The impact of questioning style on the content of investigative interviews with suspected child sexual abuse victims

This study explored the influence of question type and interviewer style on the quantity and quality of responses offered by children in interviews for suspected sexual abuse. The analysis covered 36 investigative interviews conducted by police officers under the Memorandum of Good Practice with children aged 4-7, 8-11 and 12-14 years. The dependent measures were the temporal length of children's answers and the number of criteria derived from Criteria Based Content Analysis (CBCA) they contained. Only 2% of all questions were open-ended, but just 3% were judged leading. Open questions were most effective with 12-14 year olds but not with younger children who provided more information in response to specific yet not leading or closed questions. Longer answers containing more CBCA criteria were associated with interviews containing many affirmative utterances and verbal affirmations and a brief rapport. The implications of these findings for interview theory and practice are briefly discussed.