Abstract

Correctional staff turnover has been linked to burnout in current staff, risk of physical injury due to understaffing, and high replacement costs due to onboarding processes. To date, much research has been devoted to job characteristics and demographic profiles to understand turnover, but little research has examined highly dynamic factors, such as self-efficacy. Given that self-efficacy has been linked to absenteeism, turnover, and engagement across vocational contexts, the current study seeks to provide practitioners and researchers with the tools to examine self-efficacy through the Correctional Officer Trainee Self-Efficacy Index. Comprising each task that correctional officer training academies train in, the self-efficacy index can be used to identify areas improvement in curricula or in individual officer development throughout training. Using the graded response model of item response theory, we examine item-level properties of the index using a sample of 673 pre-service correctional officers across two Midwestern and one Southern state. Results indicated that the self-efficacy indices loaded onto two factors. Each item had high discrimination, and the range of difficulty parameters for the items was wide. Overall, the correctional officer trainee task self-efficacy index is effective for those with low to high self-efficacy for correctional officer tasks.

摘要

惩教人员的流失与现有员工的倦怠、人员不足导致的人身伤害风险以及入职流程导致的高更换成本有关。迄今为止，许多研究都致力于工作特征和人口统计资料以了解离职率，但很少有研究检查高度动态的因素，例如自我效能。鉴于自我效能与职业环境中的旷工、离职和参与度有关，目前的研究旨在为从业人员和研究人员提供工具，通过惩教人员实习生自我效能指数来检查自我效能。自我效能指数包含惩教人员培训学院培训的每项任务，可用于确定课程改进或整个培训过程中警官个人发展的领域。使用项目反应理论的分级反应模型，我们使用来自中西部两个州和一个南部州的 673 名岗前惩教人员的样本来检查指数的项目级属性。结果表明，自我效能指数加载到两个因素上。每个项目的区分度都很高，项目的难度参数范围很广。总体而言，狱警见习任务自我效能指数对狱警任务自我效能从低到高的人有效。并且项目的难度参数范围很广。总体而言，狱警见习任务自我效能指数对狱警任务自我效能从低到高的人有效。并且项目的难度参数范围很广。总体而言，狱警见习任务自我效能指数对狱警任务自我效能从低到高的人有效。