Question type and its effect on children ' s maintenance and accuracy during courtroom testimony

Published date09 May 2016
Date09 May 2016
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/JFP-01-2015-0010
Pages104-117
AuthorChristine Saykaly,Angela Crossman,Mary Morris,Victoria Talwar
Subject MatterHealth & social care,Criminology & forensic psychology,Forensic practice
Question type and its effect on childrens
maintenance and accuracy during
courtroom testimony
Christine Saykaly, Angela Crossman, Mary Morris and Victoria Talwar
Christine Saykaly is based at
the Department of Educational
and Counselling Psychology,
McGill University, Montreal,
Canada.
Angela Crossman is based
at John Jay College of
Criminal Justice, New York,
New York, USA.
Mary Morris and Victoria
Talwar, both are based at the
Department of Educational and
Counselling Psychology, McGill
University, Montreal, Canada.
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of question type (open-ended, prompted,
reverse order and chronological order recall) on childrens ability to maintain a truth or a lie in a two-part
mock-courtroom study.
Design/methodology/approach In total, 96 children (M
age
¼131.00 months) between 9 and 12 years of
age were asked to testify about an interaction with a research assistant the week prior. They were assigned to
one of four conditions (true/false×assertion/denial).
Findings Results indicatethat question type has an influenceon childrens ability to maintain theircondition.
Results also indicate that regardlessof question type, children havedifficulty recalling informationsequentially.
Practical implications Implications of the current research support the use of various question types,
including increasing the cognitive load demands, when interviewing children.
Originality/value To date, this is the first study to investigate the use of reverse order questioning in a
courtroom study with children.
Keywords Interviewing, Child witness, Cross-examination, Lie maintenance, Question type,
Reverse order questions
Paper type Research paper
In North America, children frequently provide key evidence in the criminal and family courts. Veracity
is a central issue for the justice system and failure to accurately assess the honesty of a child can
result in very serious consequences for the child, the accused, and society as a whole. Thus, there is
a great need to develop forensically and developmentally appropriate techniques that help front-line
workers (e.g. police, social workers) as well as professionals within the legal system (e.g. judges and
court advocates) obtain truthful reports. As research has shown that adults have difficulty assessing
the veracity of statements, regardless of the age of the witness (Bond and DePaulo, 2006), more
information is needed to better understand childrens abilities and how they are affected by
courtroom proceedings. In particular, there has been little research on the impact of different types
of questions on childrens ability to tell and maintain intentionally false reports, and how such
questiontypes can assist investigators,judges and court advocates to betterframe their questions.
Childrens lie-telling
Many childrenbegin to lie at a very young age (e.g.Ahern et al., 2011; Evans and Lee, 2011,2013;
Talwar and Lee,2002, 2008). As children grow older,their reports, regardless of veracity, increase
in length, complexity, and descriptive detail (Craig et al., 1999; Goodman and Reed, 1986; Pipe
et al., 2004; Vrij, 2005) and children become increasingly better at maintaining their lies, even
across multiple questioning sessions (Gilbert and Fisher, 2006; La Rooy et al., 2005, 2010).
Received 31 January 2015
Revised 11 June 2015
Accepted 2 July 2015
PAGE104
j
JOURNAL OF FORENSIC PRACTICE
j
VOL. 18 NO. 2 2016, pp. 104-117, © Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 2050-8794 DOI 10.1108/JFP-01-2015-0010

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