Books by Rebecca A Weiss
How We Teach Now provides an accessible introduction to student-centered teaching methods that ai... more How We Teach Now provides an accessible introduction to student-centered teaching methods that aim to create varied learning opportunities for students to develop liberal arts and professional skills (such as critical thinking, oral and written communication, collaboration and teamwork) in addition to discipline-specific content knowledge. Chapters describe evidence-based teaching practices informed by a rich literature on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning that emphasizes the value of active inquiry in fostering student learning and development. The chapters provide lesson plans as well as practical advice on how to shift one’s teaching away from teacher-centered methods, such as lecturing, to more effectively engage students in their own learning. Authors highlight the importance of building rapport and dialogue within the classroom, designing lessons and assessments with careful thought to purpose (i.e., using backward course design) and communicating the learning objectives to students, validating students’ diverse life experiences and background as relevant to their coursework, scaffolding difficult assignments to make them manageable, and using research as a context for cultivating interest in psychological science. The volume is intended for instructors interested in adopting state-of-the art teaching methods to help their students achieve their full potential. Contributors range from expert teachers to graduate student members of the Society for the Teaching of Psychology.
Papers by Rebecca A Weiss
Identifying Feigning in Trauma-Exposed African Immigrants
Psychological Assessment, 2016
As the populations of Western countries become more diverse, the risk of inaccurately generalizin... more As the populations of Western countries become more diverse, the risk of inaccurately generalizing knowledge from majority ethnic groups to minority groups is increasing. However, few of the measures used in forensic assessment are based on normative samples that represent the considerable diversity present in forensic settings. This study examined 4 commonly used measures of feigning: the Dot Counting Test (DCT; Boone, Lu, & Herzberg, 2002); the Miller Forensic Assessment of Symptoms (M-FAST; Miller, 2001); the Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM; Tombaugh, 1996); and a validity scale (atypical responding; ATR) on the Trauma Symptom Inventory-2 (Briere, 2011). The study compared performance on these measures of feigning among 3 groups of African immigrants: honest participants with and without posttraumatic stress disorder, and participants asked to feign distress-related symptoms. The data were used to assess the classification accuracy of each measure and the effect of demographic and cultural variables. Three of the 4 measures (M-FAST, TOMM, and ATR) significantly differentiated between participants asked to respond honestly and those asked to feign, although no measure produced higher than moderate classification accuracy. The M-FAST and DCT produced high false positive rates in the honest groups, ranging from 33% to 63%. Surprisingly, demographic and cultural variables were not significantly associated with test scores. The results emphasize the need for future related research. (PsycINFO Database Record
Hopkins Competency Assessment Test (HCAT)
Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law, 2008
Differentiating genuine versus feigned posttraumatic stress disorder in a sample of torture survivors
Developing a theory driven text messaging intervention for addiction care with user driven content
Psychology of Addictive Behaviors Journal of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors, Mar 1, 2013
The number of text messaging interventions designed to initiate and support behavioral health cha... more The number of text messaging interventions designed to initiate and support behavioral health changes have been steadily increasing over the past 5 years. Messaging interventions can be tailored and adapted to an individual's needs in their natural environment-fostering just-in-time therapies and making them a logical intervention for addiction continuing care. This study assessed the acceptability of using text messaging for substance abuse continuing care and the intervention preferences of individuals in substance abuse treatment in order to develop an interactive mobile text messaging intervention. Fifty individuals enrolled in intensive outpatient substance abuse treatment completed an assessment battery relating to preferred logistics of mobile interventions, behavior change strategies, and types of messages they thought would be most helpful to them at different time points. Results indicated that 98% participants were potentially interested in using text messaging as a continuing care strategy. Participants wrote different types of messages that they perceived might be most helpful, based on various hypothetical situations often encountered during the recovery process. Although individuals tended to prefer benefit driven over consequence driven messages, differences in the perceived benefits of change among individuals predicted message preference. Implications for the development of mobile messaging interventions for the addictions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).
Developing a theory driven text messaging intervention for addiction care with user driven content
Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 2013
The number of text messaging interventions designed to initiate and support behavioral health cha... more The number of text messaging interventions designed to initiate and support behavioral health changes have been steadily increasing over the past 5 years. Messaging interventions can be tailored and adapted to an individual's needs in their natural environment-fostering just-in-time therapies and making them a logical intervention for addiction continuing care. This study assessed the acceptability of using text messaging for substance abuse continuing care and the intervention preferences of individuals in substance abuse treatment in order to develop an interactive mobile text messaging intervention. Fifty individuals enrolled in intensive outpatient substance abuse treatment completed an assessment battery relating to preferred logistics of mobile interventions, behavior change strategies, and types of messages they thought would be most helpful to them at different time points. Results indicated that 98% participants were potentially interested in using text messaging as a continuing care strategy. Participants wrote different types of messages that they perceived might be most helpful, based on various hypothetical situations often encountered during the recovery process. Although individuals tended to prefer benefit driven over consequence driven messages, differences in the perceived benefits of change among individuals predicted message preference. Implications for the development of mobile messaging interventions for the addictions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).
