Computer literacy of criminology student’s basis for the enhancement of the course police writing

A thesis presented to the Faculty for the College criminal justice education University of Cagayan
Valley

In Partial Fulfillment of the requirements for the Bachelor of Science in Criminology

By:
Randolph J. Corpuz.
Jeffrey Abiva
Joshua De la Cruz
Dexter fabro
Edmar A. suguitan

INTRODUCTION

In today's computer age, Computer literacy is important, for both educational and professional
purposes. Even so students have different interests, exposure and experience in using computers.
Thus, this study focused on Computer Literacy of Criminology Students Basis For the
enhancement of the Course Police writing 1. The insight that obtained in this study will apply to
develop a preparation for enhancing criminologist computer literacy of the course police writing
1. By generating a preparation for their computer literacy ability, researchers hope to help the
criminology students to maximize their potential and to be able to cope up in this increasingly
computer age and gives them essential skills needed for higher- level academic work and
professional context.
The fundamental competency requirement for criminology students involves effective
communication skills when writing reports. Criminal investigators depend on police reports to
perform their work across both the enforcement and justice systems. Poorest quality or inaccurate
police reports create situations that cause events to be misinterpreted accurately and produce
miscommunications as well as criminal investigation failures.

Education and work demands in modern computer-age systems require essential knowledge of
computers. Most students demonstrate unique interest levels in computer usage together with
varied computer experience and knowledge. The present research concentrated on evaluating
Criminology Students' Computer Literacy skills with regards to Police writing 1 course
enhancement. Students of criminology need fundamental computer skills in modern times to
implement these abilities for their police writing activities. Inclusive Computer literacy plans
should be applied to all criminology students to make sure that they are well prepared for
their future and chosen profession. The ability to use computers plays a fundamental role
when students write reports particularly within criminology courses . For that reason the
academy should be crying out to an enhanced program to aid students in developing their
writing ability and computer expertise. The program should deliver the essential abilities they
needed when they became a fully pledged law enforcement officer. In this quickly wavering
computer age, students must have at least basic insights and understanding on how computers
work.

This research aims to study how the computer literacy of criminology students can help as a
foundation for improving police writing skills, especially in basic report compilation used in law
enforcement

THEORITICAL FRAMEWORK

Social Cognitive Theory

Bandura (1986-1997-2001) created the Social Cognitive Theory as his
framework. Learning happens through social activities since students watch
their classmates and teachers to evaluate the results of their actions. The
students use their teacher as a test bench to investigate what happens when
people conduct their behavior. A theory includes two essential components.
reciprocal determinism which refers to the dynamic interaction of learners
among themselves Individuals use environmental influence to develop
control experiences which result in self-efficacy. The other Web-based
training success depends on behavioral capacity because it determines how
learners handle knowledge skills in their performance. People learn actions to
fulfill standards imposed by their society. Behavior contains two major
components that include intrinsic factors. ones, such as perceptions, job
prospects, skills, and personal interests, and extrinsic ones, such as Family
members and friends together with media sources guide personal behavior.
This theory enables analysis of how learners' perception affects their learning
process. Their use of technology within learning is affected by the way they
think and feel combined with their social encounters. learning (Martin et al.,
2020).The theory established three central variables which include
performance expectancy together with social influence and facilitating
conditions. The three variables of performance expectancy and social
influence work together with facilitating conditions consisting of
infrastructure and technical support. The provision of collaborative support
impacts user attitudes through its demonstration of technology benefits and
detection of best practices and traditional methods comparison (Siefert et al.,
2019). The paper provides descriptions of best practices and performs
technology integration comparisons against traditional approaches. (Siefert
et al., 2019).Two more ideas emerged from the theory to build a
technological inclusion system. The inclusion environment incorporates two
important student experiences which include perceived ease-of-use together
with perceived usefulness. Students become increasingly interested in
technological learning after they understand how technology improves their
performance (Scherer et al., 2019). The theory emphasized both student
perceptions and attitudes along with classroom conditions which help
students identify easy-to-use aspects. This research evaluated school
environmental factors which help students recognize ease-of-use because it
examined both factors to create recommendations for improved student
enthusiasm and motivation. The research investigated additional elements
related to age background and technological experience of participants and
classroom size and teaching qualification together with learning environment
variables. The variables under investigation included student background
information and their experience working with technology beyond school and
classroom size and teacher training levels and learning environment
conditions. teachers’ training, and the learning environment. Education
occurs at its most effective level through student interactions with the
community and its members. Students will find knowledge through
community-building assistance when technology acts as a beneficial tool.
More investigation is essential to evaluate the influence that student gender
has on technological integration in educational processes.

