In summary:
- Investigative interviewing is crucial – essential for psychologists in forensic, clinical and organisational settings to gather accurate and meaningful information.
- Minimising interviewer influence – open-ended questions reduce bias and encourage detailed, accurate accounts.
- The impact on memory and accuracy – open-ended questions allow interviewees to reconstruct events naturally, reducing errors and inconsistencies.
- Avoiding leading questions – framing questions neutrally ensures responses are not shaped by interviewer assumptions.
- Training is essential – evidence-based training, expert feedback, and practical application improve questioning techniques.
- APS investigative interviewing courses – APS offers e-learning programs in collaboration with Griffith University, focusing on interviewing techniques for working with adults, young people and children.
- Hear more from Professor Martine Powell at APS’s Festival of Psychology in May.
Understanding the fundamental principles of investigative interviewing is invaluable not only for psychologists working in forensic settings but also for those aiming to extract accurate and meaningful insights from their clients.
Investigative interviewing is a crucial skill for psychologists, particularly those working in forensic, clinical and organisational settings. Whether gathering sensitive disclosures from clients or conducting structured assessments, psychologists should ensure their questioning techniques elicit accurate and meaningful responses.
Martine Powell, Professor and Founding Director of the Centre for Investigative Interviewing at the Griffith Criminology Institute (part of Griffith University), is a world-leading expert on investigative interviewing techniques and believes effective implementation can benefit anyone – from managers gathering witness accounts of workplace bullying to psychologists conducting assessments that require clients to recall and articulate past experiences with accuracy.
“I started as a teacher, then worked as a psychologist supporting survivors of child abuse, which sparked a move into research on interviewing child witnesses,” says Professor Powell.
“As we progressed, my multidisciplinary team and I found that the same core interviewing strategies could be used across a diverse range of fields including health, education, social services and workplace management – essentially any circumstance where it is crucial to pull together the correct information so as to make the right decisions and changes.”
Ahead of her appearance at the APS Festival of Psychology in May, Professor Powell shares some best-practice investigative interviewing techniques and explains how psychologists can refine their skills to enhance both the utility of the information collected and the experience of interviewees/clients.
The foundations of effective investigative interviewing
Investigative interviewing differs from therapeutic conversations. While therapy focuses on exploration and insight, investigative interviewing aims to gather accurate and reliable accounts of events.
A key principle of investigative interviewing is reducing the interviewer's influence. This means not only asking the right type of questions, but asking questions in the right way.
Professor Powell notes that many professionals may believe they are asking open-ended questions but, in practice, they tend to default to directive or closed questions.
“Open-ended questions are the technical building blocks of good interviewing practice. Learning them is as important to communication as learning scales is to creating music,” she says.
She adds that global research has shown a concerning trend: only one in 10 questions asked in investigative interviews are truly open-ended. This is problematic, as directive or closed questions can inadvertently introduce bias and inaccuracy.
The aim of open-ended questions is to elicit detailed narrative accounts of events or situations in people’s own words. To ensure questions are truly open-ended and elicit the best responses, Professor Powell suggests psychology professionals keep the following principles in mind:
Is your question:
- Avoiding dictating what precise information must be recalled? (e.g., What colour was his shirt?)
- Encouraging elaborate, unrestricted responses?
- Framed neutrally?
- Clearly worded to minimise confusion?
A common mistake is assuming that 'who, what, where, why?' questions are inherently open-ended, she says.
"Their focus is on drawing out isolated, predetermined details about the event, using a more direct, rapid, question-and-answer approach."
Similarly, questions that start with 'explain' or 'describe' are only open-ended if they focus on giving the interviewee the space to explain what actually happened, rather than trying to elicit descriptive detail.
“The words ‘tell me’ are helpful, but they are not defining features. The question: ‘Tell me everything about what Tom was wearing’ is not open-ended because it dictates what needs to be recalled”.
Some examples of open-ended questions include:
“Tell me everything that happened.”
“What happened next?”
“Tell me more about the part where…”
“Walk me through what you remember from the beginning.”
“Describe what you saw/heard/felt when that happened.”
“Help me understand how that unfolded.”
Psychologists must also be wary of leading open-ended questions, which assume facts that are not yet established.
“While non-leading open-ended questions elicit the least error, leading open-ended questions are among the most harmful,” says Professor Powell.
"In other words, interviewers must not only consider the structure of the question; they must also be careful to use the interviewee’s own words and check that any new information they introduce is true before asking the interviewee to respond to questions about it."
For example, imagine a psychologist is conducting an assessment with a client who alleges that their boss has ‘mistreated’ them. The goal of the interview is to gather an accurate account of the client’s experiences while minimising bias and undue influence.
