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Measurement Instruments for Research, Education, and Clinical Practice: Databases for Locating Instruments

Databases for Locating Instruments

PsycTESTS

APA PsycTests (from the American Psychological Association) 

Provides access to psychological measures, scales, surveys, and other instruments for the behavioral and social sciences. This is cross-linked by digital object identifier (DOI) to the PsycINFO database covered under the Searching Literature Databases with Test-Specific Fields section of this guide

To see what tests are available full-text in the database, do a search and then check the "APA PsycTests PDF" box under Limit your Results.  You can also limit to "Test Items Available" which indicates the test items are available in APA PsycTests.

There are several ways to search PsycTests:

1. Search by test name and select the TI Title field in the pull-down menu.

2. Search by keywords. Consider whether to limit your search with one or more of the many limit options as you move down the screen to focus your search by Age Group, Instrument Type, Language, Permissions, etc..

3. Search by using limits alone. One of the limit options is the APA PsycTests Classification. You can combine limits without using keywords to retrieve a list of relevant tests. 

4. Combine these strategies. 

Example: I am looking for a Spanish-language alcohol use assessment measure for teenagers. I select the Language limit for Spanish and limit to PsycTests Classification: 5000 Addiction, Gambling, and Substance Abuse/Use. Most of the results are not about alcohol, so I add the keyword alcohol to my search.  I then limit to Age Group: Adolescence (13-17 years). Of the relevant tests I retrieve, one has a PDF in PsycTests and the other does not, but I look at both records to see about fees and permissions. The presence of the measure as a PDF does not mean that it is free to use--permissions are often required.