J Police Crim Psych (2016) 31:155–163
DOI 10.1007/s11896-015-9170-9
Effects of the NICHD Protocol Training on Child Investigative
Interview Quality in Korean Police Officers
Misun Yi 1 & Eunkyung Jo 2 & Michael E. Lamb 1
Published online: 19 July 2015
# Society for Police and Criminal Psychology 2015
Abstract This study was conducted to determine, by compar-
ing pre- and post-training interview of 18 Korean police offi-
cers, whether training in use of the NICHD Protocol improved
the quality of investigative interviews of allegedly abused
child victims. Results showed that Korean police officers
more often followed the Protocol structure -they introduced
themselves, explained the ground rules, and conducted epi-
sodic memory training-after they had been trained. Moreover,
police officers used approximately three times as many desir-
able prompts (such as invitations and facilitators) and fewer
suggestive prompts in interviews conducted after as opposed
to before the training. Invitations elicited approximately four
to seven times more details on average than the least produc-
tive prompts. These results confirmed that the NICHD Proto-
col is effective when used to interview alleged child abuse
victims in East Asia.
Keywords The NICHD Protocol . Child sexual abuse .
Korean police officers . investigative interviews . Interview
training
* Misun Yi
msy23@cam.ac.uk
Eunkyung Jo
ekjo@hallym.ac.kr
Michael E. Lamb
mel37@cam.ac.uk
1
University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
2
Hallym University, Chuncheon-si, South Korea
Introduction
Conducting investigative interviews with allegedly abused
child victims is challenging. Although children of all ages
are able to describe what happened to them (see Goodman
and Schwartz-Kenny 1992; Lamb et al. 2007c, 2008, for
reviews), there are still a number of factors that affect the
quality and quantity of children’s accounts of their abusive
experiences, especially the techniques interviewers use to
elicit information. The types of questions or prompts that
interviewers ask are critical. Suggestive questions, in which
interviewers communicate the expected response, can elicit
inaccurate information by distorting children’s accounts or by
creating false memories (Cassel et al. 1996; Lamb and
Fauchier 2001; Lamb et al. 2007b). Option-posing (including
yes or no) questions can also impair the accuracy of chil-
dren’s accounts, because children may guess or thoughtlessly
choose one of the options provided (Brainerd and Reyna
1996; Lamb and Fauchier 2001). By contrast, open-ended
prompts yield responses that are longer and more detailed
(Davies et al. 2000; Lamb et al. 2007a, b). In the forensic
setting, responses to recall prompts are approximately three to
five times more informative than responses to focused
prompts (e.g., Lamb et al. 1996, 2002; Sternberg et al.
1996, 2001a). Moreover, although the accuracy of responses
to different types of questions is difficult to explore in the
field where is it is not known what actually happened, some
researchers have confirmed that responses to open-ended
questions in actual forensic cases are more likely to be accu-
rate than response to focused questions (Lamb et al. 2007b;
Lamb and Fauchier 2001; Orbach and Lamb 2001). Facilita-
tive prompts, which are communicative forms rather than
requests for information, encourage children to keep talking
and also elicit additional information from children
(Hershkowitz 2002).
156
Establishing rapport by creating relaxed and supportive
environments for children can also enhance the informative-
ness and accuracy of information provided (Roberts et al.
2004; Sternberg et al. 1997). Previous studies have suggested
that friendly investigative environments prompt children to
provide detailed information in response to open-ended ques-
tions (Lamb et al. 2002a, 2003; Sternberg et al. 1997, 2001b).
It may encourage more complete reports by lessening anxiety
or discomfort (Roberts et al. 2004; Siegman and Reynolds
1983) and improve accuracy because children better resist
suggestions by interviewers who are warm and more ap-
proachable (Cornah and Memon 1996; Davis and Bottoms
2002; Roberts et al. 2004). As with rapport-building, episodic
memory training encourages children to provide more infor-
mative accounts. By practicing the process of describing epi-
sodic events in response to recall prompts, children not only
become aware of how much detail is expected of them when
answering questions similar to those that will be used later
when substantive issues are discussed (Brubacher et al.
2011; Lamb et al. 2008; Sternberg et al. 1997), but they are
also encouraged to elaborate on the event-specific information
they provide (Lamb et al. 2008).