Navigating cross-cultural issues in forensic assessment: Recommendations for practice
Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 2012
Immigration trends are rapidly increasing the diversity present in individuals who require psycho... more Immigration trends are rapidly increasing the diversity present in individuals who require psychological evaluation. Forensic psychologists in particular are often faced with evaluatees from diverse backgrounds, about which they may have little or no prior knowledge. Furthermore, the measures commonly used in forensic assessment have rarely been developed for, or validated in, individuals from nonmajority cultural backgrounds, let alone in languages other than English. This article examines a range of topics that impact cross-cultural validity in psychological assessments more generally, with particular attention to the issues most relevant for forensic assessment (e.g., clinical interviewing, diagnostic assessment, and psychological testing). Additionally, recommendations for best practice in forensic assessment with culturally diverse evaluatees are offered.
International Journal of Forensic Mental Health, 2010
With the ever-increasing cultural diversity in the United States, the need for malingering assess... more With the ever-increasing cultural diversity in the United States, the need for malingering assessment instruments that are valid in diverse cultures and languages has become increasingly apparent. Although language-based tests are obviously problematic when applied to non-English speaking individuals, even nonverbal tests may have subtle (or blatant) biases that render normative data from U.S. samples inaccurate. This study focused on the applicability of a nonverbal malingering test, the Dot Counting Test, in a non-Western population undergoing forensic evaluation for a civil lawsuit. The DCT was administered to 105 Punjabi Sikh litigants, and the distribution of scores and associations with clinical and demographic variables was analyzed. Results demonstrated that a large proportion of seemingly honest respondents (based on clinician ratings) were misclassified as likely malingering based on the DCT. The implications for malingering assessment are discussed.
Fitness to stand trial evaluations in immigration proceedings
Canadian Psychology/Psychologie canadienne, 2016
The original and revised structured interview of reported symptoms in a sample of individuals with intellectual disabilities
Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online, Mar 1, 2013
The journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
In Lucy J. v. State, 244 P.3d 1099 (Alaska 2010), the Supreme Court of the State of Alaska review... more In Lucy J. v. State, 244 P.3d 1099 (Alaska 2010), the Supreme Court of the State of Alaska reviewed the case of Lucy J., who appealed the termination of her parental rights. The mother of two acknowledged the superior court's classification of her children as children in need of aid under Alaska Stat. § 47.10.011(9)(2008) but appealed the court's conclusion that she had not remedied her behavior, that the Office of Child Services (OCS) had actively attempted to preserve her family, and that her actions were cause for termination under the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) 25 U.S.C. § 1903(4) (2006)
Trauma exposure, posttraumatic stress disorder symptomatology, and aggression in male juvenile offenders
Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 2014
ABSTRACT Juvenile offenders have a high prevalence of trauma exposure and posttraumatic stress di... more ABSTRACT Juvenile offenders have a high prevalence of trauma exposure and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, as well as aggressive behavior. However, relationships between exposure to different specific types of traumatic events, PTSD symptoms, and aggression have not been systematically investigated. Subgroups of male juvenile offenders were identified based on their self-reported exposure to different types of traumatic events. Male juvenile offenders who endorsed multiple types of trauma exposure or traumatic exposure involving violence endorsed higher levels of PTSD symptomatology but not self-reported aggression. In addition, meeting the DSM–IV PTSD diagnosis Criterion A for traumatic exposure was associated with more severe emotional and behavioral problems in the youth who were exposed to community violence. Implications for theory and research on violent trauma and polyvictimization, and the use of self-report trauma history and PTSD measures for screening, with youth involved in the juvenile justice system, are discussed.
