Improving the competency of investigative interviewers of children

Improving the competency of investigative

interviewers of children

Professor Martine PowellSchool of Psychology

Deakin University Melbourne, Australia

Primary funding sources

Australian Research CouncilVictoria and New South Wales Police servicesDeakin University

Participating organisations

Victoria Police ServiceQueensland Police ServiceNew South Wales Police ServiceSouth Australia Police ServiceAustralian Federal PoliceDepartment of Children, Youth and Families (SA)Office for Children, Youth and Family Support (ACT)

Research teamDeakin University

Dr Rebecca Wright Dr Carolyn Hughes-ScholesDr Belinda Guadagno Ms Romana Murfett

Dr Sarah Agnew Ms Rita CauchiDr Jarrad Lum Ms Louise SteelDr Cristina Cavezza Ms Rebecca SmithDr Adrian Tomyn

External

Professor Ronald Fisher (Florida International University)Associate Professor Mark Kebbell (Griffith University)Dr Pamela Snow (Monash University)Dr Mark Stoove (Burnett Institute)Dr Damien Ridge (City University London)

Structure of presentation

What constitutes ‘best-practice’ interviewing of children?How well do professionals adhere to interview guidelines? What are the barriers to implementing interview guides?What strategies may assist organisations to achieve best-practice?

Best practice investigative interviewing of children

Best practice investigative interviewing of children

Maximising narrative detail forms the basis of most interview protocols and is especially important for child

witnesses who have limited memory and language abilities.

Agnew, S. E. & Powell, M. B. (2004). The effect of intellectual disability on children’s recall of an event across different question types. Law and Human Behavior, 28, 273-294

Open Questions Specific Questions

Accuracy by question type

Mainstream Inter-vieweesVulnerable Interviewees

Open-ended questions• elicit more accurate witness statements (Dent & Stephenson, 1979).• elicit longer witness responses (Sternberg, Lamb, Hershkowitz, Esplin,

Redlich, & Sunshine, 1996)• encourage witnesses to play an active role in the interview process

(Roberts, Lamb, & Sternberg, 2004; Sternberg et al., 1997). • enhance witnesses’ perception that they were listened to (Eastwood &

Patton, 2002). • maximise story-grammar detail and thus victim credibility (Feltis, Powell,

Snow & Hughes-Scholes, 2010)• elicit more temporal attributes (Orbach & Lamb, 2007)• do not require much ad hoc interviewer decision making (Powell &

Wright, 2008)• reduce the negative consequences of interviewer errors such as

confirmation bias (Hughes-Scholes & Powell, 2010)

How well do investigators adhere to open-ended questions?

Answer = Not very well

Interviewer: Tell me everything that happened and start from the beginning.

Child: Well, it was the Christmas party at Adam's house, and we got in the car. We got everything ready and we drove to where they lived.

Interviewer: Where is that? Child: Adam’s house? I don’t really know the address.Interviewer: That’s OK. When did this happen?Child: Last weekend we went there.Interviewer: So what happened when you drove there.Child: That’s when I met Joe.Interviewer: Who’s Joe?Child: He’s my cousin.

(Child aged 10 years)

Open Q

Specific Q

Why don’t most child abuse investigators adhere to open-ended questions?

Elements of training associated with adherence to best-practice interview guidelines

Distribution of training incorporating practice over time

Expert instruction and feedback

Exemplars of good practice (structured interview protocol)

Voluntary (intrinsically motivated) participants

Review of training studies: Powell, M.B., Fisher. R. P. & Wright, R. (2005). Investigative Interviewing. In N. Brewer & K. Williams (Eds.) Psychology and Law: An empirical perspective,. New York: Guilford Press.

Barriers to implementing best-practice

interview guidelines with children

Barrier 1: The importance of open

questions, and the types of these questions

that elicit narrative accounts, are not well

understood and reinforced

The importance of open questions, and the types of these questions that elicit narrative accounts, are not well understood and reinforced

Interviewers asked to……identify challenges in their role as investigators (Study 1)Wright, R., Powell, M. B., & Ridge, D. (2006). Child abuse investigation: An in-depth analysis of how police officers’ perceive and cope with daily work challenges. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management, 29, 498-512.

…talk about the interview process (Study 2)Wright, R. & Powell, M. B. (2006). Investigative interviewers’ perceptions of their difficulty in adhering to open-ended questions with child witnesses. International Journal of Police Science and Management, 8, 316-325.

