In child sexual abuse cases, the victim’s testimony is essential, because the victim and the perpetrator tend to be the only eyewitnesses to the crime. A potentially important component of an abuse report is the child’s subjective reactions to the abuse. Attorneys may ask suggestive questions or avoid questioning children about their reactions, assuming that children, given their immaturity and reluctance, are incapable of articulation. We hypothesized that How questions referencing reactions to abuse (e.g., “how did you feel”) would increase the productivity of children’s descriptions of abuse reactions. Two studies compared the extent to which children provided evaluative content, defined as descriptions of emotional, cognitive, and physical reactions, in response to different question-types, including How questions, Wh-questions, Option-posing questions (yes–no or forced-choice), and Suggestive questions. The first study examined children’s testimony (ages 5–18) in 80 felony child sexual abuse cases. How questions were more productive yet the least prevalent, and Option-posing and Suggestive questions were less productive but the most common. The second study examined interview transcripts of 61 children (ages 6 –12) suspected of being abused, in which children were systematically asked How questions regarding their reactions to abuse, thus controlling for the possibility that in the first study, attorneys selectively asked How questions of more articulate children. Again, How questions were most productive in eliciting evaluative content. The results suggest that interviewers and attorneys interested in eliciting evaluative reactions should ask children “how did you feel?” rather than more direct or suggestive questions.
Relationships among level (i.e., frequency) of youth ministry (YM) participation, faith-nurturing characteristics of YM, and faith maturity were examined in 742 second-generation Korean American adolescents (SGKAAs) in 7th through 12th grade from 13 Korean American churches in California. Using Baron and Kenny's (1986) framework, this study tested the hypothesis that faith-nurturing characteristics of YM mediated the relationship between the level (i.e., frequency) of YM participation and faith maturity of adolescents. The significant relationship between the level of YM participation and faith maturity was significantly reduced in magnitude when faith-nurturing characteristics of YM were included in the model, providing evidence in this sample that faith-nurturing characteristics of YM were a partial mediator. The implications for YM are discussed. The present investigation demonstrates how multiple regression analyses can be used as one possible method for testing mediation effects involving YM and adolescent faith maturity.
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