Abstract
The effect of a witness interviewing training program on interviewing performance in actual investigations was examined. Eighty interviews, conducted by police officers in one Canadian organization, were coded for the presence of 38 desirable practices. Results showed that, in general, trained interviewers outperformed their untrained counterparts. Specifically, there was a large improvement in engage and explain behaviors (d = 1.65), a moderate improvement in account behaviors (d = 0.54), and a large improvement in closure behaviors (d = 0.90). Trained interviewers also used more open-ended questions and fewer leading questions. The implications of the findings for transferring interviewing skills from the classroom to the field are discussed.
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Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. We would like to thank the participating police organization for providing the data required for the study. We would also like to thank the annonymous reviewers for providing constructive ways to improve the quality of our manuscript.
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MacDonald, S., Snook, B. & Milne, R. Witness Interview Training: a Field Evaluation. J Police Crim Psych 32, 77–84 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11896-016-9197-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11896-016-9197-6