Statement of the Problem

This study aimed to asses the computer literacy of criminology students a basis for the
enhancement of the police writing 1. Specifically, it sought to answer the following question:

1.What is the demographic profile of the respondents in terms of:

1.1 Age
1.2 Sex

2.What is the level of the respondents in using computer for police writing as to:

2.1 Clearness

2.2 Conciseness

2.3 Completeness

2.4 Accuracy
3.Is there a significant relationship of the respondents computer literacy as basis to enhance the
police writing course when grouped according to their profile?

4. What are the problems and challenges encounter by the respondents in the course police
writing 1,

Hypothesis

This study is guided by a lone hypothesis that:

There is no significant relationship between the level of computer literacy and the academic
performance in police writing 1.

Significance of the Study

This study aims to provide new insights about the computer literacy of criminology students
basis for the enhancement of the course police writing 1.

The findings in this research would be beneficial to the following:

Criminology Students This study may help the criminology students in terms of computer literacy
and their writing skills in the course police writing 1. This can provide them more understanding
on how computer works that they can use to enhance their writing skills.

Law enforcement Agencies This study may help the law enforcement agencies aiming to enhance
the productivity and effectiveness of police reports within the criminal justice system.

Researchers This study can provide new knowledge to the researchers that they may use in
enhancing their computer literacy skills in writing reports.

Future researchers This study will be a great help in providing beneficial insights into enhancing
the computer literacy of the criminology students in the course police writing 1.

Scope and delimitation

This study aimed to assess computer literacy among criminology students, specifically those who
already take the course of police writing 1 relative to the following dimensions such as clearness,
conciseness, completeness and accuracy. The respondents of the study are the criminology students
who have already graduated in the course of police writing 1. They will be selected using
convenience sampling techniques ensuring their voluntary participation and willing to provide
relevant insights for the study. This sampling method will allow for efficient data collection from a
diverse group of criminology students. Definition of Terms The following terms are defined
operationally according to their use to ensure clarity of the study.

Definition of terms

Computer literacy. refers to the knowledge and ability to use computers and related technology
efficiently, encompassing skills from basic operation to advanced programming and Problem-solving.

Police writing 1. refers to the process of documenting incidents, crimes, and investigations in a clear,
concise, and objective manner, serving as a crucial record for legal proceedings and internal use.

Clearness. refers to the quality of being clear, distinct, and easily perceived or understood.
Conciseness. refers to the ability to communicate effectively by using a minimum of words while
maintaining clarity and accuracy.

Completeness. refer the state or condition of having all the necessary or appropriate parts.
Accuracy. refers the quality or state of being correct and precise

Chapter 2

REVIEW AND RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

This chapter presents the relevant literature and studies that researcher consider in strengthening
the importance of the present study. It also presents the synthesis of the art to fully understand the
research for better comprehension of the study.

