Alan Scoboria, PhD, CPsych

1. The delicate handling of "don't know" responses during interviews with children (and everyone else) Alan Scoboria, PhD, CPsych

2. Interviewing witnesses and victims • Problem statement: more kids appearing in court • Shift to relying upon childrens’ report

3. The interviewer’s dilemma • Obtain available accurate information, while minimizing acquisition of distorted or fabricated information.

4. Consequences if things go poorly • Erroneous information • Wasted time • Invalidated witness • Miscarriages of justice

5. Consequences if things go well • Increased confidence in information • Witnesses more likely to withstand cross-examination • Justice is well-served

6. Effective interviews • Emphasize free recall • Minimize suggestion • Avoid misleading questioning

7. Young children • Free recall = underreporting • Pulls for additional questioning

8. The quantity / accuracy trade-off • Forced responding • Free responding • Individual has the freedom to refuse to respond, express ignorance, or to say “I don’t know”

9. The quantity / accuracy trade-off

10. Don’t know responses • Why are DK responses desirable? • Reflect monitoring of knowledge • Willingness to admit limits of knowledge • Ability to resist pressure

11. “In experimental tasks, or real-life interviews, it is rare to see subjects, of any age, being told that they do not have to give an answer to a question.” Moston, 1987, p69

12. What to do with DK responses? • Ignore them, move on • may lose access to information • Restate the question, push for more • may pressure responses, promote guessing, even suggest answers • Investigate the response

13. Handling DK responses in interviews • Force responses? • Encourage? • Discourage?

14. Handling DK responses in interviews • In testing situations, forced responding may be desirable Mondak and Davis, 2002

15. Handling DK responses in interviews • Forced responding promotes guessing Koriat, Goldsmith, Schneider, & Nakash-Dura, 2001 Roebers, Moga & Schneider, 2001

16. Children and DK responding • Younger children tend to underutilize DK responses Geiselman & Padilla, 1988 Cassel, Roebers & Bjorklund, 1996 Roebers & Schneider, 2000

17. Children and DK responding • Children can improve monitoring • Accuracy motivation enhances use of DK responses and improves accuracy. • Effectiveness generally follows developmental lines. Koriat, Goldsmith, Schneider & Nakash-Dura (2001) Roebers, Moga & Schneider (2001)

18. Children and DK responding • Developmental trajectory • < about age 6; low spontaneous production • > age 7, many of the concepts are in place, use improves dramatically • > age 9/10, often perform very similar to adults

19. Children and DK responding • Encouraging DK responding • Risk of “DK response set” Moston, 1987

20. Children and DK responding • Simple instructions – mixed results; more effective with adults • Complex instructions – more effective with children Mulder & Vrij, 1996; Nesbitt & Markham, 1999

21. Children and DK responding • Informational influence • May view interview as a test for which the interviewers has the answers Mulder & Vrij, 1996 Waterman, Blades & Spenser, 2004 Malian & Scoboria, in progress

22. Children and DK responding • Question types and DK responding • y/n, closed ended – lower DK responding • Wh-, open ended – higher DK responding Peterson, Dowdin & Tobin, 1999 Peterson & Grant, 2001 Waterman, Blades & Spenser, 2001

23. Answerable vs. Unanswerable questions • Enhanced risk of speculation to leading unanswerable questions • y/n closed ended questions • Leading questions may operate by implying that an answer is available • A leading question about something that is unknown is misleading

24. DK statements and communication • Substantive responses • Admitting ignorance • I never saw that • I might have seen that, but I can’t remember the specific details

25. DK statements and communication • Choosing not to respond

26. DK statements and communication • Unwillingness to respond • Exert power within interview • Avoid self-implication • Lying by omission

27. Yes, it is more complex • DK responses when witnesses have been coached • DK responses after multiple interviews, or previous poor interviews • DK responses as costs to interviewee increase (i.e., parent is suspect) • DK responses in suspects

28. Limitations of the research literature • No work on DK responses in developmentally delayed children • No work on meaning of DK responses in children • Implications of exploring DK responses not well understood • Naturalistic studies are needed

29. Take home points • Accepting DK responses appears essential • Encouraging them appears advisable • Balancing encouraging / discouraging DK responses is challenging

30. Take home points • Children ages 9-10+ frequently use DK effectively • Children ages 6-8 often demonstrate monitoring ability • Children < 6 often show poorer monitoring ability

31. Take home points • Attend to informational influence (what the interviewer “knows”) • Avoiding question types which undermine use of DK responses • Using developmentally appropriate language

32. Acknowledgements Funding sources Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada University of Windsor • Lisa Dadd • Stephanie Fisico • Mark Frey • Amanda Harris • Irving Kirsch • Giuliana Mazzoni • Julie Malian • Chris Reid • Hoa Trang

33. Contact information Alan Scoboria Associate Professor of Psychology Department of Psychology 401 Sunset Windsor, ON, Canada N9B3P4 email: scoboria@uwindsor.ca phone: 001-519-253-3000 x4090