Investigative Interviewers' Perceptions of Their Difficulty in Adhering to Open-Ended Questions with Child Witnesses

By R. Wright, Martine B. Powell. 2006

101 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Best practice guidelines for conducting investigative interviews of children emphasise the importance of obtaining free narrative accounts with the use of open-ended questions. However, research indicates that most investigative interviewers underutilise open-ended questions, even following intensive training in their use. The aim of the current study was to explore investigative interviewers' perceptions of their difficulty in asking open-ended questions. During a training course on how to use open-ended questions, eight child abuse investigators were individually interviewed about why they had asked specific questions in a 10-minute mock interview conducted immediately earlier with a school child. Overall, three reasons were identified. These related to: 1. the specificity of the information required from children; 2. the unfamiliar nature of the open-ended discourse style; and 3. the complex distinction between open-ended versus specific questions. Each of these themes is discussed, along with the implications for trainers and researchers in child investigative interviewing.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, General Health Professions, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a10f115b976f4b3c4e41f2f3d8554abe5462f131

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Cognitive Neuroscience

1. Mairi Benson
2. Martine B. Powell
3. Alexander Buijsrogge
4. Wouter Duyck
5. Nicolas Roulin
6. Eva Derous

In General Health Professions

1. Mairi Benson
2. Martine B. Powell
3. Belinda Guadagno
4. R. Wright

In Social Psychology

1. Mairi Benson
2. Martine B. Powell
3. Nicolas Roulin
4. Eva Derous

Citations in the corpus

• Why your stigma isn't hired : a dual-process framework of interview bias (2016, background): “…coercive interview strategies (like interruptions, leading/misleading questions, use of closed questions, hammering or quickly firing of questions) and facilitative strategies (like paraphrasing, rehearsing, rapport establishment, showing empathy, see Alison et al., 2008; Wright & Powell, 2006).”
• Evaluation of a comprehensive interactive training system for investigative interviewers of children (2015, background): “Studies examining question types utilised in investigative interviews with children have found that interviewers typically have an overreliance on specific questions (Lamb et al., 1997; Powell, Fisher & Hughes-Scholes, 2008a; 2008b; Sternberg et al., 1997; Wright & Powell, 2006).”
• Police Officers' and Legal Professionals' Perceptions Regarding How Children Are, and Should Be, Questioned About Repeated Abuse (2006, background): “This reinforces the police officers’ view that open-ended questions are not useful in eliciting specific details, and reduces the likelihood that they will use these questions (Wright & Powell, 2006).”