Patricia Coburn

BA (Hons) (KPU), MA (SFU), PhD (SFU)
Patricia Coburn
Surrey Office: Surrey Main 2881-13
Richmond Office: R 2402
Langley Office: L 2015

Dr. Patricia Coburn is a faculty member in the Psychology Department. She received her MA and PhD from Simon Fraser University in Psychology and Law. Her research interests include legal decision-making, witness memory and credibility, sexual violence, and children in the law. She has published several papers on child abuse in Canada, and papers on human memory. As a KPU graduate, Dr. Coburn is enthusiastic about teaching and motivated to give back to the community through mentoring students. She is currently the degree coordinator in the department and has co-organized events such as KPU PSYC DAY and Connecting Minds (the undergraduate research conference) to encourage students to make the most of their undergraduate experience. She also is the lead faculty on the Kwantlen Psychology Student Journal which provides opportunities for students to learn about the publishing process as authors, reviewers, and editors. When she is not working, she loves hanging out with her children and pets, or spending time in her veggie garden. 

Courses taught

  • PSYC 1100 - Introduction to Psychology: Basic Processes
  • PSYC 1200 – Introduction to Psychology: Areas and Applications
  • PSYC 2400 – Experimental Psychology: Research Methodology
  • PSYC 2385 – Cognition
  • PSYC 3451 – Psychology and Law
  • PSYC 4210 – Critical Thinking in Psychology

Areas of Interest

Dr. Coburn sincerely enjoys connecting with students at all levels, from those in her Introductory classes who bring fresh ideas and inquiring minds, to Practicum and Honours students who are eager to apply what they have learned.

 

Scholarly Work

  • Connolly, D. A., & Coburn, P. I. (in press). Child victims and the law. In R. Roesch (Volume Ed.), Psychology and law, a volume of Routledge encyclopedia of psychology in the real world. New York: Routledge. Ref.: Ms. No. REPRW-D-19-00072R1
  • Coburn, P. I., Harvey, M. B., Anderson, S. F., Price, H. L., Chong, K., & Connolly, D. A. (2019). Boys abused in a community setting: an analysis of gender, relationship, and delayed prosecutions in cases of child sexual abuse. Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 1-22.
  • MacLean, C. L., Coburn, P. I., Chong, K., & Connolly, D. A. (2018). Breaking script: Deviations and post-event information in adult memory for a repeated event. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 32(4), 474-486.
  • Giroux, M. E., Chong, K., Coburn, P. I., & Connolly, D. A. (2018). Differences in child sexual abuse cases involving child versus adolescent complainants. Child Abuse & Neglect, 79, 224-233.
  • Vargen, M. L., Weinsheimer, C. C., Coburn, P. I., & Chong, K., & Connolly, D. A. (2018). The effects of age at court on legal outcomes. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 24, 248 - 257.
  • Coburn, P. I., Chong, K., & Connolly, D. A. (2017). The effect of case severity on sentence length in cases of child sexual assault in Canada. Child Sexual Abuse, 26, 319-333.
  • Connolly, D. A., Coburn, P. I., & Chong, K. (2017). Twenty-six years prosecuting historic child sexual abuse: has anything changed? Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 23, 166 -177.
  • Giroux, M. E., Coburn, P. I., Connolly, D. A., Bernstein, D. M. (2017). Perspective taking abilities across the lifespan: A review of hindsight bias and theory of mind. In M. Toplak & J. Weller (Eds.) Individual Differences in Judgment and Decision Making from a Developmental Context (pp. 147 - 165). New York, NY: Psychology Press.
  • Weinsheimer, C. C., Woiwod, D. M., Coburn, P. I., Chong, K., & Connolly, D. A. (2017). The unusual suspects: Female versus male accused in child sexual abuse cases. Child Abuse and Neglect, 72, 446 - 455.
  • Weinsheimer, C. C., Coburn, P. I., Chong, K., MacLean, C., & Connolly, D. A. (2017). Perceptions of credibility for a memory of a single versus repeated event. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 31,414 - 423.
  • Giroux, M. E., Coburn, P. I., Harley, E. M., Connolly, D. A., Bernstein, D. M. (2016). Hindsight bias and law. Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 224(3), 190 - 203.
  • Coburn, P. I., Connolly, D. A., & Roesch, R. (2015). Cyberbullying: Is federal criminal legislation the solution? Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice, 57(4), 566-579.
  • Connolly, D. A., Chong, K., Coburn, P. I., & Lutgens, D. (2015). Factors associated with delays of days to decades to criminal prosecutions of child sexual abuse. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 33(4), 546-560.
  • Connolly, D. A., & Coburn, P. I. (2015). Legal theory and the relationship between psychology and law. Learning Forensic Assessment: Research and Practice, 32.
  • Coburn, P. I., Bernstein, D. M., & Begeer, S. (2014). A new paper and pencil task reveals adult false belief reasoning bias. Psychological Research 79(5), 739-749.
  • Connolly, D. A., Coburn, P. I., & Yiu, A. (2014). Potential motive to fabricate and the assessment of child witnesses in sexual assault cases. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology 30(2), 63-70.
  • Pedersen, C., Lymburner, J., Ali, J. I., & Coburn, P. I. (2013). Organizing an undergraduate psychology conference: the successes and challenges of employing a student-led approach. Journal of Psychology Learning & Teaching, 12, (1), 83-91.