The potential of collaborative learning as a tool for forensic students: Application to signature examination

Abstract

Transferring theoretical knowledge to practical skills remains a big challenge in forensic science, especially in questioned documents. The examination of handwriting and signatures requires years of practice to develop the necessary skills. While students (and to some extent the general population) often have the impression that it is easy to differentiate handwriting from different persons, in practice, particularly when dealing with simulated signatures, there is a high risk of reaching a wrong conclusion when questioned document experts do not use a systematic approach and/or are not sufficiently experienced (see for example the famous French Dreyfus case). Thus, a novel teaching approach, based on collaborative learning, has been introduced in a theoretical handwriting class to improve the students' theoretical knowledge, and additionally make them aware of the limitations of their practical skills and give them tools to improve them in their future practice. Through five activities, the students took the roles of victims, forgers, teachers and experts and created their own learning materials (i.e. signatures and mock casework). During those interactive activities, they learned to describe their signature's characteristics, intra-variability and complexity, and thus evaluate their own signature's vulnerability (as potential victims). They learned techniques to simulate signatures and detect the resulting forgeries' characteristics (in the role of forgers). In the role of teachers, they prepared mock casework scenarios and gave feedback to their colleague's examination of the produced material. As experts, they carried out signature examination as they would in a proficiency test and were exposed to the difficulties an actual expert may encounter in practice. The evaluation of this novel teaching scenario was very positive, as students learned more extensively the possibilities and limitations of signature comparison. They were more active and motivated in their learning experiences. The teaching team also had an improved experience. Some students complained of an increased workload and imprecise instructions. Improvements were tested and are discussed in this paper.

Interpol questioned documents review 2019–2022

“…In their article, Cadola et al [ 932 ] conducted research to pilot a novel approach to teaching handwriting examination to university students through five activities whereby the students created their own learning materials. In this approach, students took the roles of victims, forgers, teachers, and experts to become aware of the possibilities and limitations of signature comparison.…”

Handwriting identification and verification using artificial intelligence-assisted textural features

“…Cadola et al 29 proposed a collaborative learning-based teaching approach for forensic students for the learning process, which provides effective strategies to verify signatures. The proposed approach maximizes the overall efficiency of 93.4% of the learning process for forensic students.…”

Forensic Sciences as Educational Support for the Promotion of Teaching and Learning of Secondary Students

“…Especially nowadays, the dissemination of knowledge in science transcends necessity and becomes a daily challenge in the lives of educators. Transferring theoretical knowledge to everyday practice, whether in the personal or professional environment, remains a major challenge for science, especially when it comes to teaching (Cadola et al, 2020). The educator needs to reinvent himself, reform himself, and especially, develop work and research based on issues or problems of their daily life because this will make all this mobilization for teaching and learning become something meaningful for such.…”