Creating a proficiency scale for crime scene examination in Scotland

This project builds on existing work and partnership with SPA Forensic Services completed under funded projects on Accelerating Professional Judgement and Decision Making (PJDM) Expertise in Scene Examination. The objective of the proposed project was to create a Proficiency Scale for Scene Examination in Scotland. Proficiency scaling is the attempt to forge a domain and organisation appropriate scale for distinguishing levels of proficiency (Hoffman et al., 2014). This approach has been widely used, for example in Navy and Air Force Weather Forecasting, with consequent significant contributions to performance and evaluation in the various domains/professions. Existing Applied Cognitive Task Analysis (ACTA) data was considered alongside additional data and information collected during this project to create a proficiency scale for Scene Examination in Scotland. This will increase our understanding of the different levels of reasoning and knowledge that underpin effective decision making in Scene Examination, and aid in the design of systems and structures to effectively evaluate and develop high proficiency