**Defining “Data Driven”**
For us, being data-driven means adopting a comprehensive approach across all phases of research, creation, implementation, and management of both academic and in-service programs. While we value personal experience, we aim to avoid the myopic view that can lead to bias and is essentially a sample size of one.
**Data as Collective Experience:** By analyzing thousands of officer-involved shootings, we can identify trends, understand what works and what doesn’t, acknowledge unique environmental factors, recognize equipment limitations, and focus our limited training time on solutions that address 80% of the issues.
**Leveraging External Expertise:** We draw from a wide array of current research institutions like the FBI’s Ballistic Research Facility, Force Science Institute, IIHS, judicial interpretations from case law, DOJ, various universities, and the National Institute of Justice (NIJ). This cross-pollination of expertise from Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) enhances our mission’s success.
**Creating Targeted Training:** The collective experience encapsulated in data allows us to design high-probability, event-specific drills and scenarios. These are further broken down into skillsets, guided by sport science principles like interleaving open and closed skills to foster cognitive understanding. We use research to discern whether tasks should be approached as system 1 (intuitive) or system 2 (deliberate) thinking, organizing our curriculum according to Bloom’s Taxonomy.
**The Broader Impact of Data:** Data transcends individual perspectives, encompassing the collective knowledge of successes and failures in areas like biomechanics, ballistics, criminal behavior, equipment efficacy, learning methodologies, and human behavior.
**Practical Outcomes:** Implementing these data-driven methods has led to greater buy-in from administration and civilian oversight councils. Like coaches, professors, and program managers worldwide, we’ve found that the science of learning can significantly boost performance in a shorter time frame. All our instructors remain active in the field, facing the same academy and in-service challenges as others. A data-driven approach isn’t a panacea; it requires effort but directs that effort more efficiently.
**Acknowledging Diversity in Approaches:** While we’ve adopted this method, we recognize it’s not the only way. We appreciate the diverse strategies others employ to address law enforcement challenges, valuing the passion and advocacy that push the field to improve continuously.
