Methods Used to Assess Physical Abilities in Police Students: A Scoping Review

Physical ability testing is an essential part of police education, as fitness assessments indicate students’ preparedness for police work. Clear documentation and reporting of test protocols and measurement properties are essential for interpreting, evaluating, and comparing the usefulness of different test batteries. Therefore, this scoping review aimed to map the fitness tests used in police education programs internationally, including reporting standards of test protocols, reliability, validity, and sex-based test specificity, thereby providing insight into the physical abilities considered important for police work. The main searches were conducted in the databases CINAHL, PubMed, SPORTDiscus, and Web of Science. The database search yielded 1323 articles, of which 92 met the inclusion criteria. An additional nine articles were included through citation and hand searching. Of the 101 studies, 95 used an average of 4–5 general fitness tests, and 29 included work-related police tests. Test protocols were generally well documented across studies. However, only a few studies included in this review assessed test–retest reliability, and only a limited number of studies, whose primary aim was to validate the tests, evaluated test validity. The most commonly used assessments were upper-body and core muscular endurance (60 s push-up, maximum pull-up, and 60 s sit-up tests), upper-body muscular strength (hand-grip test), lower-body power (standing long jump, and vertical jump tests), and aerobic capacity (20 m multistage fitness, 2400 m Cooper, and 12 min Cooper tests. Only 19 studies reported sex-specific performance standards, including differences in test execution, scoring systems, VO2max estimation, or time limits. The findings indicate that tests of upper-body muscular endurance and strength, lower-body power, and aerobic capacity are among the most frequently measured physical abilities in police education programs internationally, while also highlighting the need for more standardized reporting of test protocols, reliability, and validity.