Related literature

Computer Literacy

The article of Luehrmann declared computer literacy basically equated to programming skill level.
Various professional organizations throughout the past decades have created multiple definitions for
computer competency standards (Capron & Johnson, 2004). Manowaluilou (2008) acknowledges
that The Goals 2000: Educate American Act and other standards from the National Standards for
Business Education through What America’s Students Should Know and Be Able to Do in Business
provided essential criteria for teachers to prepare students in computer literacy. The ongoing
discussion about computer literacy stems from a difference between students using computers
versus their command of these devices according to Grenci (2013). College-level computer literacy
classes apply software instruction to computer theories which increases the academic worth of
those educational concepts (Dyer, Case, & MacKinnon, 2004). Research has confirmed that
computer literacy learning receives extra value from college-level courses which specifically target
this knowledge area. The assessment results after completing the course indicate higher levels of
computer literacy besides increased learner self-assurance (Case, MacKinnon, & Dyer, 2004 and
Smith, 2004). The traditional computer literacy course exists in transition at the present time. All
college freshmen previously had to take the “computer literacy” core course but current students
cannot rely on similar requirements for this subject. The educational institution has decided to stop
offering computer literacy classes (Topi et al., 2010). Students at certain institutions need to pass a
skill evaluation to confirm mandatory course enrollment (Cardell & Nickel, 2003) yet other schools
provide students with independent practice materials (Gorgone, et al., 2003) and many educational
institutions depend heavily on computer-based training with assessment methods (Grenci, 2013).
Duke points out the substantial rhetorical claims in educational literature and news stories
describing contemporary students born after 1980 as naturally tech-literate as a primary driver for
the decreasing importance of computer literacy education (Duke, 2011, p.. Research indicates that
students completing high school before moving to college belong to a technically proficient digital
era (Kilcoyne, et al., 2009; Jones, 2007).

Several studies conducted by Thinyane (2010), Selwyn et al. (2009), Jones et al. (2010) with other
researchers have displayed that these students experience extensive access to computing
technology and four out of five students have computers. These widespread technological exposures
lead today's students to frequently decline computer literacy courses. Freshmen students when
starting college demonstrate strong computer self-efficacy (CSE) as well as the perception they
already have sufficient computer literacy skills (Wilkinson, 2006). Bandura defines self-efficacy as
“people’s judgments of their capabilities to organize and execute courses of action required to attain
designated types of performances” (Bandura, 1986, p. 39) while computer self-efficacy (CSE)
emerges from general self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997) as “a judgment of one's ability to use a
computer” (Compeau & Higgins, 1995, p. 192). People having high CSE levels consistently use
computers while expecting favorable results in their activities. Moreover, these users stay persistent
by employing effective solutions to solve problems and demonstrate superior outcomes compared
to individuals with lower CSE (Compeau, Higgins, & Huff, 1999).
Research indicates that Constructed Self-Efficacy impacts how people decide to involve with
technology assignments and how much work they will dedicate toward completing them (Hanson,
Kilcoyne, Perez-Mira, Hanson, & Champion, 2011). Research on first-semester college students
demonstrated their perceived computer application skills were above the moderate level for word
processing and file management and presentation applications and spreadsheet applications
(DuFrene, Clipson, & Wilson, 2010) which made them doubt the necessity of a computer literacy
course. According to Duke (2011) the opposition displayed by students might cause policy changes
across educational levels which serves as an argument to propose major curriculum modifications
along with teaching procedure reforms. Educational institutions eliminate computer literacy
programs from their curriculums because faculty believe students possess already developed
computer proficiency according to Gaugh (2004). The educational system needs transformation
according to common statements to handle advanced learning needs of students who understand
computers (Hartman, Moskal, & Dziuban, 2005). Research shows that students usually rate their
own computer abilities differently from how they actually perform (Hanson, Kilcoyne, Perez-Mira,
Hanson, & Champion, 2011). Grant, Malloy, and Murphy evaluated students’ perceived computer
skill abilities through CSE ratings alongside their demonstrated actual performance.

Police Writing 1

The article of Reynolds about police writing skills reveals a clear necessity to investigate this field so
that better improvement designs can be developed. Officers need better writing skills since it
remains both difficult to achieve (Reynolds, 2017). Mid-level professionals evaluated effective
writing skills as essential for their daily operations because ninety percent of them indicated this
according to Pfeifer & Ferree (2006). To enhance their professionalism police personnel need to
allow their reporting style to match their desired public image (Reynolds, 2014). Professional
websites in the police sector present methods which help officers write better reports according to
Reynolds (2017). Law enforcers should refrain from using both abbreviations and police-specific
terminology while drafting their reports. The constant use of third person writing creates confusion
for the reader because they are unable to understand the meaning while first person writing is both
clearer and simpler (Hart, 2000; Reynolds, 2014). Other issues are grammatical and spelling errors
where run on sentences and false possessives are used regularly (Hart, 2000). The literature has
shown that an officer who possesses a higher education than high school and who has good writing
skills, has the likelihood to perform better than officers who do not (Paoline & Terrill, 2007). Scholars
say this is because the college degree requirements will enhance the capabilities in the areas of
problem solving, critical thinking, and communication skills which lead to a more mature and
responsible officer (Carter & Sapp, 1990). It is shown that becoming a well-written professional is
parallel to understanding other cognitive levels (Kellogg, 2008). This could be interpreted as being a
good writer shows a higher level of critical thinking and problem-solving skills needed in law
enforcement. It has been seen that deliberate practice of writing has led to an improvement in the
performance of tasks which are related to written composition, such as report writing (Kellogg &
Whiteford, 2009).
Officer report writing requires equivalent focus since writing experience across different stressful
conditions helps develop efficient practices (Reynolds, 2014). Developing excellent writing habits
and a writing routine requires twenty years according to Kellogg (2008) who states this developing
period spans grade school through middle school and high school and college. Studies have shown
that writing effectiveness develops from how much someone trusts their abilities so continued
practice builds greater confidence levels (Pfeifer & Ferree, 2006).

