Research
Our Centre supports a broad array of research designed to inform decisions related to interview practices and training design. Our team is interdisciplinary, combining fields of psychology, education, criminology, language, policing, health, culture, and law. We have a strongly applied focus and work in close collaboration with industry.
A wide range of research methods are used in our work. We examine people’s perspectives through qualitative interviews and surveys. We design controlled experimental studies using staged events to examine the effect of interview techniques on response accuracy and completeness. We analyse real-world interviews, and track interviewer performance measures over time and across different contexts.
Long-term research interests include:
- techniques for enhancing the accuracy and detail of witnesses’ recall of events
- training activities that promote good questioning of witnesses and suspects
- measuring interviewer competency
- people’s memory of recurring events
- eliciting disclosures of highly sensitive information
- interviewing vulnerable witnesses (e.g., children, people from different cultural groups, and people with complex communication needs)
- evaluation of courtroom questioning
- enhancing interviewer well-being
- oral language competence of disadvantaged youth
- prosecutors’ perspectives on the utility of investigative interviews
- interviewing in the medical context
- evaluation of specialist investigative units
For recent research grants and projects, see news and events.
