Engaging with Methodological Approaches to Training Practices in the Ghana Police Service: Sharing Personal Experience to Benefit Social Researchers

Abstract

The idea behind this paper is to critically look at the methodological approaches applied to a research work titled ‘Assessment of Training Practices in the Ghana Police Service’. This paper specifically outlined the various methods used in the said research and their justifications. Some of the methodological issues raised in that study are research design, the study area, the target population, sampling techniques and their justifications, data collection instruments, sources of data, data collection procedures, data processing and data analysis and ethical considerations. The paper revealed that descriptive research design is good for the studying of police training practices because it gave a detailed description of the characteristics that was studied. The findings of the study revealed that the mixed method (embedded research design) approach was largely the best in conducting a study like this at the police training schools in Ghana by eliciting appropriate data from both primary and secondary sources and adopting both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Furthermore, it was revealed that questionnaire was the most appropriate data collection tool for interviewing police officers, trainees and trainers and the interview guide was the best data collection tool for interviewing key actors like the commandants and administrators of the police training schools. These two instruments produced the primary data for the study. Quantitative responses were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20.0 whereas the qualitative responses were transcribed and interpreted appropriately. The researcher strictly adhered to the principles of anonymity and confidentiality in order to protect respondents (quantitative) and participants (qualitative) of the research. In conclusion, all these methodologies followed in this research confirmed the complete validity and reliability of research findings and research instruments.