Does the form of question repetition have an effect on children's recall accuracy and consistency?

Abstract

This study examined what effect different forms of question repetition had on children's accuracy and consistency in interviews. One hundred and sixty children aged 4–5, 6–7 and 8–9 were interviewed about an event they had witnessed a week earlier. Each child was asked an initial 16 questions; subsequently each question was repeated twice in a different format. Half of the questions asked were answerable from the information presented in the event and half were unanswerable. Four different forms of repetition were used: verbatim, gist, repetition of a specific question as a closed one and repetition of a closed question as a specific one. Response accuracy and consistency improved with age, but both accuracy and consistency declined with repetition. Overall, one-third of responses to repetitions changed, and accurate responses became inaccurate more often than inaccurate responses became accurate. Verbatim and gist repetitions had the least detrimental effect on the number of accurate responses, and verbatim repetition resulted in the most consistent responses. Repeating questions in any form had detrimental effects on the accuracy and overall consistency of children's testimony, but we suggest that, when it is necessary to ask a question more than once, either gist or verbatim repetition should be used.