1. THE EFFECTS OF PRACTICE NARRATIVES IN INTERVIEWS WITH AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL CHILDREN GEMMA HAMILTON (PHD CANDIDATE) DR. SONJA BRUBACHER PROF. MARTINE POWELL

2. PRACTICE NARRATIVES Tell me something you’ve done? Tell me something you like to do? Tell me about the last time… 1.Rapport-building 2.Retrieving & reporting episodic memories 3.Practice responding to open-ended questions (e.g., “tell me more about that?”)

3. INTERACTION DIFFERENCES Interaction StylesAboriginal-Australian Culture Anglo-Australian Culture EnglishAboriginal English= prevalent language Standard Australian English = first language DiscourseResponses = minimal, brief, unelaborated (Sharifian, 2001) Responses = varied depending on prompts Relationship-buildingQuestions = intrusiveQuestions = polite

4. WHAT ARE THE EFFECTS OF A PRACTICE NARRATIVE ON THE INFORMATIVNESS AND ACCURACY OF ABORIGINAL CHILDREN’S ACCOUNTS?

5. Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) code of ethics for working with Indigenous Australians.

6. Practice Narrative (33) No Practice Narrative (31) Age (years) 6-15 yearsM = 9.03, SD = 1.88 M = 9.45, SD = 1.98 GenderFemale1713 Male1618 Participants (N=64)

7. DEAKIN ACTIVITIES 30-minute staged event Puppet Exercising (jumping) Listening to a story Lying down for a rest Getting refreshed (wet wipes) Receiving a prize (sticker)

8. INTERVIEW STRUCTURE Introduction Ground rules Practice Narrative (or not) Initiate substantive phase Open-ended questioning

9. Interviews conducted & recorded Interviews transcribed & coded Interviews collated & analysed

10. RESULTS: PRACTICE NARRATIVES 1.Practice narratives ≠ more accurate and informative accounts 2.Verbosity during practice narrative = more words and target details during substantive phase

11. EFFECTS OF GENDER Target Details Word Counts Errors

12. EFFECTS OF AGE Target details: no significant age effects Word count: no significant age effects Errors: no significant age effects

13. CONCLUSIONS Aboriginal children need to be interviewed according to the best possible and most appropriate techniques Include practice narratives in investigative interviews with all Aboriginal children in the knowledge that it will at least benefit those who are responsive during narrative training Future research needed to improve how practice narratives are conducted with all Aboriginal children, especially less talkative children

14. THANK YOU! QUESTIONS? Gemma Hamilton Student representative iIIRG PhD candidate and sessional academic Deakin University gcch@deakin.edu.au Phone: 0425 785 167