The Structured Interview Protocol And The SIP Interview?

The two tasks that were used will be referred to as the ‘phone’ scenario and the ‘file’ scenario. The ‘phone’ scenario involved participants being instructed to walk to the first floor of the Psychology department, collect a key that was placed in an envelope outside of the post room, and proceed to find a lockbox, which was located in the staff kitchen. A mobile phone was inside the lockbox, which participants had to return to the experimenter. The ‘file’ scenario followed a similar sequence of steps, in which participants had to use a USB stick in order to retrieve a file from a laptop, and return it to the experimenter. Similar to the ‘phone’ task, the ‘file’ task was located in the Psychology department, but on the third floor instead.
The SIP interview is a recently developed ideal interview based on the same five stage PEACE guidelines and most updated techniques. However, for the purpose of this study not all stages were used as they hold little relevance outside a real life forensic investigation (i.e. planning and preparation, and evaluate). The engage and explain, account and closure stages were used, but slightly adjusted to match the context of this study. Thus, the administration of the SIP interview included rapport-building, appropriate and clear instructions, the predominance of open questions (e.g. ‘’Tell me more about X, Y, Z’’), no interruptions, the focus on mentioned topics, appropriate structure and closure. To ensure consistency between interviews, the administration of the SIP interview included two follow up questions on a topic already mentioned by the participant in relation to location, action or people’s description. Moreover, all participants were encouraged to add to the interview by being asked ‘’Is there anything else you would like to tell me?’’. Before starting the interview process with participants, the experimenter undertook three days of SIP technique training by the main creator of the protocol, Dr Fiona Gabbert. The SIP template used in this study can be seen in Appendix
Based on findings by Caso et al (In press) the Baseline interview included the absence of rapport building, the absence of clear and detailed instructions, predominance of focused questions (i.e. 5-WH; Who, What, Where, When and How) and closed questions, incorrect structure and disorganized structure, interruptions and quick change of topic area. In order to ensure consistency between interviews, the Baseline interview included two interruptions and two follow up questions in relation to location, action or people’s description. Before conducting any Baseline interviews the researcher met up with Phd researcher Caso who collected and analysed the data used to develop the Baseline interview and was given instruction and advice regarding the delivery of the interview. The template used in this study to conduct the Baseline interview can be seen in Appendix