Date of Graduation

1998

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

Abstract

Conducting investigative interviews with children who were allegedly sexually abused is perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of child protective service (CPS) workers' jobs. Previous research suggests that training workshops on investigative interviewing conducted with front-line workers, such as police officers and CPS workers, may result in improved knowledge about appropriate strategies to use. However, limited research has addressed whether such trainings result in improvements in actual interviewing skills. The present investigation assessed the impact of a six-hour training workshop on CPS workers' knowledge about and performance during investigative interviews. Results suggest that the training impacted participants' knowledge on the topic, but impacting few interviewing skills during simulated interviews. Further, results showed no correlation between performance on knowledge measures and participants' interviewing behavior.

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