Grammar Proficiency Among Public Safety Trainees

A few years ago, we conducted a nationwide diagnostic test on English Grammar proficiency among trainees of  a public safety agency as part of a research study commissioned to us.  Since the police training schools were located all over the country, the study was completed in a year, administered within two consecutive training periods.


Significance 
English Grammar was the focal point of the study primarily because it is essential in report writing of public safety officers—the police, fire and jail officers—who are expected to write incident and investigation reports every now and then. Report writing in the government is, by default, in the English language and hinges on the mastery of the conventions of English grammar. Proficiency in grammar helps lend clarity to reports and facilitates understanding which is the chief end of communication.


Participants
A total of 13000 participants taking up recruit courses (for the police, fire and jail) participated in the study. All were college graduates with courses in Criminology, Nursing, Education, Engineering, Management  and Commerce. A number of the examinees also acknowledged that they were passers of state licensure examinations in Criminology, Nursing and Education.


Instrument Used
The test questionnaire consisted of fifty items which zeroed in on the following content areas: Subject-verb agreement, verb forms and tenses, pronoun-antecedent agreement, Use of Pronouns, Adjectives and Adverbs, Sentence Errors, Punctuation Marks and Correct Word Choice.  It was pre-tested to one grade six student, one in college level and one college graduate. The grade six student scored 39 out of 50, which was way beyond the passing score pegged at 25 (or 50%) of the total correct answers.


Results
For the first phase of the study, only 21% percent passed from 8100 examinees (or a mere 1,700). For the second phase, only 18% passed or a mere 1000 out pf 5,500 examinees.


What conclusions were drawn from the study?

1. Completion of the Basic Education (Elementary to High School) and even of the tertiary education is no guarantee that graduates have already attained English grammar proficiency.
2. Recruits who have completed Criminology have lower proficiency score in English Grammar compared to those who completed other courses. On the other hand, those with Education and Nursing backgrounds have scored higher points in grammar proficiency than those who completed other courses.
3. The results of the first and second phases of the study revealed that police recruits had very low passing rate compared to their jail and fire counterparts. Hence, in terms of grammar proficiency, they are deemed inferior compared to the jail and fire recruits.