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Eliciting information in official Finnish asylum interviews
Author(s) -
Skrifvars Jenny,
Antfolk Jan,
Veldhuizen Tanja,
Sui Veronica,
Korkman Julia
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
applied cognitive psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.719
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1099-0720
pISSN - 0888-4080
DOI - 10.1002/acp.3936
Subject(s) - recall , psychology , coding (social sciences) , social psychology , questions and answers , open data , closed ended question , key (lock) , cognitive psychology , epistemology , political science , sociology , social science , world wide web , computer science , law , computer security , philosophy
Previous research has indicated that asylum interviewers—contrary to recommendations—use more closed than open questions to elicit information. In the current study, we investigated how information is elicited in asylum interviews by analyzing question‐answer pairs in 105 official Finnish asylum interview transcripts. We developed a new coding framework for analyzing the content and characteristics of the answers and used previously collected data on the questions. As predicted, we found that open questions elicited more new information and new key aspects of the asylum claims than other question types. We further extend on previous research by showing that the free recall phases only elicited half of all key aspects of the claims and that mis‐matched answers and difficult or unanswerable questions were alarmingly common. Interviewers would benefit from more training in asking open questions, creating and maintaining rapport, resolving misunderstandings, and increasing the efficacy of the free recall phase.