PCO 6317C Psychological Assessment II
      Fall 2021
      Instructor: Sarah McConnell, Phd
      Class Time & Place: Monday 8:30am-11:30am
      Office: 264, Psychology building
      Phone: 352-392-1575; Email: s.mcconnell@ufl.edu
      Office hours- Monday 1130-1:00 and by appointment (reach out sooner rather than later!)
       COURSE DESCRIPTION
       The purpose of this course is to introduce you to concepts and methods of objective personality
       assessment, familiarize you with objective personality assessment instruments, and enable you to
       develop skills in administering, scoring, interpreting personality tests, writing  psychological test
       reports, and providing therapeutic test feedback. The course content will include test  history and
       development, psychometrics, and test applications, with focus on scoring/interpretation of
       various objective measures. You will also become acquainted with multicultural and
       cross-cultural  assessment issues and some of the current research in personality assessment,
       including research-based information on assessing diverse individuals and groups.
       The broad competencies to be achieved in this course are as follows:
       TEXTS
        1. Morey, L. C. (2003). Essentials of PAI Assessment. New York: Wiley.
        2. Smith, S., & Krishnamurthy, R. (Eds.) (2018). Diversity Sensitive Personality
          Assessment. New  York, New York: Routledge.
        3. Ben-Porath, Y.T., Tellegen, A., Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-3
         (MMPI-3)  Manual for Administration, Scoring and Interpretation. Pearson.
       * additional readings (chapters, articles, handouts) will be assigned and discussed during the
       semester
       List of SOME of the articles we will discuss in class. Instructor will add more as needed and you
       will have plenty of advanced notice
      Helms, J. E. (1992). Why is there no study of cultural equivalence in standardized cognitive ability
      testing? American Psychologist, 47, 1083-1101.
       Hill, J. S., Pace, T. M., & Robbins, R. R. (2010). Decolonizing personality assessment and honoring
       indigenous voices: A critical examination of the MMPI-2. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority
       Psychology, 16(1), 16-25. doi:10.1037/a0016110
      Hill, J. S., Robbins, R. R., & Pace, T. M. (2012). Cultural validity of the minnesota multiphasic
      personality inventory-2 empirical correlates: Is this the best we can do? Journal of Multicultural
      Counseling and Development, 40(2), 104-116.
      Kaslow, Nadine J ; Finklea, J. Tyler ; Chan, Ginny. Personality Assessment: A
      Competency-Capability Perspective. Journal of personality assessment, 2018-03-04, Vol.100 (2),
      p.176-185
      Nelson, J. M., & Lovett, B. J. (2019). Assessing ADHD in college students: Integrating multiple
      evidence sources with symptom and performance validity data. Psychological Assessment, 31(6),
      793–804.
      Newman, M. L., & Greenway, P. (1997). Therapeutic effects of providing MMPI-2 test feedback to
      clients at a university counseling service: A collaborative approach. Psychological Assessment, 9,
      122-131.
      The Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-IV (MCMI-IV). (2019). In The Cambridge Handbook of
      Clinical Assessment and Diagnosis (pp. 249–262). Cambridge University Press.
      https://doi-org.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/10.1017/9781108235433.018
      Wright, A. J. (2021). Deliberate Context-Driven Conceptualization in Psychological Assessment.
      Journal of Personality Assessment, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print), 1–10.
      https://doi-org.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/10.1080/0022389
      COURSE REQUIREMENTS
        1. Presence and Participation Participation in this class is fundamental to improve skills of
          conceptualization, interpretation, and clinical judgment; therefore, this course will rely
          primarily on your proper preparation and presentation. This includes, attending class
          regularly, reading the materials before class, contributing to class discussions, and
          completing your assignments on time. If you need to miss class, let the instructor know as
          soon as you know so that arrangements can be made. You will be responsible for material
          you miss.
        2. Presentation. Each student will present on a commonly used assessment, based on the
          same assessment you use for the interpretive guide (see below). Your presentation should
          include similar information that you include in the interpretive guide and should be 45-60
          minutes long.  There should be a section of the presentation about using the assessment
          with diverse populations that includes a brief review of the literature as well as your
          opinion using your clinical judgment based on your knowledge, skills, and clinical
          experiences. As part of the presentation, you will also lead the class in a discussion of two
          articles about the specific assessment; one of the articles must be about using the
          assessment with diverse populations. You will send the articles to the instructor and your
          classmates at least one week before the presentation so everyone can read them in
          advance.
        3. Interpretive Guide. You will each select one commonly used assessment to create an
          interpretive guide and share this with the rest of the class members. You will need to
          include information about the assessment, what the assessment is used for, development
          of the assessment, validity/reliability information, and specifics on interpretation.
          Additionally, please include information related to using this assessment with diverse
          populations. Please include both your opinion AND information you locate in the
          literature.
        4. Interpretive reports: Test reports- students are required to write five test reports based on
          clinical case material provided by the course instructor. For each report students may be
          provided with a synopsis of the client’s background, or they will be asked to create a
          “made up” client. The instructor will provide  the reason for referral as well as copies of
          the client’s test scores for each report.  Some reports involve writing test reports based on
          the scores from one test and other reports involve writing test reports based on scores
          from a battery of tests.  All test reports must be typed and follow the format outlined by
          the instructor.
        4. Outline. Prepare a detailed outline on a personality test that is not covered in class.  The
          outline should contain a description  of the test including its development, norms and
          other psychometric properties, description of test structure and methods of
          scoring/interpretation, discussion of its strengths and weaknesses, especially as it relates
          to use with diverse populations. You will informally present this to the class and you will
          turn in the outline on the day of your presentation. Potential options must be approved by
          the instructor.
               Grading Scale/Points Possible:
               Attendance/Participation: 100
               Presentation: 50
               Interpretation Guide: 50
               Test Outline: 50
               Report 1: 25
               Report 2: 25
               Report 3: 50
               Report 4: 50
               Report 5: 100
               Total: 500
               Grading Scale (all %):
               90-100
               80-89.99
               70-79.99
               60-69.99
               0-59.99
                LATE ASSIGNMENTS
                Late assignments will result in a reduction of 25% per day after the deadline. Extenuating
                circumstances  will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.
                DISABILITY ACCOMMODATION POLICY AND PROCEDURE STATEMENT To receive
                reasonable accommodations for a disability at The University of Florida, students are to meet
                with a support coordinator through the Disability Resource Center (DRC) in the Dean of
                Students Office  and develop a support strategy. Please keep in mind that a specific process must
                be completed before the  DRC staff can make any accommodation recommendations to faculty.
                On average, the process takes at  least two weeks to complete; however, if the student’s
                documentation does not meet all of the  requirements listed from the documentation guidelines,
                the process will be delayed. For more detailed  information about our services, please see below
                or contact the DRC Monday – Friday between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. at (352) 392-8565.
                EVALUATION OF THIS COURSE
                Your feedback is valued and important in continual improvement of the course and its instruction.
                You  can complete the evaluation online at https://evaluations.ufl.edu. Evaluations are typically
                open during the  last two or three weeks of the semester, but students will be given specific times
                when they are open.  Summary results of these assessments are available to students at
                https://evaluations.ufl.edu/results/.
                SOFTWARE USE
                All faculty, staff, and students of the University are required and expected to obey the laws and
                legal agreements governing software use. Failure to do so can lead to monetary damages and/or
                criminal penalties for the individual violator. Because such violations are also against University
                policies and rules,  disciplinary action will be taken as appropriate. We, the members of the
                University of Florida community,      pledge to uphold ourselves and our peers to the highest