Furthermore, it is also believed that children’s understand-
ing of their role as informants and of the acceptability of say-
ing “I don’t know”, “I don’t remember” or correcting the
interviewer when appropriate also positively affects children’s
informativeness (Lyon and Saywitz 1999; Sternberg et al.
1997) by diminishing confusion and inaccuracy (Lamb et al.
1999; Sternberg et al. 1997) while maximising the children’s
resistance to suggestion (Ceci and Bruck 1995; Leichtman and
Ceci 1995).
Informed by this research, evidence-based guidelines based
on the professional consensus regarding high quality inter-
views have put emphasis especially on the value of narrative
responses elicited using open-ended prompts (e.g., Anderson
et al. 2010; APSAC 2011; Fisher and Geiselman 1992; Home
Office 1992, 2007; Lamb et al. 2007a; Orbach et al. 2000;
Saywitz et al. 2011; Yuille 2002).
In South Korea, the National Institute ofChild Health and
Human Development (NICHD) Investigative Interview Pro-
tocol (Orbach et al. 2000; Lamb et al. 2008) was recently
embraced, being translated into Korean and introduced to
the police in 2010 (Ministry of Gender Equality & Family,
Republic of Korea 2010). Before 2005, there were no specific
guidelines to assist Korean police officers interviewing child
victims. Following the establishment in 2005 of One-Stop
Support Centers to provide and conduct counselling, medical
examinations, investigative interviews and legal support for
female adult and child victims at a single location, develop-
mentally appropriate interview guidelines were first intro-
duced (National Police Agency, Republic of Korea 2008).
Furthermore, Korean National Police Agency introduced a
‘Sexual Assault Investigators System’, placing only female
J Police Crim Psych (2016) 31:155–163
police officers in charge of cases that involved the sexual
abuse of women, children and the disabled in 2006. However,
these guidelines put more emphasis on video recording pro-
cedures than on interviewing strategies, so police officers
remained ill-informed about the best ways to elicit accurate
and abundant information from child victims and no system-
atic training was provided (Ministry of Gender Equality &
Family, Republic of Korea 2010). There was thus a clear need
for operational guidance for interviewers, and this need was
met by introduction of the NICHD Protocol.
The NICHD Protocol provides structured guidance about
how to interview allegedly abused children and was designed
to translate research findings into applicable guidelines and to
maximise the amount of information elicited from free recall
memory (Orbach et al. 2000; Lamb et al. 2008). It covers all
phases of the interview, including the introductory, pre-sub-
stantive, substantive and closing phases. During the introduc-
tory and pre-substantive phases of the interview, interviewers
introduce themselves, clarify the ground rules regarding the
children’s behaviors (i.e., describing events in as much detail
as possible, telling only the truth, saying ‘I don’t know’ and ‘I
don’t understand,’ and correcting the interviewer where nec-
essary). Children are asked several questions about things they
like to do (rapport-building), then episodic memory training is
conducted by asking about recent events the children have
experienced (e.g. first day of school, birthday party, or yester-
day) using open-ended prompts.
Following the pre-substantive phase, interviewers shift the
focus to substantive issues non-suggestively. The first
prompts about the possible allegation should be completely
open. However, if children do not disclose what happened in
response to these completely open prompts, interviewers em-
ploy progressively more focused prompts to identify the
suspected incident(s). If allegations are made, police officers
investigate allegedly abusive incidents using open-ended
prompts where possible. If some central details are still miss-
ing or unclear after exhausting the utility of open-ended
questions, interviewers may need to ask directive questions,
but it is important to pair open invitations with directive
questions whenever appropriate. A break is recommended
to allow children to rest while interviewers review the infor-
mation provided and plan the rest of interview. After the
break, interviewers can solicit additional information that
has not been mentioned by asking follow up questions. In-
terviewers are advised to ask focused questions only if they
have already tried other approaches and still feel that some
forensically important information is missing, and to pair
such questions with open invitations whenever possible. Fi-
nally, children are asked whether they have additional infor-
mation to report before being thanked for their cooperation.
Neutral topics are then discussed briefly before the children
leave the interview room (see Orbach et al. 2000; Lamb et al.
2008 for reviews).
