– The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of question type (open-ended, prompted, reverse order and chronological order recall) on children’s ability to maintain a truth or a lie in a two-part mock-courtroom study.
– In total, 96 children (Mage=131.00 months) between 9 and 12 years of age were asked to testify about an interaction with a research assistant the week prior. They were assigned to one of four conditions (true/false×assertion/denial).
– Results indicate that question type has an influence on children’s ability to maintain their condition. Results also indicate that regardless of question type, children have difficulty recalling information sequentially.
– Implications of the current research support the use of various question types, including increasing the cognitive load demands, when interviewing children.
– To date, this is the first study to investigate the use of reverse order questioning in a courtroom study with children.
