Workshop I
Avatar Technologies in Interview Research and Training
Workshop Description
This workshop convenes three research groups advancing avatar technology development and implementation in investigative interviewing contexts. Participants will examine contemporary approaches that are transforming interview training and research methodologies across diverse populations.
The First Research Group
A fundamental challenge in cases of child maltreatment and abuse is gathering accurate and reliable information from children. Traditional training methods for investigative interviewing have primarily focused on teaching general principles, often yielding disappointing results. This workshop introduces an AI-based interview training platform designed to enhance forensic interviewing skills through evidence-based best practices. Participants will engage with an AI-driven child avatar in real time, allowing them to practice interview techniques in a realistic, interactive environment. The AI system provides individualized feedback, helping users refine their ability to build rapport, ask open-ended questions, and improve recall accuracy.
The AI-based training platform is built on interdisciplinary expertise in developmental psychology, education and technology, and is trained on comprehensive datasets from well-designed mock and real-life investigative interviews. By combining AI with forensic best practices, this platform addresses key training gaps, providing an effective, scalable method for improving interview quality in child welfare and forensic settings. Through exercises, workshop participants will gain practical experience using the AI-avatar, receive personalized AI-driven feedback, and examine how this technology can advance investigative interviewing practices.
The Second Research Group
This team will present their research on immersive 3D avatar integration using virtual reality technology. Their presentation will focus on the theoretical framework and potential applications of VR environments in creating detailed interview simulations. The group will share insights from their development process and discuss the future possibilities of this technology in investigative interviewing contexts.
The Third Research Group
This collaborative team presents developments across multiple avatar applications:
- Adult avatar training systems
- Suspect avatar implementations
- Child avatar developments
Their work demonstrates how avatar technology can be adapted to specific interview contexts and populations, providing specialized training opportunities for practitioners working with different age groups and in various investigative settings.
Workshop participants will attend demonstrations from all three research groups, practice with different avatar systems, and discuss the future potential and ethical considerations of these technologies in investigative interviewing.
Workshop II
Effective and scientific interventions for youth prosocial behaviour
Dr Beth Hardie and Dr Neema Trivedi-Bateman are Co-Principal Investigators of the SATNAV project. SATNAV is a evidence-based comprehensive multi-component programme of change for schools that builds effective behaviour management via moral development within strong moral contexts. Collaboratively with education practitioners, Drs Hardie and Trivedi-Bateman have developed SATNAV on the basis of their decades of adolescent rule-breaking research as criminologists.
In this workshop, we will cover our theoretical approach (including Situational Action Theory and Global Learning), present our process and impact evaluation processes (and where available, results, e.g. from multiple RCTs), facilitate interactive discussions, carry out example intervention activities, and emphasise our child-led approach. We will also introduce other components of the SATNAV project, including aspects that focus on the moral climate in schools, behaviour management, and building effective relationships between staff and students. The SATNAV project is a comprehensive school-based programme of change with a focus on individual morality in combination with the moral context. This work has the potential to contribute to child development and improving school climates meaningfully and comprehensively to encourage positive decision-making to give children opportunities to reach their full potential. These impacts are expected to extend outside the school context and beyond compulsory education. The project is guided by the well-evidenced link between antisocial morality and adolescent problem behaviour, and the increasingly apparent failings of punitive behaviour management practices in schools. SATNAV has a longitudinal, participatory, and co-produced research design and is being developed with continual practitioner collaboration. Rigorous and mixed-methods evaluation is embedded throughout all aspects of the project. The SATNAV Compass component of the holistic SATNAV suite of programmes is a youth intervention programme that focuses on moral and emotional development.
Who might be interested in this workshop?
Any academic, research, or practitioner colleagues interested in youth development, including those interested in designing, conducting, and/or evaluating interventions with young people in any organisations (such as schools, youth centres, alternative education units, and/or youth justice system agencies). If colleagues have an additional more specific interest in moral development, they will find this particularly relevant, but this is not a requirement. There will be plenty of general wider broad benefit to attendees, and opportunities to examine theoretical and pedagogical foundations, consider a new evidence-based approach, engage in lots of discussion and interaction, try out the practical examples, to share experience and current and future project ambitions, and network with others.
Topics
- Youth rule-breaking and rule-following
- Punitive versus care/support-based approaches
- Youth interventions
- School-based interventions
- Practitioner collaboration
- Theoretical (Situational Action Theory) and pedagogical (Global Learning) underpinnings
- Integrated multi-level programme design
- Process evaluation planning, implementation and results
- Mixed methods impact evaluation planning, implementation and results
- Example activities
- Interactive discussions and tasks
- Opportunities for networking and exploration of potential collaboration opportunities
Dr Beth Hardie is a Senior Research and Innovation Associate at the Centre for Analytic Criminology, Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge. Dr Hardie is The Founder and Co-Principal Investigator of the SATNAV Project, and Co-Investigator of SATNAV:Compass. Beth is also Managing Editor of The European Journal of Criminology.
Dr Neema Trivedi-Bateman is Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the Criminology, Sociology, and Social Policy department at Loughborough University and is Co-Principal Investigator of the SATNAV Project and the Founder and Principal Investigator of SATNAV:Compass.
Registration
Registration to workshops is available via general online registration to the conference HERE.