J Police Crim Psych (2016) 31:155–163
Previous research has repeatedly shown that use of the
NICHD Protocol enhances the quality and quantity of infor-
mation elicited from alleged child victims in many different
countries, including the UK (Lamb et al. 2009), the USA
(Sternberg et al. 2001b), Israel (Orbach et al. 2000), and Can-
ada (Cyr and Lamb 2009). For example, Orbach et al. (2000)
examined the effectiveness ofthe NICHD protocol by com-
paring 55 Protocol interviews with 50 prior interviews con-
ducted by the same six investigations in Israel. Results indi-
cated that Protocol interviews involved more open-ended
prompts. In addition, more details were obtained using
open-ended invitations and fewer were obtained using fo-
cused question in Protocol interviews than in non-Protocol
interviews. Sternberg et al. (2001) examined 100 forensic
interviews of alleged sexual abuse victims by six experienced
police officers in the United States. As predicted, the Protocol
interviews elicited more information using open-ended
prompts and less information using option-posing and sug-
gestive questions than did comparable interviews conducted
prior to the training. Similarly, Lamb et al. (2009) examined
100 forensic interviews in the United Kingdom. Half of the
interviews were conducted using the NICHD Protocol while
the other interviews followed the Memorandum of Good
Practice (MOPG). The NICHD Protocol-guided interviewers
elicited more information using free-recall invitation and less
information using directive, option-posing and suggestive
question than MOGP interviewers. The same results were
obtained when the effectiveness of the Protocol was assessed
in a study of French-speaking alleged victims of child sexual
abuse in Quebec (Cyr and Lamb 2009).
Although previous studies have clearly shown that NICHD
Protocol interviews contain more open-ended questions and
less option-posing and suggestive questions than those con-
ducted without the Protocol and that more details are obtained
using recall prompts in Protocol interviews, the usefulness of
the Protocol has not been studied in East Asian countries.
Countries such as South Korea have different cultures, lan-
guages and jurisdictional systems, all of which may affect the
ways in which children communicate with adults or authority
figures. For example, people in East Asia, more than Ameri-
cans, tend to adjust their attitude and behavior depending on
situational factors such as whom they are with (Kanagawa et
al. 2001; Norenzayan et al. 2002). East Asians also respond
more ambivalently and modestly when asked about them-
selves (Chen et al. 1995; Choi and Choi 2002; Hamanura et
al. 2008). Because the NICHD Protocol encourages children
to produce spontaneous and detailed accounts of experienced
incidents, it might be more difficult for children raised in East
Asian cultures to give accurate and detailed responses to open-
ended prompts. Consequently, to determine whether the Pro-
tocol is useful universally, it is important to assess its applica-
bility with child victims from non-western ethnic and cultural
backgrounds.
157
Moreover, a previous study (Yi et al. 2014) showed that
Korean police officers were not adhering to the NICHD Pro-
tocol despite believing that they were doing so. That study
showed that most Korean police officers surveyed believed
that they adhered to recommended guidelines but few actually
did. Police officers perceived that open-ended invitations were
the most useful types of questions and reported using directive
questions and invitations frequently during their interviews,
but in practice they rarely used invitations and relied instead
on forced-choice option-posing and directive questions.
Moreover, some components of the recommended interview
protocol, including the introductory phase (concerned with
explaining the purpose of the interview and its ground rules),
rapport-building, and the episodic memory training phase
were often neglected by the interviewers. Since there had been
no NICHD training courses for police officers when the pre-
vious study was conducted, it is no wonder that they may have
had difficulty understanding and following the Protocol. It
was therefore important to determine whether training in use
of the NICHD Protocol improved the quality of Korean police
officers' interview behaviors.
Accordingly, a two-day intensive training program was de-
veloped for police officers whose transcribed interviews con-
ducted before and after the training were then compared.
Based on previous research (e.g., Lamb et al. 2000, 2002a;
Orbach et al. 2000; Price and Roberts 2011), our study was
conducted to determine whether: (1) police officers who had
been trained to use the NICHD Protocol would use more
desirable open-ended utterances and fewer risky focused-
questions, including suggestive questions, than they had be-
fore training; (2) more new information would be obtained
using recall-based questions after the training; and (3) how
closely the officers adhered to the protocol during pre- and
post-training interviews.
