The relationships between child and forensic interviewer behaviours and individual differences in interviews about a medical examination

Abstract

This study examined the interviewing process between professional forensic interviewers and their “mock” child witness. Fifty-eight preschool children participated in a medical examination, and were later interviewed by an experienced forensic interviewer (n = 15) about this event. Interviews were coded with mutually exclusive and exhaustive coding schemes that captured interviewers and child behaviours in a temporally organized manner. To evaluate the relationship between interviewers' and children's individual differences measured prior to the interview and the interview outcomes (i.e., questions asked, child interview behaviour), all child participants were tested with relevant cognitive and behavioural measures, and all adult interviewers were tested with personality measures. Results showed that leading questions were more often followed by simple assents and denial than expected. Interviewers did not remain consistent from question to subsequent question, but children's response type was predictable from response to subsequent response. Children's and adults' individual differences measured prior to the interview predicted some of the adults' interviewing behaviours and some of children's own response behaviours during the interview. Mediation modelling evinced that more self-controlled interviewers posed more recommended questions and elicited more assents with details from the children. We discuss the results in relation to established views of recommended interview practice and to theories of suggestibility.

Acknowledgments

The study was supported by a grant from the Norwegian Directorate for Children, Youth and Family Affairs (05/8081).

We thank the children, their families, and the forensic interviewers who dedicatedly their time, work, and support. Our thanks are also directed to Dr Stephen Ceci, who advised the first author on the design in an early phase of the project.

Notes

It is important in any temporal analysis to consider how the temporal stream is disturbed when codes are removed. For example, if turns alternate between speakers, does removing a code for Speaker 1 result in a stream that occasionally repeats actors rather than alternates (e.g., Speaker 1 → Speaker 2 → Speaker 2)? Off-topic speech in the current coding scheme was removed by not specifying the code as a target or given code in the sequential analyses. When GSEQ analyses “What followed adult question X?” it finds all instances of adult question X and identifies what specified target codes follow. If adult question X is followed by a non-specified code (e.g., off-topic), then that particular adult question X is not included in the analyses. It is not the case that GSEQ skips the off-topic child speech and reports that adult question X is followed by adult question Y or the subsequent child code two codes later. Thus, the program does not create artificial links but rather drops data points when they are not part of the question posed.