The Effects of Distributed Learning on Enhanced Cognitive Interview Training

Interview training for police officers is generally limited and, when it occurs, rarely translates into optimal interviews. Training ineffectiveness may be partly due to the structure of the training programme. In the present study, 60 participants received two hours of training on the Enhanced Cognitive Interview (ECI), in either a massed (one two-hour session) or spaced (two one-hour sessions) format. Following training, participants conducted an ECI. Advantages for spaced training were found in open-ended prompt use, perpetrator-specific details elicited from open prompts, and the utilization of two critical ECI components. These results suggest that a simple alteration in training protocols could improve forensic interviewing skills.