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Children's responses to open‐ended utterances in investigative interviews
Author(s) -
Hershkowitz Irit
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
legal and criminological psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.65
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 2044-8333
pISSN - 1355-3259
DOI - 10.1348/135532501168190
Subject(s) - closed ended question , psychology , narrative , developmental psychology , clinical psychology , social psychology , applied psychology , philosophy , linguistics , statistics , mathematics
Fifty 4‐ to 13‐year‐olds were interviewed about incidents of sexual abuse that they had allegedly experienced. The interviewers employed an unusually high number of open‐ended prompts, and the analyses focused on the effectiveness of different types of open‐ended inquiries. Open‐ended prompts yielded significantly longer and more detailed responses than did focused prompts. The main invitation, which initiated the children's narratives, elicited the longest and most detailed responses. Invitations remained superior to focused questions throughout the interview. The effectiveness of invitations did not vary depending on whether they followed focused or open‐ended prompts. There were no age differences in the effectiveness of any types of invitations.