Clearness

Clearness or its equivalent mental characteristic according to Bently. According to Locke he defines
ideas as either clearly understood or obscure and also distinct or confusing. Thomas Leibniz applies
parallel definitions to distinguish between adequate and inadequate knowledge yet Christian Wolff
uses clearness as a core condition of attention and Johann Friedrich Herbart describes it through
conflicting ideas. During modern times psychologists established a specific and vital role for the
concept to serve psychological systems. Wundt links clearness to two primary elements of
psychological analysis while describing consciousness more broadly in his psychological system.
Wundt considers all mental contents as quantifiable aspects which include both intense simple
sensations and feelings and extended simple groupings of these elements. The two forms of
intensive magnitudes include both qualitative gradation and degree of strength. Each enormous size
comes in two forms which separate according to space and time. The class of intensive magnitudes
receives an additional member which is defined as clearness. The degrees of clearness exist in an
intensive scale that permits their ranking. The magnitude distinctness joins the two general
extensive groups of magnitudes by expressing how clearly one process contrasts against others. The
analysis indicates that clearness belongs in the group of intensity qualities which together form
simple sensations and feelings whereas distinctness positions within space and time distinctions
which group sensations and feelings. A simple type of process functions as the basis for clearness
while distinctness serves as Logik Bd ii.; No. 2 (1895), 179.
Conciseness

According to the article by Strunk and White the writing principle of Conciseness involves removing
excessive words from texts. The NLP community avoids exploring conciseness because expert-
marked datasets remain scarce even though experts view this writing approach as superior (Brock
and Walters, 1992; Zinsser, 2016). The implementation of automatic techniques for reducing text
density possesses the ability to benefit native English writers through writing enhancement as well
as offering powerful editing assistance. The current work begins developments on conciseness
analysis while adopting NLP methodologies. This work presents two hand-marked test datasets for
conciseness evaluation that include ConciseLite with two-way annotation and Concise-Full with five-
way annotation. Short text editing was assigned to Concise-Lite annotators but both groups received
access to full sentence editing in Concise-Full. The examples shown in Table 1 come from both
testing environments. Evaluation of system performance relies on F0.5-scores for edit spans since
this metric is standard in Grammatical Error Correction (GEC) (Dahlmeier and Ng, 2012; Felice et al.,
2016; Bryant etal.,2017). We put forward our setup in hope of motivating NLP researchers to design
models for conciseness since we make both test sets and evaluation tools publicly accessible. The
evaluation includes various models against our newly developed conciseness test sets. Our
evaluation starts by adopting recent neural model practices which depend on massive pretraining or
require minimal specific training data. The insights of Brown et al. (2020) motivate our research on
zero-shot evaluation of LaMDA (Thoppilan et al., 2022) the large language model. We also fine-tune
the large sequence model T5 (Raffel et al., 2020) on small conciseness data sets. The unsupervised
synthetic data generation method produces the most effective results when it utilizes round-trip
translations which involves translating English sentences to another language and then back (as
demonstrated by Lichtargeetal.,2019forGECpre-training). We construct additional data sets by
creating mappings from the longest to the shortest reference in multi-reference machine translation
(MT) test sets. Our experiments suggest that conciseness is a hard task for current NLP models. We
conclude with a thorough investigation into the similarities and differences of our systems and map
out the challenges ahead.