Procedure
Training courses
Two-day training sessions were scheduled for all police offi-
cers assigned to One-Stop Support Centers. Following recom-
mendations regarding training programs for forensic inter-
viewers (see Lamb et al. 2008 pp. 253-266), the workshops
were designed to provide the police officers with very detailed
and specific explanations of the NICHD Protocol, along with
opportunities to practice using the Protocol.
The translation of the Protocol was completed by the au-
thors of a governmental report, “Guidelines on investigative
interviewing of child victims”, published by the Ministry of
Gender Equality and Family in South Korea (MGEF 2010).
To ensure the validity of the translation, it was thoroughly
158
reviewed by another Korean researcher who was fluent in
both Korean and English but was not back-translated.
On the first day, the training courses explained psycholog-
ical research on child development and their implications for
investigative interviewing. This included research on the im-
portance of using proper types of questions and opportunities
to observe examples of proper and improper use and to prac-
tice analyzing and using appropriate types of questions. The
conceptual and empirical foundations of each phase of the
Protocol were also explained in detail. On the second day of
the workshops, video-recorded interviews were presented to
illustrate how the Protocol was used in practice and the police
officers practiced using the Protocol by interviewing role-
playing peers phase by phase, with immediate feedback from
instructors and colleagues.
After completing the workshops, written feedback was giv-
en to each police officer who had submitted an interview tran-
script before attending the training. This report included a
graphical comparison of the question types used, comments
on each proper and improper statement used by the interview-
er and further recommendations for future interviews. In total
77 police officers attended one of three identical workshops,
all of which were held in April 2011, with 25, 29, and 23 in
each. The three two-day training sessions were each 13 hours.
Additional information about the participants is provided
below.
Transcripts
At the beginning of the workshops, the trainees were asked to
submit one verbatim transcript of an interview with a child
under 14 years of age who was the alleged victim of sexual
abuse. The interviews had been transcribed in full by regis-
tered stenographers without any corrections or omissions, al-
though personally identifiable information was removed by
police officers before the transcripts were submitted to the
researchers. After finishing the training, police officers were
asked to submit the transcript of another interview, carried out
after the training, involving a child of the same age and sex
who was allegedly abused in the same way as the child in the
first transcript. The cases involved in the study were selected
by the police officers.
Although all 77 police officers submitted pre-training tran-
scripts, only 23% (n = 18) offered post-training transcripts to
the researchers, ensuring that 36 interviews by the same 18
trainees could be analyzed in this study. All 18 were female
police officers who had experience interviewing child vic-
tims. Four (22%) were rank-and-file police officers, 6
(33%) were senior police officers, 5 (28%) were assistant
inspectors and 3 (17%) were inspectors. None had previous
experience of the NICHD Protocol. Unfortunately, the ages of
the police officers were not requested. The time interval be-
tween the training sessions and the pre-training interviews
J Police Crim Psych (2016) 31:155–163
averaged 156.5 days (ranging from 21 to 311 days) while that
for the post-training interviews were 40.1 days (ranging from
7 to 116 days).
The 34 girls (94.4%) and 2 boys (5.6%) interviewed aver-
aged 9.4 years of age (SD = 2.85, range = 5 to 14 years) and all
made allegations that they had been abused. Three (8.3%) of
the alleged perpetrators were immediate family members, 2
(5.3%) was other family members, 14 (38.9%) were non-rel-
atives familiar to the alleged victims, and 17 (47.2%) were
unfamiliar to them. Two (5.6%) of the alleged incidents in-
volved exposure, 12 (33.3%) fondling over clothes, 15
(41.7%) fondling under clothes and 7 (19.4%) penetration.
A single incident was reported by 24 (66.7%) alleged victims
while 12 (33.3%) reported that they had been abused more
than once.
Coding
Two native Korean speakers independently reviewed tran-
scripts of the introductory, pre-substantive, substantive, break
and closing parts of both pre- and post-training interviews that
it was to assess the interview structure. In the introductory
phase of the interviews, coders noted whether or not the police
officers introduced themselves, explained their roles as inter-
viewers, and explained the ground rules i.e., asked the child to
describe events in detail, tell only the truth, say ‘don’t know’
or ‘don’t understand’ if applicable and correct the interviewer
if she said anything wrong. In addition, the existence of rap-
port building and episodic memory training sessions was not-
ed. Lastly, coders noted whether or not the interviewers took a
break, thanked the children for participating, asked whether
the child had further questions and discussed neutral topics
before closing the interview.