…define a good interviewer of children (Study 3)Wright, R. & Powell, M. B. (2006). What makes a good investigative interviewer of children? A comparison of police officers’ and experts’ perceptions. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management, 30, 21-31.

…conduct written evaluations of their own interview (Study 4)Wright, Powell & Ridge (in press) What criteria do police officers use to measure the success of an interview with a child? Psychology, Crime and Law, 13, 395-404.


Interviewers asked to……identify challenges in their role as investigators (Study 1)Wright, R., Powell, M. B., & Ridge, D. (2006). Child abuse investigation: An in-depth analysis of how police officers’ perceive and cope with daily work challenges. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management, 29, 498-512.

…talk about the interview process (Study 2)Wright, R. & Powell, M. B. (2006). Investigative interviewers’ perceptions of their difficulty in adhering to open-ended questions with child witnesses. International Journal of Police Science and Management, 8, 316-325.

…define a good interviewer of children (Study 3)Wright, R. & Powell, M. B. (2006). What makes a good investigative interviewer of children? A comparison of police officers’ and experts’ perceptions. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management, 30, 21-31.

…conduct written evaluations of their own interview (Study 4)Wright, Powell & Ridge (in press) What criteria do police officers use to measure the success of an interview with a child? Psychology, Crime and Law, 13, 395-404.

Open questions did not feature at all in their discussions!


Findings consistent with other investigation practices such as…

…decisions to authorise briefs of evidence

Powell, M. B., Murfett R. & Thomson, D. (in press). An analysis of police officers’ decisions about whether to refer cases of child abuse for prosecution. Psychology, Crime & Law.

…handwritten recordings of interviews

Lamb, M. E., Orbach, Y., Sternberg, K. J., Hershkowitz, I., & Horowitz, D. (2000). Accuracy of investigators' verbatim notes of their forensic interviews with alleged child abuse victims. Law and Human Behavior, 24, 699-708.

Cauchi, R. T, Powell, M. B., Hughes-Scholes, C. H. (2010). A controlled analysis of professionals’ contemporaneous notes of interviews about alleged child abuse. Child Abuse & Neglect. 34, 318-323.

Cauchi, R. & Powell, M. B. (2009). An examination of police officers’ notes of interviews with alleged child abuse victims. International Journal of Police Science and Management, 11, 505-515.


Findings are in contrast to …

…perceptions of legal professionalsGuadagno, B. Powell, M. B.& Wright, R. (2006). Police officers’ and legal professionals’ perceptions regarding how children are, and should be, questioned about repeated abuse. Psychiatry, Psychology & Law, 13, 251-260.

Powell, M. B., Wright, R. & Hughes-Scholes, C. (in press). Contrasting the perceptions of child testimony experts, prosecutors and police officers regarding individual child abuse interviews. Psychiatry, Psychology & Law.

Powell, M. B., Wright, R. (2009). Professionals’ perceptions of electronically recorded interviews with vulnerable witnesses, Current Issues in Criminal Justice, 21, 205-218.

… interviewers who have undergone extensive training:

Powell, M. B. & Wright, R. (2008). Investigative interviewers’ perceptions of the value of different training tasks on their adherence to open-ended questions with children. Psychiatry, Psychology & Law, 15, 272-283.

Here, the importance of open questions do feature in discussions!

Intervention strategies (Barrier 1)

1. Identify (using ‘think aloud’ exercises) when interviewers deviate from asking open-ended questions and precipitating factors


Practice 1 Practice 2

Actor Fellow Actor Fellow

Strategies that helped Reflecting on what information is needed

.31 .24 .28 .30Prior rehearsal of appropriate questions

.26 .41 .28 .21Letting the interviewee talk at his/her own pace

.16 .14 .21 .30Good note taking of details that can be followed up later

.13 .07 .13 .13Prior planning of case-related information

.11 .14 .10 .03Keeping an open mind as to what occurred

.03 .00 .00 .03

Factors that hindered Drive to elicit specific contextual details

.41 .34 .47 .32Prior experience - specific questioning style is habitual

.22 .24 .13 .42Lack of rehearsal - unable to think of another question

.16 .28 .20 .16Anxiety- wanting to get the interview over with

.12 .14 .07 .10Interviewee had gone on a tangent; wanted to pull focus

.09 .00 .13 .00

Strategies that helped and hindered the interviewers’ ability to use open-ended questions

Powell, M. B., Fisher, R. P., Hughes-Scholes, C. H. (2008). The effect of using trained versus untrained adult respondents in simulated practice interviews about child abuse. Child Abuse & Neglect, 32, 1007-1016.

