Open-ended initial invitations are particularly helpful in eliciting forensically relevant information from child witnesses

Abstract

Background Open-ended prompting is an essential tool for interviewers to elicit evidentiary information from children reporting abuse. To date, no research has examined whether different types of open-ended prompts elicit details with differing levels of forensic relevance. Objective To examine interviewers' use of three open-ended prompt subtypes (initial invitations, breadth prompts, and depth prompts) and compare the forensic relevance of the information elicited by each. Participants and setting Transcripts of field interviews conducted by 53 police interviewers with children aged 6- to 16-years alleging abuse were examined. Methods In each transcript, initial invitations, breadth prompts, and depth prompts were identified, and the child's response was parsed into clauses. Clauses were classified according to their forensic relevance: essential to the charge (i.e., a key point of proof or element of the offence), relevant to the offending (i.e., what occurred before, during, or after an incident but not an essential detail), context (i.e., background information), irrelevant to the charge, no information provided, or repeated information already provided earlier. Results Interviewers posed fewer initial invitations than breadth and depth prompts, p < .001, ηp2 = 0.58. Initial invitations elicited higher proportions of essential and relevant clauses than breadth and depth prompts; depth prompts further elicited higher proportions of essential clauses than breadth prompts, ps ≤ 0.001. We found few effects of children's age. Conclusions Initial invitations are a particularly useful subtype of open-ended prompt for interviewers to elicit details that are legislatively essential for prosecution of crimes from children of all ages.