Psychology 556: Assessment of Personality
Instructor: Dr. Catherine Lutz Zois
Class Time: Tues. & Thurs. 9:00-10:15
Class Location: 325 St. Joseph’s Hall
Phone: (937) 229-2164
E-mail: czois1@udayton.edu
*Please note that I generally respond to e-mails during regular business hours; thus,
plan accordingly.
Office Location: 330 St. Joseph’s Hall
Office Hours: Tues. & Thurs. 10:15-11:15
Required Text:
Graham (2012). MMPI-2: Assessing Personality and Psychopathology (5th
Ed.). New York: Oxford Press.
Recommended Text:
Groth-Marnat, G. (2009). Handbook of Psychological Assessment (5th Ed.). New
Jersey: Wiley.
Additional Readings:
Costa, P.T., & McCrae, R.R. (2005). A Five Factor Theory perspective on the
Rorschach. Rorschachiana, 27, 80-100.
Costa, P.T., & Widiger, T.A. (2002). Personality Disorders and the Five-Factor
Model of Personality: (2nd Ed.) Washington, DC : American Psychological
Association (Chapters 5 & 6).
Garb, H.N. (1998). Studying the Clinician: Judgment Research and Psychological
Assessment. Washington, DC : American Psychological Association
(Chapter 1). Discussion Assignment #1
Hogan, R. & Nicholson, R.A. (1988). The meaning of personality test scores.
American Psychologist, 43, 621-626. Discussion Assignment #2
Lilienfeld, S.O. & O'Donohue, W.T. (2007). The Great Ideas of Clinical Science: 17
Principles that Every Mental Health Professional Should Understand.
Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, New York, NY (Chapters 2 & 3—author listing
on e-reserve = Ruscio).
Osberg, T.M. (2008). The MMPI-2 Clinical Scales and Restructured Clincal (RC)
Scales: Comparative psychometric properties and relative diagnostic efficiency in
young adults. Journal of Personality Assessment, 90, 81-92.
Course Objectives:
1. To develop the ability to critically evaluate the usefulness of any given personality
assessment instrument.
2. To develop an awareness of which conclusions made from personality testing are
empirically validated versus which are speculative or based on clinical lore.
3. To master skills in psychological report writing.
4. To learn theoretical underpinnings, test development strategy, administration and scoring,
and interpretation of common personality assessment tests including the NEO-PI-3, MMPI-2,
MMCI-III, Rorschach, SCT, TAT, and DAP.
Course Requirements:
2 Exams @ 100pts. each
1 NEO-PI-3 full report & rewrite
1 MMPI-2 results & concl. & rewrite
1 Battery (MCMI-III, SCT, and a self-selected test)
results & concl.
1 Case Conference
2 Discussion Assignments
Participation and Professionalism
200pts.
50pts.
50pts.
50pts.
25pts.
10pts.
15pts.
400pts.
Examinations:
There will be two exams for the course. Each exam will comprise of a series of essay
and short-answer questions. The first exam will cover basic skills and issues pertaining to
personality assessment. The second exam will cover specific assessment devices and their
theoretical underpinnings, and it will include a take home portion that involves interpreting
an assessment battery.
Assessment Reports:
There will be a total of three assessment reports. The first report will involve
conducting a clinical interview and administering the assessment device to a student
volunteer, scoring and interpreting the results, writing a full assessment report. One of the
major goals of these assignments is to facilitate the development of skills in psychological
report writing that is at the level of quality expected by outside clinical placements.
Consequently, you will be expected to revise the report based on feedback from the course
instructor. Each grade will represent the average of the grades on the original and revised
drafts.
For the second two reports, you will still conduct a full clinical interview and
administer personality tests. However, you will only be required to write the last two
sections of the report (i.e., Results and Summary and Conclusions). That is, you will not be
expected to write the Background Information or Behavioral Observations sections. In
addition, for the last report, you will only write one rather than two drafts.
Please note that it is highly likely that you will require individual supervision
with me on these mock assessment reports!
Case Conferences:
Students will be expected to make one presentation based on the results of their selfcreated personality assessment battery (MCMI, SCT, and a test of your choice) conducted
with the student volunteers. Students will with the help of the instructor choose a third test
for the battery that fits the referral question. The presentations will take the form of case
conferences in that the referral question, background history, test results, and treatment
recommendation will be covered. You will also be expected to briefly review your
selected test for the class. These assignments are designed to give students practice in
presenting information about a client to a treatment team.