Strategies that helped and hindered the interviewers’ ability to use open-ended questions


Unless the interviewer masters an open-ended style of questioning and learns to persist with these questions (it

takes considerable practice to do this), interviewees do not engage in the type of elaborate memory retrieval required to elicit a detailed narrative account. This, in turn, discourages

the interviewer from persisting and practicing with open-ended questions.


2. Identify the nature of interviewers’ limitations when they use open-ended questions


Problem 1. Choice of questions was inappropriate for eliciting a free narrative account of what occurred

Limitation

1 Eliciting narrative too soon

I: Isabelle, tell me what you’ve come here to talk to me about today.C: Um about going to the park.I: Tell me everything about going to the park… from the beginning. C: Well first I play on the swings and sometimes I go on the seesaw first.I: What happens then?C: Um well I like the swing the best and I can go really high like up to the sky but Mummy says I can’t go too high.I: What else happens when you go to the park?C: I love the sandpit. One time I fell and hurt my leg.

2 Seeking descriptive information

C: ….and then he took me to the special room.I: Tell me all about the special room.C: Um… well it’s got special posters on the wall… and a TV in the cornerI: What else can you tell me about the special room…C: Um… I don’t know… um… it has green carpet.

Powell, M. B & Guadagno, B. (2008). An examination of the limitations in investigative interviewers’ use of open-ended questions, Psychiatry, Psychology & Law, 15, 382-395

Problem 2. Open questions inhibited elaborate responding

Limitation Example of problem

3 Encouraging brief responses

I: Can you tell me what happened when you got there?C: Yep.I: What happened?C: Oh… we just went in and then he put the movie on. I: Tell me a little bit about the movieC: It was about an elephant.I: What else can you tell me?C: The elephant was hungry. That’s it.I: Is there anything else you can tell me about the movie?

4 Limited range of questions

I: Tell me what happened when you got to Joe’s house?C: Oh… we just went in and then he put the movie on. I: And then?C: We watched the movie.I: What happened after you watched the movie?C: We played in the caravanI: What happened next?

5 Repetitive use of questions

I: Tell me more about when the Deakin person came to your school. C: It was in my classroom. And um there was a surprise in this lunchbox. I: Tell me more about the surprise in the lunchbox.C: Um, well it was just stickers and um she just hid the lunchbox and we had to find it. I: Tell me more about the stickers.


Problem 3. Limitations in interviewers’ ability to tailor the interview to the child’s level of development

Limitation Example of problem

6 Unnecessarily wordy

I: Can you tell me anything more about that? I really want to know more about that so can you tell me when it happened and who was there?

7 Difficult vocabulary

I: What can you tell me in relation to what happened yesterday I: Tell me about the incident with your mum.

8 Difficult concepts I: Tell me more about the way he touched you…. like where you were and how you were both standing?

9 Leading questions I: Then what happened?C: We went into Timothy’s room at the back of the house and Timothy played on the computerI: Tell me everything about the part when you played on the computer.C: I didn’t play the computer, Timothy did.




3. Provide more exemplars of best practice (instruction guides, films, role plays)





4. Elicit more feedback from prosecutors






Powell, M. B., Wright, R. & Hughes-Scholes, C. (in press). Contrasting the perceptions of child testimony experts, prosecutors and police officers regarding individual child abuse interviews. Psychiatry, Psychology & Law.






5. Dispute myths which undermine the notion that interviewing is a specialised skill


Demonstrating negligible impact of individual interviewer characteristicsSmith, R., Powell, M. B. & Lum, J. (2009). The relationship between job status, interviewing experience,

gender and police officers’ adherence to open-ended questions. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 14, 51-63.

Conduct research to dispute myths and organisational policies that undermine professional development opportunities



Exposing biases about the way children recall abuseHughes-Scholes, C & Powell, M. B.. (in preparation). Investigative interviewers’ perceptions about the way

children report abuse.






Disputing psychological rationale for maximum tenurePowell, M. B. & Tomyn, A. (2010). Life satisfaction amongst police officers who work in the area of child

abuse investigation. Manuscript submitted for publication.






Disputing psychological rationale for maximum tenurePowell, M. B. & Tomyn, A. (2010). Life satisfaction amongst police officers who work in the area of child

abuse investigation. Manuscript submitted for publication.

Demonstrating limitations in self-initiated practiceWright, R., Guadagno, B. L. & Powell, M. B. (2009). An evaluation of a self-initiated practice exercise for

investigative interviewers of children. International Journal of Police Science and Management, 11, 366-376.


