Project
Interviewing child witnesses: Regulating output quantity and
accuracy.
Since the 1980s, there has been a substantial increase in the number
of children called upon to provide eyewitness testimony in the legal arena.
Given that information obtained from child witnesses can play a major
role in guiding investigations and judicial decisions, it is crucial that
child witnesses are interviewed in ways which facilitate complete and
accurate memory reports. Research has consistently demonstrated that the
use of biased closed questions and other suggestive interview techniques
has a detrimental effect on the accuracy of children’s memory reports.
Consequently, it is recommended that such forms of interviewing should
be replaced with open-ended or free-recall interview techniques. While
these techniques do increase the accuracy of children’s memory reports,
they are limited in their ability to enhance the completeness or quantity.
Thus, there is a need to develop interview techniques which consider both
the quantity and accuracy of child witnesses’ memory reports. My
PhD research will investigate the efficacy of a novel interview technique
which, through the use of unbiased closed questions, aims to: (a) elicit
greater amounts of information from child witnesses and (b) offer opportunities
for the accuracy of their memory reports to be diagnosed. |
