Action research in psychology: methods and applications

Malpass, R. & Devine, P. (2003). Increasing Eyewitness Accuracy in the Lineup Procedure Is All in How You Ask the Question.

The author of this brief overview of the research presents a very clear and concise problem statement for the research undertaken. Eyewitness accuracy when it comes to lineups is the primary issue of concern to the researchers, and the problem statement given at the top of the summary article specifically identifies the issue of false identifications -- witnesses wrongly identifying the wrong person in a lineup and leading to false arrests and even false convictions -- as the area of primary concern. This relates directly to the experiment the researchers design and carried out and to the results of this experiment, making this clearly focused and very concise problem statement relevant throughout the entire research study. The purpose of the research is clearly and immediately identified, helping the reader to quickly and accurately determine if this particular piece of research matches their needs or area of interest.

Though the summary article does not provide an assessment of previous research conducted along this line of inquiry, the authors do cite several decades' worth of research on the subject of eyewitness testimony. It is also made clear that there are many recorded cases of false identifications being made and a strong track record of generally unreliable eyewitness testimony, and these are the specific problems that the researchers set out to address. Given the citations provided in the summary and the basic foundations upon which the researchers built their inquiry and through which they guided their conclusions and recommendations, it seems evident that extensive prior evidence was examined by these researchers.

A compelling argument was made regarding the need for this information on both research and practical grounds, making it all the more clear how necessary the inquiry was and how useful its findings are. The research gap the researchers identified was not examining eyewitness testimony itself, as previous research and inquiries had already indisputably shown that eyewitness testimony was unreliable. Instead, these researchers sought to identify ways in which the reliability of eyewitness testimony could be improved, and specifically how false identifications of perpetrators could be reduced. This leads right to the practical aspect of this research, as identifying a way to improve eyewitness testimony and reduce the number of false identifications would serve the interests of justice (and the interests of the falsely identified) in directly observable ways. The researchers thus hoped to not only close the research gap in understanding part of why eyewitnesses might falsely identify someone but also to influence criminal justice practice and policy.

A simple though unorthodox design was sued for this research. During a standard college lecture given by one of the researchers, an "assailant" (hired by the researchers) interrupted the class, had a heated verbal exchange with the instructor, knocked over some equipment, and left. Students in the class -- "witnesses" -- were then asked to identify the assailant in a lineup, and were either told simply to choose someone or that they did not have to identify anyone if they weren't sure, and their responses were tabulated and analyzed. Half of the lineups did not include the actual assailant, either, adding to the degree of validity and reliability of the research.

The findings are presented and are both quite clear and quite promising in terms of both the practical and the research objectives outlined by the researchers. Witnesses that were specifically told they did not have to choose anyone from the lineup had far fewer false identifications than did witnesses who were simply told to choose someone from the lineup, and accuracy for correct positives was not diminished in either group. That is, both groups had the same level of success in positively identifying the correct assailant in the lineup, but witnesses that were told they did not have to choose someone were far less likely to identify the wrong person as the assailant. These results were apparently very clear as there is no equivocation in their presentation, leading to the conclusion that a statistically significant portion of the population behaved in the manner described and confirmed the findings.