In order to rate the interviewers’ utterances two trained
Korean native speakers independently reviewed transcripts
ofthe substantive phases of the interviews and then classified
each utterance used by the interviewers into five categories
using the coding system and definitions introduced by Lamb
and his colleagues (Lamb et al. 2007a). In addition, the types
of prompt used to shift the child’s focus to the substantive
issues and the number of questions before the first option-
posing or suggestive questions appeared were also tabulated
to evaluate the quality of the substantive phase of the
interview.
1. Invitations: input-free utterances, including questions,
statements or imperatives prompting free-recall response
from the child (e.g. "Tell me everything about… ”, “You
mentioned … tell me more about that.”).
2. Facilitators: non-suggestive encouragements to contin-
ue ongoing responses to the previous utterances (e.g.
"ok”, “uhum”) or repetition of the last few words spo-
ken by the child.
J Police Crim Psych (2016) 31:155–163
3. Directive prompts: wh-questions which request details or
aspects of the alleged incidents or request additional in-
formation about topics or items that the child has already
mentioned (e.g. "Where did he touch you?").
4. Option-posing prompts: yes/no questions or forced-
choice questions which do not imply the expected re-
sponse (e.g. "Did he touch under or over your clothes?").
5. Suggestive prompts: utterances that strongly communi-
cate which responses are expected or assume details that
have not been revealed by the child (e.g. "Did it hurt when
he did that?").
Some introductory comments (e.g. giving instructions or
explaining rules of the interview) and summaries (e.g., state-
ments that summarize what the child said without asking for
new information) were not coded for the purpose of this study.
The number of substantive details provided by the children
was also tabulated. Details were defined as the smallest mean-
ingful units of information, which were new and related to the
investigated incident(s), including naming, identifying or de-
scribing individual(s), object(s), event(s), and action(s). The
expressions of emotion(s), thought(s) and sensation(s) experi-
enced during the incident(s) were also coded as details. How-
ever, emotions and thought state at the time of the interviewer
were not coded as details. A negative response to a yes/no
question was counted as a detail, but claims of lack of knowl-
edge (e.g. “I don’t know” or “I don’t remember”) were not
counted (see Lamb et al. 1996).
For training purposes, the two coders reviewed an indepen-
dent set of transcripts until they reached approximately 90%
agreement concerning the classification of interviewer
prompts and also the quantification of details provided by
the children. When inter-rater reliability was assessed in
20% of the transcripts in the study, agreement regarding the
classification of the prompt types, assessed using Cohen’s K,
Kappa coefficients was .91.
Intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) for two coders
in assessing the number of details provided by the children
was .81.
Results
Preliminary analysis
McNemar’s tests revealed no significant differences between
pre and post-interviews in the mean age of children (pre-train-
ingM = 9.11, SD = 3.01; post-trainingM = 9.78, SD = 2.73, t
(17) = -.644, p = .528), the sex of the children (pre-training:
girl n = 17, boy n = 1; post-training girls n =17, boy n = 1;p =
1.00), the frequency of alleged incidents (pre-training M =
1.33, SD = .485; post-training M = 1.389, SD = .502, t (17)
= -.369,_p = .717), the types of sexual abuse (X2 (4) = 4.00, p
159
= .406) or the relationship with alleged perpetrators (X2 (2) =
1.00, p = .607), ensuring that there were no confounds which
might confuse understanding of the training effects.
Introductory and pre-substantive phase of the interview
Figure 1 shows the number of police officers who completed
each component of the introductory phase of the interview.
McNemar’s tests confirmed that significantly more police of-
ficers introduced themselves (pre-training; n = 8 (44.4%),
post-training; n = 17 (94.4%), p = .004) and explained their
role as interviewers (pre-training; n = 3 (16.7%), post-training;
n = 17 (94.4%), p = .000) after they were trained with the
NICHD Protocol. Moreover, while only 11.1% to 22.2% of
the police officers explained each of the ground rules before
they had been trained, over 72.2% of them explained each of
the ground rules after the training (‘only tell the truth’ p =
.001; ‘don’t understand’ p = .002; ‘don’t know’ p = .006;
‘correct me if I’m wrong’ p = .006).
