RCTC LAWE Cooper Fitness Test

Full name: RCTC LAWE Skills — Cooper Fitness Test (20-point scoring)
Year: 2018
Population: US law enforcement candidates (Rochester Community and Technical College, Minnesota); cut-off values are re-published from the Cooper Institute 2013 monograph
Study type: Academy scoring document (field application of Cooper Institute norms)
Link: View study

About this reference

A publicly-hosted academy scoring document (filename: LAWE-2018-RCTC-Skills-Cooper-Test.pdf) from Rochester Community and Technical College's Law Enforcement (LAWE) Program. The six-test field battery covers vertical jump, 1-minute sit-ups, 300m run, 1-minute push-ups, 1.5-mile run, and trunk flex. For the first five events, RCTC applies the Cooper Institute 2013 monograph's percentile tables: each event's raw score is converted into a 0-20 point scale where point 1 corresponds to approximately P5 of the Cooper chart, point 5 to P25, point 10 to P50, point 15 to P75, and point 19 to P95 (point 20 is a ceiling for scores above P95). The sixth event, trunk flex, uses a separate protocol (Figure Finder Flex-Tester box) and is not part of the Cooper monograph; its per-point cut-off values come from an RCTC-specific distribution that the document does not cite. Candidates must score at least 1 point on every event and achieve a total of 42 points across all six events to pass. For the five Cooper-charted events, RCTC does not publish its own source data: the per-point cut-off values match the Cooper Institute percentile charts exactly.

Known limitations

Not an independent dataset for five of the six events: per-point cut-off values for vertical jump, sit-ups, 300m run, push-ups, and 1.5-mile run are re-published from the Cooper Institute 2013 monograph. Trunk flex is the exception, sourced from an RCTC-specific Figure Finder Flex-Tester distribution that the document does not cite.
Inherits all limitations of the underlying Cooper Institute charts (mixed Cooper Clinic and Law Enforcement Studies populations; institutional, non-peer-reviewed source; undisclosed sample sizes)
The 20-point scoring scale and 42-point pass threshold are RCTC conventions, not validated against any outcome measure
Trunk flex uses the Figure Finder Flex-Tester box protocol, which differs from the yardstick protocol used in the sit-and-reach norms hosted on this site — trunk-flex values are not directly comparable to our sit-and-reach percentiles