‘What colour is your pet dinosaur?’ The impact of pre‐interview training and question type on children's answers

Abstract

Purpose. Two studies evaluated the effects of question type and of brief pre‐interview training, involving instructions and practice, on the number of correct answers and errors given by children in a structured interview. Methods. A total of 157 children aged from nine to 13 were interviewed about a visit to a science centre with both misleading and non‐misleading open and closed questions. The children also rated their confidence in each of their answers. Half the children received pre‐interview training designed to discourage compliance and guessing. Results. In Study 1 pre‐interview training decreased commission errors to misleading questions, but also decreased the number of correct responses to non‐misleading questions. In Study 2 a revised training package decreased errors for misleading questions without impacting on correct responses. Conclusions. Brief pre‐interview interventions can reduce children's compliance with misleading questions in experimental situations. Both studies provided some support for the cognitive processing hypothesis that the confidence‐accuracy relationship will be stronger for open than for closed questions.