Discussion Assignments and Participation/Professionalism:
There will be two discussion assignments. You are to have answers to questions
pertaining to the article completed by the day in which we are scheduled to discuss that topic.
Late assignments will not be accepted. Your grade for this portion of the class will be a
function of both your active participation throughout the course as well as your completion of
these two assignments. The articles that we will discuss are indicated on the first page of this
syllabus.
I expect you to turn off your cell phones once class begins. If I see you texting or
sending e-mails at any time during the class period (including during videos or student
presentations), it will impact your participation grade.
Grading System:
A = 400-372pts.
A- = 371-360pts.
B+ = 359-348pts.
B = 347-320pts.
B- = 319-320pts.
C = 319-280pts.
F = 279-Below
Class Schedule
Class Date
Topic
Readings
WEEK 1
Aug. 28
Introduction to Personality Assessment—Major
Chp.1 (G-M)
Assumptions and Distinctions.
________________________________________________________________________
WEEK 2
Sept. 2
Accuracy in Clinical Judgment—Sources of Bias. Chp.2 (G-M)
Chp. 1 (Garb)
Chp. 2 & 3
(L & O)
Sept. 4
Accuracy in Clinical Judgment—Sources of Bias.
________________________________________________________________________
WEEK 3
Sept. 9
Psychometrics (Reliability and Validity Revisited). H & N (1988)
Sept. 11
Psychometrics (Reliability and Validity Revisited).
________________________________________________________________________
WEEK 4
Sept. 16
Other Issues (Base rates, tx. utility, gender and race, etc.)
Sept. 18
Other Issues (Base rates, tx. utility, gender and race, etc.)
_______________________________________________________________________
WEEK 5
Sept. 23
Clinical Interviewing and Behavioral Observations. Chp.3 (G-M)
Sept. 25
Report Writing, Integration of Findings, and
Chp.14 (G-M)
Treatment Planning
________________________________________________________________________
WEEK 6
Sept. 30
***EXAM # 1***
Oct. 2
NEO-PI-3
Chp. 5 & 6
(C & W)
________________________________________________________________________
WEEK 7
Oct. 7
NEO-PI-3
Oct. 9
***NO CLASS***
_________________________________________________________________________
WEEK 8
Oct. 14
NEO-PI-3
Chp.1&2 (Gr)
Oct. 16
MMPI-2
Chp.7 (G-M)
________________________________________________________________________
WEEK 9
Oct. 21
MMPI-2
Chp.3 & 4(Gr)
Osberg (2008)
Oct. 23
MMPI-2
________________________________________________________________________
WEEK 10
Oct. 28
MMPI-2
Oct. 30
MMPI-2
________________________________________________________________________
WEEK 11
Nov. 4
MMPI-2
Nov. 6
Child Assessment Instruments
Chp. 2 & 6
(Sattler)1
________________________________________________________________________
WEEK 12
Nov. 11
MCMI-III
Chp. 8 (G-M)
Nov. 13
MCMI-III
_________________________________________________________________________
WEEK 13
Nov. 18
Projective Testing
Chp.10&11(G-M)
C & M (2005)
Nov. 20
Projective Testing
________________________________________________________________________________________
Nov. 25
WEEK 14
“Case Conferences”
Nov. 27
***NO CLASS***
________________________________________________________________________
WEEK 15
Dec. 2
“Case Conferences”
Dec. 4
“Case Conferences”
________________________________________________________________________
WEEK 16
Dec. 9
Behavioral Assessment or Catch up
Dec. 11
Behavioral Assessment or Catch up
_________________________________________________________________________
EXAMINATION PERIOD
Thursday December 18th  12:20-2:10
1
From Dr. Reeb’s “Assessment of Intelligence class”
ASSIGNMENT SCHEDULE
**All reports are due in my mailbox by the end of the day (4:30) on Friday**
**Rewrites on the first two reports are due one week after the originals are returned to the
student**
Week 8 => Conduct clinical interview and NEO-PI-3 administration.
Week 9 => NEO-PI-3 report due.
Week 10 => Conduct clinical interview and MMPI-2 administration.
Week 11 => MMPI-2 report due.
Week 12 => Conduct clinical interview and test battery (i.e., MCMI-III, SCT, and
self-selected test) administration.
Week 13
Conduct clinical interview and test battery administration.
Week 14 => Battery report due.
___________________________________________________________________________