I joined Edinburgh Napier in February 2018 as a Research Student (PhD), after completing my BA (Hons) in Psychology at the University of Strathclyde in 2016 and my MSc in Applied Forensic Psychology at the University of York in 2017. My main research interests include the reliability and credibility of children’s eyewitness testimony, as well as testing police procedures used with children. My MSc project focused on how shyness and leading questions affect the confidence and accuracy of children’s testimony, and I also spent a year in York working as victim support to children giving eyewitness accounts.
My PhD project at Edinburgh Napier is investigating how interviewing techniques and temperament affect children as eyewitnesses. It is expected that the negative effects (i.e. poorer accuracy and confidence) associated with leading questioning, closed-ended questions and repeated questioning will be significantly heightened when they are applied to children with certain temperament qualities. This would demonstrate the importance of taking personality into account when undertaking forensic interviews with children. If you would like to know anything further about my research, please contact me on: ben.cotterill@napier.ac.uk.