Psychology & Law 2000words essay

Cognitive interviewing activity

Here are the instructions for the cognitive interviewing activity.

Cog interviewing seeks to reinstate the context of the original event – that includes time of day, weather, smells etc.  These perform as types of mnemonics.  Hence, the method is so effective.  CI can also elicit more information by asking the interviewee to tell the story in reverse order, or from someone else’s perspective.

You have been given the summary sheet which will has the outline of the steps of cog interviewing.  You will be divided into groups of two – it is the break out groups and limited by number of students.  When in pairs, one will act as the interviewer and the other as the interviewee.  The interviewee takes a minute or two to think of something that happened at least a week ago.  Then the interviewer does the interview following the instructions on the summary sheet.  Interviewers should try to get as much detailed information as possible from the interviewee.  Once they have done that, then students swap roles.  The interviewee (who was the interviewer the first time) should think of an event that happened a year ago!  Then they go through to process again.

Afterwards, we will all come back for a general discussion on what you have learned or experienced.