APA PsycTests Expert Tip: Finding Supporting Documentation

APA PsycTests An unparalleled resource for psychological tests and measures

APA PsycTests® is APA’s database that provides descriptive summaries, full text, and relevant citations on the development and assessment of tests and measures that can be used in research and teaching.

Every APA PsycTests record includes a test profile with dozens of descriptive fields such as test name, summary, construct measured, permission, and reliability.

The full-text test can be found as a linked PDF in about half of APA PsycTests records.

Some APA PsycTests records also include an additional link for supporting documentation.

These are a few of the types of Supporting Documentation that can help you administer a test or analyze the data gathered:

  • Answer Sheet
  • Directions/Instructions
  • Instructor/Test Manual/Guide
  • Norms/Analyses

When searching APA PsycTests on its own, you will see an option on the advanced search page to limit your results to a particular type of Supporting Documentation.

When the original test author and publisher have granted APA permission, the supporting documentation will be included with the full text of the test as part of the APA PsycTests record.

If you have questions about supporting documentation that aren’t answered in the test record, you can always:

  • check the Correspondence field for author contact information or
  • check the Source Used field for a doi link to the original full-text publication that developed the test.

The screenshots above show how these fields appear in the APA PsycNET version of APA PsycTests.  

You can see how this looks on EBSCOhost, Ovid, or ProQuest in this step-by-step guide.

Marta Soto