The Productivity of Wh-Prompts When Children Testify

Simple item page
dc.contributor.authorAndrews, S. J., Ahern, E. C., Stolzenberg, S. N., & Lyon, T. D.
dc.date.accessioned2015-11-13T15:47:07Z
dc.date.available2015-11-13T15:47:07Z
dc.date.issued2015
dc.description.abstractWh- prompts (what, how, why, who, when, where) vary widely in their specificity and accuracy, but differences among them have largely been ignored in research examining the productivity of different question-types in child testimony. We examined 120 6- to 12-year-olds’ criminal court testimony in child sexual abuse cases to compare the productivity of various wh- prompts. We distinguished among what/how prompts, most notably: what/how-happen prompts focusing generally on events, what/how-dynamic prompts focusing on actions or unfolding processes/events, what/how-causality prompts focusing on causes and reasons, and what/how-static prompts focusing on non-action contextual information regarding location, objects, and time. Consistent with predictions, what/how-happen prompts were the most productive, and both what/how-dynamic prompts and wh- prompts about causality were more productive than other wh- prompts. Prosecutors asked proportionally more what/how-dynamic prompts and fewer what/how-static prompts than defense attorneys. Future research and interviewer training may benefit from finer discrimination among wh- prompts.en_US
dc.identifier.citationAndrews, S. J., Ahern, E. C., Stolzenberg, S. N., & Lyon, T. D. (2015). The Productivity of Wh-Prompts When Children Testify. Cognitive Psychology, Forthcoming, 15-34.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://law.bepress.com/usclwps-lss/187/
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11212/2642
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.publisherApplied Cognitive Psychologyen_US
dc.subjectchild witnessen_US
dc.subjectpromptsen_US
dc.subjectquestion typesen_US
dc.subjectprosecutoren_US
dc.titleThe Productivity of Wh-Prompts When Children Testifyen_US
dc.typeArticleen_US

Files

Collections

CALiO Collection of Resources