Cross-Cultural Validity in Forensic Psychology: The Efficacy of Measures of Effort in a Sample of West Africans
PsycEXTRA Dataset, 2000
Health-related quality of life (HRQoL): The impact of medical and demographic variables upon pediatric recipients of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation
Pediatric Blood & Cancer, 2011
The trajectory of Heath-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) in pediatric recipients who have undergon... more The trajectory of Heath-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) in pediatric recipients who have undergone hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), as well as the demographic and medical factors that predict HRQoL, has lagged behind the adult research. A prospective longitudinal study of HRQoL in pediatric HSCT recipients was conducted with 95 patients at the Columbia University Medical Center between 2002 and 2009. Both children and parents completed the PedsQL 4.0 prior to HSCT and at days 100, 180, and 365-post-HSCT. The majority of patients and their parents reported linear improvements in HRQoL in the first year post-transplant; however, a portion of patients were in the at-risk group at each time point. Latent growth modeling was utilized to examine demographic and medical factors that predicted initial HRQoL and its trajectory. Older age at transplant significant predicted lowered HRQoL at baseline for self- and parent-report. Female gender significantly impacted lowered self-reported physical HRQoL over time. Ethnicity was a significant predictor of HRQoL at baseline and over time for self- and parent-report, with African-American children reporting the highest HRQoL; whereas, the worst decline in psychosocial HRQoL was often reported by parents and children of Asian descent. This research identifies the significant impact of ethnicity upon HRQoL following pediatric HSCT. It is likely that an individual's pre-morbid experiences and expectations, particularly with regard to culture, behaviors, and values, influence the parent and child's perceptions and expectations of the HSCT process.
Quality of life and behavioral follow-up study of Head Start I pediatric brain tumor survivors
Journal of Neuro-Oncology, 2011
To evaluate the Quality of Life (QoL) and Social-Emotional/Behavioral functioning of survivors tr... more To evaluate the Quality of Life (QoL) and Social-Emotional/Behavioral functioning of survivors treated on the "Head Start I" protocol at participating medical centers across the United States between 1991 and 1997. Parents of 25 of 27 (92.5%) patients completed the Child Health Questionnaire PF-50 (CHQ), to assess their child's QoL, along with the Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC), to assess their social-emotional/behavioral functioning, after a mean follow-up of 5.7 years (range 13-96 months). Nineteen (76%) of the 25 parents subsequently completed the same instruments after a mean of 11.6 years (range 90-181 months), three (12%) patients died of disease and three (12%) were lost to follow-up. Mean Physical and Psychosocial QoL Summary Scores on the CHQ at Time 1 (T1) and Time 2 (T2) were within the normal range. Of the ten individual means for CHQ subscales, nine were within normal limits with the exception of Parental Emotional Impact at T1 and General Health at T2. Additionally, mean scores on the BASC at T1 and T2 were within normal limits for Externalizing and Internalizing Behaviors as well as Adaptive Skills. Serial analyses between T1 and T2 revealed non-significant changes over time with the exception of decreased General Health on the CHQ. The lack of QoL and Social-Emotional/Behavioral deficits suggests that the Head Start I protocol, involving intensive induction followed by myeloablative chemotherapy and autologous hematopoietic cell rescue in order to avoid or delay cranial irradiation, provides encouraging pilot data warranting continued monitoring.
The Utility of the Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms in a Sample of Individuals With Intellectual Disabilities
Assessment, 2011
The challenges of accurate forensic assessment are aggravated when evaluatees have intellectual d... more The challenges of accurate forensic assessment are aggravated when evaluatees have intellectual disabilities. Few studies have addressed the efficacy of forensic assessment in samples diagnosed with an intellectual disability, and those that have typically focus on measures of cognitive effort rather than on feigned psychiatric symptoms. This study focuses on the applicability of the original and revised versions of the Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms (SIRS) in a sample of participants with genuine intellectual disabilities. The SIRS was administered to 43 individuals diagnosed with intellectual disabilities, all of whom were asked to respond honestly. A considerable proportion of these respondents were misclassified as feigning psychiatric symptoms. These misclassifications were most frequent when the respondents had comorbid psychiatric diagnoses. The updated scoring algorithm of the SIRS-2 generated a rate of misclassifications that was substantially lower but that still exceeded published normative data. The implications for forensic assessment are discussed.
Conference Presentations by Rebecca A Weiss
The Impact of Callousness and PTSD Symptoms on Aggression in Male Juvenile offenders: Implications for Identification and Intervention
PsycEXTRA Dataset, 2012
Relationship Between Pain and Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors in Pediatric Brain Tumor Survivors
PsycEXTRA Dataset, 2000
The Paradox of Legally Mandated Addictions Treatment: The Feasibility of Preferred Behavioral Change Strategies
PsycEXTRA Dataset, 2012
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Books by Rebecca A Weiss
Papers by Rebecca A Weiss
Conference Presentations by Rebecca A Weiss