Conduct research to dispute myths/policies that undermine perception of interviewing as a specialised skill



3. Provide more exemplars of best practice (instruction guides, films, role plays).

4. Elicit more feedback from prosecutors.

5. Dispute myths which undermine the notion that interviewing is a specialised skill

6. Provide clear definitions of various questions and rationale for inconsistencies in the literature


Definitions of open-ended questions

• …. elicit more encompassing and elaborate responses. • [Fisher & Geiselman (1992) Memory-enhancing techniques for

investigative interviewing].

• …. require multi-word responses, and in general, deal with broader topics.

• [Poole & Lamb (1998) Investigative interviews of children: A guide for helping professionals].

• …. encourage elaborate responses, without assuming details or dictating what specific information is required.

• [Wilson & Powell (2001) A guide to interviewing children].



3. Provide more exemplars of best practice (instruction guides, films, role plays).

4. Elicit more feedback from prosecutors.

5. Conduct research to dispute myths which undermine the notion that interviewing is a specialised skill

6. Provide clear definitions of various questions and rationale for inconsistencies in the literature

7. Develop protocols for playing the role of interviewees in mock interviews


Unless mock interview exercises provide the stimuli (e.g., silence, lack of specific detail, irrelevant or ambiguous

responses) that would normally provoke an inappropriate question it is unlikely that learning that arises during the

practice sessions could be applied to more challenging interview contexts.

Barrier 2: The current structure of most

training programs are not effective in

promoting change

Elements of training associated with adherence to best-practice interview guidelines

Distribution of training incorporating practice over time

Expert instruction and feedback

Exemplars of good practice (structured interview protocol)

Voluntary (intrinsically motivated) participants

Review of training studies: Powell, M.B., Fisher. R. P. & Wright, R. (2005). Investigative Interviewing. In N. Brewer & K. Williams (Eds.) Psychology and Law: An empirical perspective,. New York: Guilford Press.

Mean proportion of open questions according to type of mock interviewee

.

0102030405060708090

100

Pre-training Immediatepost-training

12-weekfollow-up

ActorFellow


Mean proportion of open questions according to type of feedback

0102030405060708090

100

Pre-training Immediate post-training

12-week follow-up

Intra-interviewPost-interviewNo Feedback

Powell, M. B., Fisher, R. P., Hughes-Scholes, C. H. (2008). The effect of intra- versus post- interview feedback during simulated practice interviews about child abuse. Child Abuse & Neglect, 32, 213-227.

Learning various Qs and procedures for eliciting disclosures

Using a coding protocol to objectively measure interviews and track progress

DEPTH1

DEPTH 2

What else happened….

What happened then…

Tell me more about the part where…

What happened when…

BREADTH 2

BREADTH 1

Rote learning of open question stems

via phone… via Skype….

Conducting mock interviews

Learn techniques for staging mock interviews and giving feedback to others

Identification of organisational barriers (chat rooms, diaries)

“There is nothing worse than a supervisor giving feedback who hasn’t conducted an interview themselves for 12 months. As it stands, some supervisors rarely conduct videotaped interviews, but they are given the authority to assess them!” (Police Officer).

“Prior to moving into this area, I had no idea of the large amount of work that was passing through these units. Over time, I have noticed how the constant intake of work continually leads to stress within my office. The stress is not only associated with this type of work, but the stress from management who continually expect you to keep performing with less staff and more incoming work” (Child protection worker).

National Interview Training Centre

1. Set and maintain standards in training delivery, performance evaluation

2. Coordinate research

3. Provide a library of resources and services for use by organisations on a needs basis

Developing a standardised measure of interviewer performance

Phase 1. Determine characteristics of witness response styles that precipitate a deviation from interview guidelines

Phase 2: Develop instruments and test modes of delivery

Phase 3: Develop system for the integration of this tool (for learning and evaluation purposes) via a workplace-based learning system

Examining the stability/consistency of interviewer performance

• Powell, M. B., Cavezza, C., Hughes-Scholes, C. & Stoove, M. (in press). Examination of the consistency of interviewer performance across three distinct interview contexts. Psychology, Crime & Law.

• Powell, M. B., Hughes-Scholes, C., Cavezza, C. & Stoove, M. (in press). Examination of the stability and consistency of investigative interviewer performance. Legal and Criminological Psychology.

Barrier 3: There is insufficient knowledge about how our systems

are functioning as a whole

Thankyou for listening. Any questions?

Improving the competency of investigative interviewers of children

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