php/files.
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