Police Officers' Ability to Play the Role of the Child during Investigative Interview Training
| DOI | 10.1350/ijps.2012.14.4.288 |
| Published date | 01 December 2012 |
| Date | 01 December 2012 |
| Subject Matter | Paper |
Police officers’ ability to play the role of
the child during investigative interview
training
Stefanie J. Sharman‡, Carolyn H. Hughes-Scholes†, Martine B. Powell†
and Belinda L. Guadagno†
‡(Corresponding author) School of Psychology, Faculty of Health, Deakin University,
Melbourne, Victoria 3125, Australia. Email: stefanie.sharman@deakin.edu.au
†School of Psychology, Deakin University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Submitted 16 March 2012, accepted 27 July 2012
Keywords: investigative interviewing, interview training, role playing,
children
Dr Stefanie Sharman
is a lecturer in Psychology
at Deakin University; her research focuses on
interviewing witnesses.
Dr Carolyn Hughes-Scholes
is a research fel-
low at Deakin University; she examines invest-
igative interviewing of children using laboratory
and field studies.
Martine Powell
is a professor of Psychology at
Deakin University; she has designed and imple-
mented interviewer training programs through-
out Australia.
Dr Belinda Guadagno
is a lecturer in Psycho-
logy at Deakin University; she conducts research
and training in the area of investigative
interviewing.
A
BSTRACT
Practice during investigative interview training is
crucial for interviewers to develop the ability to
adhere consistently to best-practice interview pro-
cedures. Given the constraints around using
trained actors in the role of the child during
practice interviews, this study examined whether
officers themselves were able to play this role in a
manner known to facilitate interviewers’ perform-
ance. At baseline, 24 police officers’ ability to
adhere to five rules that were developed to train
actors how to play the role of the child were
measured. They were then given simple instruc-
tions about each of the five rules, and their ability
to adhere to these rules was measured a second
time. The results showed that participants natur-
ally adhered to two of the rules at baseline
(providing broad disclosure initially and respond-
ing with no more than four pieces of information
to open-ended questions). Their performance
improved for one rule (introducing conversational
tangents) after receiving the simple instructions;
however, participants’ performance showed less
improvement for the other two rules (responding
with a non-feasible response to complex questions
and responding to specific questions with few
words). Overall, the results supported the use of
fellow interviewers in the role of the child during
practice interviews.
INTRODUCTION
Best-practice guidelines for conducting
investigative interviews with children
promote the use of open-ended questions
(Lamb, Hershkowitz, Orbach, & Esplin,
2008; Lamb, Sternberg, & Esplin, 1998;
Orbach, Hershkowitz, Lamb, Esplin, &
Horowitz, 2000; Wilson & Powell, 2001).
These questions encourage even very young
children to give accounts containing the
International Journal of Police
Science and Management,
Vol. 14 No. 4, 2012, pp. 312–321.
DOI: 10.1350/ijps.2012.14.4.288
Page 312
International Journal of Police Science & Management Volume 14 Number 4
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