Behaviorally anchored scales for rating the performance of police officers

Abstract

Performance appraisal of municipal police officers has presented problems similar to those encountered in industrial-performance evaluation. The present study was concerned with the development of peer and supervisory rating scales for patrol officers. 58 police departments cooperated in constructing and field testing 8 supervisory and 9 peer rating scales. The psychometric characteristics of the scales indicated that they were suitable for use in evaluating the performance of patrol officers. Principal-components analyses indicated that 3 linear components described the variation in ratings for both supervisory and peer scales. While these components seemed to represent similar constructs, they were represented by performance dimensions specific to the level of observation. The generalizability of behaviorally anchored rating scales to settings other than those in which they were constructed is discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)