A leading question would be: "Tell me about how your manager bullied you at work."
This could be harmful because it assumes the manager has engaged in bullying, which may not be accurate. It also introduces a word that the client hasn't used themselves – bullying – which may influence how they feel about the situation.
Instead, consider asking: "Tell me about your experiences with your manager at work."
Maintaining a neutral tone gives the client autonomy to define their own experiences and creates space for a more accurate, detailed account from the client. The psychologist can then identify any patterns or events that might be worth exploring.
If the client later voluntarily states that they felt bullied, the psychologist can then follow up with another non-leading question related to a specific time and place: "You mentioned being bullied at work. Think back to the last time you were bullied. Tell me what happened?"
Grounding the allegations in actual recollections of events can be more useful than eliciting generic statements which tend to contain stereotypical information.
The impact of open-ended questions on memory and accuracy
Open-ended questions (provided they are non-leading) elicit the most accurate and detailed responses, says Professor Powell. This is because they give interviewees the time and control to reconstruct events in their own words.
“Having time to collect one’s thoughts and to mentally reconstruct the event in their minds promotes elaborate memory retrieval,” she says.
This is why asking effective open-ended questions isn't just a matter of good practice. Professor Powell points out it can actually impact the quality and reliability of the information gathered, ultimately influencing decision-making and case outcomes.
For example, Professor Powell cites research regarding insufficient use of open-ended questions during police interviews of sexual assault.
"Sexual assault is often highly dependent on verbal evidence from witnesses," she says. "If questions aren't framed as open-ended during the investigative stage, the research suggests this can contribute to lower prosecution and conviction rates.”
Specific questioning focused around unnecessary details can heighten inconsistencies or errors within and across interviews, that can then be used under cross examination to shed doubt on the reliability of the interviewee’s entire account, she adds.
“Human memory is not designed to work like a camera… Errors are minimised when we [the interviewers] minimise questions that introduce or request specific details that may not be in the person’s memory store."
Essentially, interviewers should avoid inadvertently contaminating someone else's memories with their own assumptions and biases.
"The encouraging news is that people of all ages – including children as young as four and adults with communication impairments – can effectively respond to open-ended questions with meaningful detail.
"Like any skill, improving this style of questioning takes practice, and the interviewee’s responsiveness to these questions also improves with practice. While initial responses to open-ended questions may be brief or lacking in depth, patient and consistent use of these techniques can lead to more detailed and contextually rich accounts, especially when building on the interviewee’s prior responses."
Developing strong interviewing skills
Improving investigative interviewing skills requires structured evidence-based training, Professor Powell says, in order to embed new ways of questioning into your daily work.
“Changing people’s questioning behaviour in a sustainable way is a complex area of science," she says. "The cornerstones of an ideal training program include ongoing practice, individual and immediate expert feedback, examples of best practice and quality control evaluation.”.
In collaboration with the Griffith University Centre for Investigative Interviewing, APS hosts two investigative interviewing eLearning programs to kick-start your learning journey: click here to register for our course focused on working with adults, or working with young people and children.
An effective approach is to engage in mock interviews with trained actors who play a vital role in challenging interviewers to refine their questioning techniques. Powell explains that actors are trained to subtly test interviewers’ adherence to best-practice questioning.
“If you think of the task of adhering to non-leading open-ended questions as walking a plank, a good actor’s job is to wobble that plank and tempt you to ask less desirable questions,” she says.
Powell’s research has demonstrated that without practical training, many interviewers revert to ineffective questioning habits, even when they are aware of best-practice techniques.
If formal training isn't something you can commit to at this stage, the following tips could help uplift your capabilities in this space in a self-paced, self-directed manner:
1. Self-monitor your questioning techniques
- Record and review your own interviews. Look out for instances where you may have made assumptions as part of your line of questioning.
- Track the ratio of open-ended versus closed questions and see how you improve over time. Awareness of your progress could help to keep it front of mind.
2. Use the ‘Tell-Me’ framework
- Start with: “Tell me everything about…”
- Follow up with: “What happened next?”
3. Allow for silence
- Give interviewees time to respond, resisting the urge to fill pauses with your own thoughts or follow-up questions. Silence can be powerful.
4. Seek feedback from experts
Powell stresses that effective investigative interviewing is not about extracting information but creating the right conditions for an interviewee to share their experiences accurately and willingly.
“With sufficient training, and the support to let people tell us what happened in their own way, we can vastly improve the quality of information elicited and the client’s perception of feeling listened to, understood and not judged."
Want to hear more from Professor Martine Powell? Register for the APS Festival of Psychology from 16-18 May in the Gold Coast, Queensland, to hear her session: 'Questioning strategies to enhance people’s recall of sensitive events'.
Secure your spot today.