Completeness

The article of Hilbert indicates that completeness presents an ambiguous condition while the distinct
interpretations of this concept failed to achieve separate identification at first. The basic definition of
this notion also appears under the title axiomatizability when describing descriptive completeness.
Axiomatization becomes complete when models from the system represent precisely all the
intended models of that system. Semantic completeness describes axiomatizations of logical parts
when it comes to logical completeness. Semantically complete systems exist when they provide the
possibility to deduce every truth statement from that specific logic part.

Accuracy

The article of Colin Porlezza recognizes accuracy functions to assess news reporting quality. A large
number of research studies performed in Western democracies evaluated news accuracy by
counting publishing errors which sources detected. Research has shown accuracy in journalistic
reporting relates to trustfulness although news outlets shifted to first-publishing followed by
verification due to the transition to online news and the need for speed in reporting. Fact-checking
services gain widespread recognition during the current discussion about misinformation because of
their growing global significance.

Related Studies

The research of S. Sobieraj &N.C. Kramer (2020) indicates through their technology acceptance
studies that male and female approaches to technology use show distinct patterns and self-
evaluations of technical prowess. The results of scientific testing establish that men and women view
their technological competence differently but exhibit the same skill levels to accomplish tasks. The
level of technology complexity correlated to minor variations between genders in positive emotions
but not negative emotions.

Abdelrahman (2013) studied if word processor use could enhance writing abilities among EFL
students enrolled at Al-Imam Muhammad Bin Saud Islamic University. The research investigated 40
male participants through random selection of two groups drawn from five sections one at a time.
The study used several computer-based approaches together with methodologies and activities that
included error checking to meet its objectives. The writing performance post-test operation
functioned as the exact test following the experimental phase. The experimental group registered
significant better outcomes than the rest of the participants.

Hoomanfard, Meshkat (2015) reported in his article Writing on a Computer and Using Paper and
Pencil that participants needed less time for pre-writing preparation within the mechanical condition
while making more breaks for online planning throughout the writing session based on a combined
analysis of quantitative and qualitative data. The evaluative phase was delayed until the completion
of the writing process by students who wrote with pen and paper. The obtained research findings
alongside other related studies will support experts such as second language teachers and
curriculum developers and test developers to understand learning processes in second language
writing.

The Impact of Modern Technological Tools on Students Writing Skills in English as a Second Language
is the title of the publication by Alhusban (2016). A case study together with contemporary research
explores how electronic and communicative gadgets affect English writing competencies of college
students. Students find it increasingly difficult to differentiate formal from casual writing because
they constantly interact with shortened word formats together with intelligent writing programs
which perform tasks on their behalf. To evaluate creative writing abilities two categories of students'
writing samples were gathered then assessed against each other. The research paper written by
Sadiku and Krasniqi (2018) put light on how computers influence student writing abilities. Students
forget vocabulary when they fail to learn and utilize it properly while receiving natural target
language inputs. The students of today benefit from expanded multimedia access through
technological resources that enhance their ability to acquire vocabulary spontaneously. Realistic
real-life communication vocabulary becomes more accessible to pupils when they watch movies
with subtitles. Various studies have demonstrated that watching movies with subtitling provides
vocabulary development opportunities among other advantages. The researchers identified this
subject area as insufficient because they wanted to understand how auto-correction Influences
Kurdish student writing at three universities in Sulaymaniyah city. Traditional spelling students
receive 20 unfamiliar words each week in their assigned list. The university curriculum uses this
method to provide students with better writing abilities. The students who use Words for their
homework avoid focusing on spelling because the system performs automatic corrections of all
errors.

According to Abdalrahman (2021) teaching literature and writing together leads to the development
of coherent passages. According to him a literary text represents an essential reading material that
students need because their learning process will naturally absorb unity and construction and
grammatical structures and coherence through copying author formats. A text structure represents
an example of writing format that students can utilize as a model. The results of Şen Bartan (2017)
support this statement. His experimental research revealed learners improved their content and
both communication skills and organizational skills according to the post-test data. His research
findings supported the theoretical link between two reading and writing skills. Hussein, Meena and
Ali (2021) identified that teachers should implement literary genres as instructional materials in their
classrooms. Literary texts can show students important features of text composition as well as text
unity. Subjects noted that students who analyze literary context often write with coherence in their
language performances. Literature means expression. Before asking students to write about a
subject teachers need to offer literary examples which show what different authors have
communicated regarding the concept.