However, the number of police officers who built rapport
in pre-training (7, 38.95%) and post-training (8, 44.4%) in-
terviews did not change, p =1.00, although the number of
police officers who conducted episodic memory training sig-
nificantly increased after training from 1 (5.6%) to 11
(61.1%), p = .002.
Substantive phase of the interview
Because the Protocol recommends that interviewers attempt to
shift children’s focus to substantive issues as non-suggestively
as possible (Lamb et al. 2008), we examined the types of
questions used to initiate the discussion of substantive issues.
During the pre-training interviews, 27.8% (n = 5), 44.4% (n =
8), 11.1% (n = 2) and 16.7% (n = 3) of the police officers first
asked invitations, directive, option-posing and suggestive
questions, respectively. By contrast, the number of police of-
ficers who began with invitations increased to 61.1% (n = 11),
with directive (27.8%, n = 5), option-posing (5.6%, n =1) and
suggestive (5.6%, n = 1) questions, respectively, asked less
often after training, although these differences were not statis-
tically significant, X2 (4) = 4.800, p = .308. Additionally, the
mean number of questions (3.78, SD = 5.94) asked before the
first option-posing or suggestive question in pre-training in-
terviews, was not significantly less than the mean number
(6.33, SD = 4.63) asked post training, t (17) = -1.455, p =
.164, d = -.479.
To compare proportions of prompts of each type used in the
pre- and post-training interviews, paired sample T-tests were
conducted (see Table 1). The total number of prompts used by
interviewers in pre- (M = 116.67, SD = 86.43) and post- (M =
102.17, SD = 78.89 training interviews was the same (t (17) =
.567, p = .578, d = .175). As expected, however, the propor-
tion of invitations were used approximately three times as
160 J Police Crim Psych (2016) 31:155–163

Figure 1 Introductory phase of

interview

often in the post-training (M = .11, SD = .07) interviews as in
the pre-training (M = .04, SD = .05; t (17) = -3.47,p = .003, d =
-1.151) interviews. The proportion of facilitators used also
increased from .02 (SD = .03) to .04 (SD = .05), t (17) = -
2.10, p = .05, d = -.005). There were no significant differences
between pre- and post-training interviews in the use of direc-
tive and option-posing prompts. However, the use of sugges-
tive questions decreased non-significantly from .25 to .19, (t
(17)= 1.99, p = .064, d =.63).
Paired sample T-tests were again conducted to compare
proportions of details elicited from children in the pre- and
post-training interviews. Overall, 499.67 (SD = 463.59) and
639.44 (SD = 294.93) details were obtained on average in pre-
and post-training interviews, respectively, but this difference
was not statistically significant, t (17) = -.995, p = .333, d =
-.360. However, the mean proportion of details elicited using
invitations averaged .12 (SD = .15) before the training but
increased to .27 (SD = .11) after training, t (17) = -3.071, p
= .007, d = -1.10. Moreover, proportions offered in response
to suggestive prompts decreased non-significantly from .18
(SD = .14) to .10 (SD = .07), t (17) = 1.93, p = .07, d =
.682. These results show proportionally more details being
obtained using recommended types of prompts after training,
although the plurality of details was obtained using directive
prompts in both pre- (M = .44, SD = .14) and post- (M = .37,
SD = .10) training interviews, with significantly fewer elic-
ited this way post-training, t (17) = 2.47, p = .024, d = .594
(See Table 2).
A one-way within subject ANOVA (see Table 3) confirmed
that there was a significant difference in the mean number of
details elicited using each type of prompt, Wilks’ Lambda =
.015, F (4, 5) = 83.244,p = .000. Paired sample t-tests used to
make post hoc comparisons revealed significant differences in
the mean numbers of details elicited using invitations as op-
posed to directive (t (15) = 3.301, p = .005, d = .74), option-
posing (t (15) = 3.668, p = .002, d = .949) and suggestive
questions (t (15) = 3.713, p = .002, d = 1.058), as well as in
the numbers of details elicited using directive as opposed to
option-posing (t (17) = 5.972,p = .000, d = .784) and sugges-
tive (t (17) = 8.248,p = .000, d = 8.24) questions.
