Practicing Child Interviews in a Targeted Way: Can Digital Avatars Provide the Desired Added Value? This question is examined in this study.
Children are particularly vulnerable in criminal proceedings. Often, their testimony is the only piece of evidence, which makes the quality of the interview crucial. In practice, children are often interviewed by inexperienced professionals, as there are few opportunities to practice conducting child interviews.
This issue is addressed in the SNSF project «Virtual Kids – Virtual Characters to Improve the Quality of Child Interviews». In this interdisciplinary project, an application is being developed that enables interview training with virtual avatars. This allows professionals (e.g., police, social services, and public prosecutors) to improve the quality of their interviews. How this works in practice is shown in an SRF report.
As part of the acceptance study, the first prototype was tested and evaluated with the target group. The application was well received, and a long-term study within the framework of the main project is expected to begin at the end of 2024 to examine the effectiveness of the application.
Project Data
| Project Type | Research |
| Duration | 01.06.2023 – 31.12.2023 |
| Project Partner | HSLU Sozial Arbeit – Devianz, Gewalt und Opferschutz |
| Funding | SNF-HSLU als HauptgesuchstellerIn Forschungsfinanzierung allgemein ITC Digitale Transformation der Arbeitswelt |
| Project Team | Ariana Huwiler, Simon Hischier, Tobias Kreienbühl, Richard Wetzel, Susanna Niehaus |