Students enrolled in intermediate level English language learning classes used a blog with oral
presentation traditions of writing education to explore changes in their writing attitudes according to
Fageeh (2011). The researcher investigated blogging effects on writing proficiency and attitudes
through a combination of experimental research methods and descriptive research designs which
served as data collection approaches. Students who participated in the study accepted Weblog as an
instrument for improving their English writing competencies as well as their writing disposition.
Students think that blogging allows them to freely express themselves in English while writing for
both domestic and international audiences and taking part in dynamic social exchanges which give
them active relationship with their real-time readership. Most students displayed positive reactions
toward using Weblogs in their education. The discovered data indicates weblogs offer useful
applications for college writing instruction through motivational learning experiences coupled with
opportunities to write multiple texts and develop composition competencies.

Mabuan (2018) performed research to discover student perceptions about blog usage for enhancing
their English writing abilities and their understanding of virtual writing platforms through blogs. The
author collected data from 58 first-year university students who wrote their answers in both blogs
and questionnaires. The research participants established that blogging presented a practical
opportunity for enhanced English writing skills through their evaluation of technological constraints.
Students gain freedom to communicate themselves through this platform thus building their writing
skills while interacting with peers online as well as additional benefits available through
technological interfaces

Chapter 3

RESEARCH AND PROCEDURES

This chapter presents the methods and procedures that will be employ in the study such as the
research design, the respondent of the study, the data gathering tool, the data gathering procedure
and statistical tool that will be used in analyzing and interpreting the data gathered.

Research Design

This study employ descriptive quantitative research design. The researchers conducted descriptive
research to gather structured information about criminology student computer literacy levels.
Through their quantitative methods the researchers quantified and summarized student-rated
aptitude in computer-related operations. This research design suits the assessment of present
student digital competency levels while evaluating their connection to police writing course 1.

Respondents of the study

The respondent of the study was criminology student graduated in the course Police Writing
1 at University of Cagayan Valley. They will be selected using a convenience sampling technique,
ensuring that participants are easily accessible and willing to provide relevant insights for the study.

Data gathering tool

Structured survey questionnaires operated as the principal data collection instrument that the
researchers used to obtain relevant study-related information. Researchers established this
assessment tool to evaluate criminology student computer aptitude thus connecting tool proficiency
to their writings in Police Writing 1.

The first part of the questionnaire will gather relevant information about the demographic profile of
the respondents.

The second part include the level of the respondents in using computer for police writing as to
clearness, conciseness, completeness, and accuracy.

Data Gathering Procedure

The researchers conducted their study using quantitative techniques supported by structured survey
questionnaire collections. The researchers acquired essential approvals from the research adviser
followed by Dean of the College of Criminology when starting the data collection phase with
criminology students. The researchers implemented ethical precautionary measures during research
by giving out consent forms before conducting data collection which protected participant choice
and maintained confidentiality while keeping all answers anonymous.

Following approval acquisition from relevant authorities the researchers distributed their research
instrument. Selected criminology students from third year levels participated in the study by means
of purposive sampling through the questionnaire distribution method. The study participants
enrolled in or completed the Police Writing 1 course as the basis for selection.

Through faculty support the document reached students as printed copies during their daily classes.

Statistical tool

The study will make use the following statistical tools that are require in the analysis and
interpretation of data gathered.
In order to determine the demographic profile of the respondents, the frequency and percentage
counts will be used.

The weighted mean will also be used to assess the level of the respondent in using computer for
police writing.

It will be further utilize using the 5-point Likert scale below:

Scale Range Description

1 4.50 – 5.00 Expert
2 3.50 – 4. 49 Advance
3 2.50 – 3.49 Intermediate
4 1.50 – 2.49 Basic
5 1.0 1.49 No knowledge

The basic statistical methods offered researchers an effective method to understand student
feedback which confirmed the modifications proposed for the Police Writing 1 course