Break and closing
An exact McNemar’s test revealed no significant difference in
the frequencies with which officers took breaks in pre- and
post-training interviews, with 2 police officers taking breaks
during pre-training and 6 (37.54%) in post-training inter-
views, p = .289. With regard to the closing phase, four
(22.2%) thanked children, 2 (11.1%) discussed neutral topics

Table 2 Proportions of details elicited from child victims using

Table 1 Proportions of prompts used by interviewers different types of prompts

Pre-training Post-training t p Pre-training Post-training t p

M SD M SD M SD M SD

Invitation .04 .05 .11 .07 -3.47 .003 Invitation .12 .15 .27 .11 -3.071 .007
Facilitator .02 .03 .04 .05 -2.10 .051 Facilitator .02 .03 .06 .08 -1.841 .083
Directive .39 .13 .37 .08 .82 .425 Directive .44 .14 .37 .10 2.474 .024
Option-posing .31 .12 .35 .26 -.92 .368 Option-posing .23 .11 .19 .12 1.044 .311
Suggestive .25 .09 .19 .10 1.99 .064 Suggestive .18 .14 .10 .07 1.926 .071
J Police Crim Psych (2016) 31:155–163
Table 3 Mean numbers
of details elicited per M SD
prompt of each type
Invitation 37.11 41.99
Facilitator 13.57 16.21
Directive 8.79 4.10
Option-posing 5.87 3.31
Suggestive 5.56 3.73
and 14 (77.8%) asked children whether they had further ques-
tions in the pre-training interviews. By comparison, ten
(55.6%) thanked the children (p = .070), 11(61.1%) discussed
neutral topics (p = .004) and 17 (94.4%) asked whether the
children had additional questions (p = .250) during the
posttraining interviews.
Discussion
The present study was conducted to determine whether two-
day training programs focused on use of the NICHD Protocol
would improve the quality of forensic interviews with alleg-
edly abused child victims in South Korea. Recognizing how
difficult it is to change interviewers’ behaviors using only a
short-term training program (Aldridge and Cameron 1999),
we supplemented very detailed and specific explanations of
the Protocol with various exercises including the presentation
of exemplary video-recorded interviews, the analysis of prop-
er and improper types of prompts in actual cases, and role-
playing interviews with colleagues. In-session and
aftersession feedback was also given to the police officers.
Results showed that Korean police officers, trained using
the NICHD Protocol, showed a significant increase in how
frequently they introduced themselves and how often they
explained their roles as interviewers and the ground rules than
before they had been trained. In addition, police officers con-
ducted the episodic memory training phase significantly more
often after they had been trained. A previous study had shown
that, although they believed they were fully following the
NICHD Protocol, none of the Korean police officers conduct-
ed the episodic memory training phase before they were
trained (Yi et al. 2014). However, this result indicated that
providing training in theoretical and practical explanations
of episodic memory training actually increased use of the ep-
isodic memory training phase by Korean police officers. The-
se results might exaggerate the effectiveness of the training
because the trainees selected the transcripts to be studied.
However, the results of this study suggested that the police
officers’ understanding and utilization of appropriate tech-
niques had improved.
Korean police officers who were trained to use the NICHD
Protocol used invitations and facilitators more often and
tended to use suggestive prompts less often than they had
161
before the training. Although the number of details did not
differ in pre- and post-training, more details were obtained
post-training using fewer questions. Furthermore, the propor-
tion of new information elicited using invitations increased
after training, while the proportion of information obtained
using suggestive prompts decreased, albeit non-significantly.
The results of this study are consistent with previous research
describing the benefits of training interviewers in the use of
the NICHD Protocol (Lamb et al. 2002b, c; Price and Roberts
2011; Sternberg et al. 2001b). Especially in the pretraining
interviews, the proportion of details elicited using invitations
was smaller than that elicited using option-posing and sugges-
tive prompts, but after the training the second greatest propor-
tion of details were elicited using invitations. The Protocol
recommends increasing the use of desirable prompts such as
invitations and decreasing the use of potentially risky prompts
such as suggestive questions as much as possible when
interviewing child victims in order to maximize the potential
accuracy ofthe information obtained. These findings thus sug-
gest that implementation of the Protocol enhanced the likeli-
hood that Korean police officers were eliciting accurate infor-
mation from young alleged victims.
