Kyle Hubbard

Children's Recall Accuracy for Repeated Events over Multiple Interviews: Comparing Information Types

The present study examined childrens recall accuracy for a repeated event over multiple interviews. Participants took part in three play sessions and were then questioned in three separate interviews a week later. The sample included 87 children between 4 to 10 years of age. Repeated measures ANOVAs were conducted to examine total accuracy and accuracy for action (i.e., what happened during the play session) and detail (i.e., descriptions of objects, people, time, and locations) information. Older children were more accurate in their recall than were younger children, but total accuracy did not differ across interviews. Conversely, children were more accurate when recalling detail information compared to action information, and accuracy for detail information improved across the interviews, while accuracy for action information deteriorated from Interview 1 to 3. Implications for judging the accuracy of childrens witness testimony in real-world forensic contexts involving multiple events and interviews are discussed.

Short- and long-term effects of over-reporting of grades on academic self-concept and achievement

This study examined the short- and long-term effects of self-enhancement (i.e., overreporting of academic grades) on academic self-concept and academic achievement. A total of 916, 719, and 647 students participated in the first, second, and third waves of assessment, respectively (mean age at T1 = 15.6 years). At each assessment, students reported their last midterm grades and their self-concepts in mathematics, German, English, and French. Actual midterm grades were obtained from the school administrations. Results showed that self-enhancement was positively associated with self-concept in the short term. However, in the long term, self-enhancement was directly associated with stronger decreases in self-concept and indirectly with stronger decreases in achievement that were linked to inflated self-concepts. Implications for research and educational practice are discussed.