| Author | Message | ||
     Keith Dollinger |
Thanks, folks I appreciate the feedback. Actually, Kasey, we're experiencing this attrition in our inked print trainees. Now, granted, we're always going to have the folks who walk in the door expecting something out of the "CSI" TV program [and are bitterly disappointed that "The Computer" doesn't do the hard stuff for them ;) ], the question the Personnel folks are asking is, "Is it normal to lose one - third of your trainees in their first year? And, if not, what are other agencies' Personnel offices doing that we should be doing?" W've only been hiring "off-the-street" since 1998. I have to admit that the question of what makes for a good examiner is something I'd never actually considered before. At the very least, it's proving to be educational on a personal level  | ||
| Kasey Wertheim |
Melissa, It's great to hear someone is extending the project further. Form perception is based in cognitive psychology, an area I am also very interested in learning more about. I hope you are a psychology student. I have considered returning to school myself and studying the subject. I know that Albert Osborn, the founder of questioned document examination, researched the subject because the same principles apply to handwriting comparison...or any comparisons for that matter. I have a copy of his book, Questioned Documents, at work. I will check tomorrow for other references within. Another avenue for a fresh start would be to ask the dean of the school of psychology who the most knowledgeable person in the country is regarding form perception, and then call them regarding recent research and findings in form perception. It's always easier to get the most recent article and work the cross-reference game backwards to gather your foundational reference material. There were a few people who have started on this project and have not gone as far as they had hoped. Perhaps you can see it through. And if you validate the test, you will be one of the most sought after recruits in the field of latent prints. | ||
| Melissa Munks |
I am beginning work extending the efforts of Jon Byrd and Dean Bertram in administering their form blindness tests here at San Francisco State University for my thesis work. I am looking for a good source of information on form blindness. I'm finding it very challenging to find any real literature, or even articles on the topic and could use any help that anyone can give me. Any books, articles or publications that anyone could point me to would be really greatly appreciated! Thank you! | ||
| Kasey Wertheim |
The concept of aptitude testing is becoming more and more important as agencies hire and train new examiners rather than hire from 10-prints. However, caution is being exercised because "form blindness" is considered to be a disability, and if you create a test that is not completely valid, you will open yourself up to discrimination lawsuits. The groundwork has to include validation testing of the aptitude test to make sure there is a correlation between form blindness and an inability to do latent print work. Those efforts are currently underway, with recent research and study such as Jon Byrd from the Mississippi Crime Laboratory and Dean Bertram from University of Southern Mississippi. They have been administering one such test to students in a fingerprinting class at USM both BEFORE they take the class and AFTER they complete the course. They compared the test scores to each other to establish that you can't LEARN form perception, and they also compared each students' performance on comparisons in the course with their score on the form blindness test. There was a positive correlation. Others are already using tests of some sort as another of many screening tools, but a specific form-blindness test is needed. I think we are on the road to developing a standard test, but again I would caution about rushing in to anything. It might end up costing your agency more than it was worth! | ||
| Keith Dollinger |
We're in a similar position to Mr. Lau... We're hiring technicians at entry level (zero knowledge/experience), and have been experiencing about a 40% attrition rate within their first year - usually after we've expended considerable amounts of time, energy, effort, and training budget on them. Our Personnel office wants us to come up with specific test questions, and a) we're not sure how to formulate them and b) we'd really like to not have to reinvent the wheel Can anybody advise about aptitude testing they do with their entry-level people? | ||
| launicky |
Our Bureau will soon need to recruit constables for fingerprint work from within our force. I read somewhere that there is a test (name forgot) which can be used to test their image perception skill. Whether the candidates are "form-blind" or "Dyslexic" can be known from the result of the test. Anywhere I can get the name of the test, or the info? Thanks for any input. Nicky LAU from Hong Kong |
