The Self-Administered Interview: a means of improving children's eyewitness performance?

Abstract

In order to obtain the most informative and correct statements, witnesses should be heard as soon as possible after the incident. However, this is not always possible. This experimental study investigated whether completing a Self-Administered Interview form (SAI) immediately after a critical event could enhance children's witness performance at a later stage. Children (N = 194, age 11–12) reported their memory of an event in a structured SAI, an open SAI, or did not report their memory (control). Two weeks later, the children were interviewed about the event. Before the interview, half of the children were subjected to social influence from a co-witness. Children's free recall of the event was enhanced by the SAI. More precisely, children in the SAI-Structured condition reported more details about the event than children in the SAI-Open condition and the control condition, without a loss of accuracy. The SAI manipulation did not, however, reduce children's vulnerability to social influence. The results suggest that the use of a SAI might prove a simple and yet effective way of increasing the quality of statements from child witnesses in some situations.

Keywords:

• children's memory
• social influence
• eyewitness testimony
• Self-Administered Interview
• rehearsal

Acknowledgements

This research was financially supported by a grant from the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research given to the third author. Thanks are due to Erik Adolfsson, Kristin Andersson, Lilith Edwinsson, Jasmina Ericsson, Lukas Johnsson, Malin Karlén, Marizela Kljajic, Moa Persson, and Lisa Öhman for their assistance the data collection. Special thanks to all the children and teachers who participated.

Notes

1. The full interview protocols are available from the first author upon request.

2. A manipulation check showed that this goal was achieved: Children in the SAI-Structured condition took on average 22 minutes to complete the interview form (M = 22.48, SD = 9.02), while those in the SAI-Open condition took about 10 minutes (M = 10.06, SD = 6.94)

3. There was no effect of interviewer on any of our measures (amount of information, amount of accurate information, accuracy rates and accuracy for critical details), all ps > 0.05.

4. The internal consistency was acceptable, Cronbach's α = 0.66, thus we combined the four details into one measure.