However, although Korean police officers used invitations
approximately three times more often after training than be-
fore they had been trained, the utilization of invitations in both
pre- and post-training interviews was still comparatively low
relative to results obtained in other countries where the pro-
portions of recall prompts used in post-training interviews
ranged from 30% to 50%, while the numbers of suggestive
questions asked by the Korean police officers remained com-
paratively high after training (Cyr and Lamb 2009; Lamb et al.
2009; Orbach et al. 2000; Sternberg et al. 2001). This might be
because we studied the initial training programs for Korean
police officers to explain question types and their usage; more
intensive and persistent training might be necessary to pro-
duce change. The post-training interviews studied here were
conducted an average of 40 days after the two-day training
programs and written feedback was provided for only one
interview. By contrast, previous studies have tended to in-
volve intensive five-day training courses with long-term indi-
vidual and group feedback sessions (see Cyr and Lamb 2009;
Lamb et al. 2009; Orbach et al. 2000; Sternberg et al. 2001 for
reviews), so the smaller effects evident in our study may be
expected. Certainly, research has shown that it is only possible
to reduce the discrepancy between knowledge and practice by
providing continued supervision and feedback (Lamb et al.
2002b, c; Sternberg et al. 2001b).
As anticipated, invitations elicited more details on average
than other types of prompts. Directive and option-posing
prompts were used by interviewers very frequently in both
pre- and post-training interviews, even though these types of
prompts elicited approximately five times and seven times
fewer details than invitations respectively. These results
162
support the idea that open-ended prompts elicit the most in-
formation from child victims, while risky prompts such as
option posing and suggestive prompts elicit the least. Al-
though numerous studies have already described the benefits
of using invitations when interviewing child victims (Davies
et al. 2000; Lamb et al. 2003, 2007b; Orbach et al. 2000;
Sternberg et al. 1997), the present results showed for the first
time that open-ended prompts were also useful when used
with children from East Asian backgrounds. Because no pre-
vious study has focused on forensic interviews of children in
East Asia countries, the study has important implications re-
garding the universality of the Protocol’s usefulness. More-
over, this study demonstrated the number of additional details
that could be produced by simply saying ‘uhm’ or repeating
the last few words spoken by the child. These results demon-
strated how effective facilitators can be, although they were
not often used. Facilitators themselves cannot generate re-
sponses, but they should be considered following open-ended
questions since they increase the number of details reported by
children.
Nevertheless, this study had noteworthy limitations. First,
the sample size was small with only 36 interviews, conducted
by 18 interviewers, included in the study. Although all police
officers submitted the pre-training transcripts for feedback
from the researchers, which was a compulsory part of the
training, only 18 police officers submitted the post-training
interview. We suspect that there may have been multiple rea-
sons for not submitting the post-training interview transcript
aside from lack of interest in the feedback. According to a
report published by the Korean national police agency
(2013), most police officers (about 80%) found the training
or feedback helpful. However, they might be feeling burdened
by submitting another transcript after having feedback or were
simply too busy to participate in the study. With small samples
it can be difficult to obtain statistically significant findings,
and generalization to the wider population is problematic. In
the future, researchers need to collect more data following the
next wave of workshops. In addition, only one interview per
interviewer does not appear sufficient, as interviews vary
greatly in the field depending on the child’s characteristics,
sexual abuse characteristics, and so on. Therefore, more tran-
scripts from each interviewer pre- and post-training would be
helpful.
Secondly, the cases involved in the study were selected by
the police officers so the interviews studied may not have
accurately represented their practices. Lastly, the posttraining
interviews were conducted immediately after the training was
completed, so the longevity of the changes in practice remains
unknown. Major improvements in the quality of forensic in-
terviews tend to occur only when interviewers have been giv-
en continued supervision and feedback (Lamb et al. 2000,
2002; Orbach et al. 2000; Sternberg et al. 2001). Further re-
search is needed to examine whether continued supervision
J Police Crim Psych (2016) 31:155–163
and feedback might extend and deepen the effects of the train-
ing given to Korean police officers.
In conclusion, this was the first study to evaluate the effec-
tiveness of training East Asian police officers to use the NICH
D Protocol. Although the quality of Korean police officers’
interview behaviors still need to be improved, this study clear-
ly showed that substantial changes in the police officers’ in-
terview behavior occurred after they had been trained. These
results suggest that the NICHD Protocol is an effective way of
increasing the quality and quantity of forensic interviews with
allegedly abused child victims in South Korea.
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