Have you ever needed to find a psychological test? It can be a surprisingly difficult task! Many of the tests you may know by name, such as the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale or the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, are commercial tests. This means those who are interested in using them must pay a fee, and may also need to meet other criteria. If you’re a student who needs a test to review for a class, or if you’re researching how to create an effective psychological measure, you’ll need to find non-commercial tests.
You can, of course, find these types of tests in PsycTESTS®, our database of psychological tests and measures. This database contains information about, and excerpts from, more than 34,000 tests in the behavioral sciences. But what if you don’t have access to PsycTESTS?
Try PsycINFO®! You probably know PsycINFO as a database of journal articles from publishers around the world. PsycINFO doesn’t contain any full-text, but each article included is represented by a record, which has been extensively tagged by APA’s indexers. This information allows you to assess how useful the article may be before you try to find the full text.
Our indexers use the Tests & Measures field to list the tests and measures used in a particular study. (Note that this field is not displayed if there were no tests used in the article, or if the article is a First Posting.)
The Tests & Measures field in a record from PsycINFO, shown here on APA PsycNET.
Three tests were used in this article. The “[Appended]” notation next to the third tells you that questions from the test are included in the full-text article. Our indexers use “appended” when:
- the full test is included as an appendix to the article, or
- items from the test have been excerpted into a table or figure, or
- items from the test are provided in a narrative form in the body of the article.
Finally, the DOI link indicates that there is more information about this test in PsycTESTS.
In addition to reviewing this field when you come across it, you can find studies that have used a particular test by searching the Tests & Measures field for the test’s name.
Searching the PsycINFO Tests & Measures field for the Male Role Norms Scale.
You can also search for appended tests. This is particularly helpful if you want to look at test or test items that are used in studies about your topic:
Searching PsycINFO for papers about seasonal affective disorder that have a test appended.
If you’re affiliated with a college or university, you can ask a librarian for assistance with the Tests & Measures field in PsycINFO. Subscribers to APA PsycNET® Gold, Gold Plus, and Platinum packages can contact APA Databases & Electronic Resources Customer Relations at psycinfo@apa.org or 800-374-2722.
You can also learn more about our Tests & Measures field by viewing a brief video tutorial.
Searching PsycINFO’s Tests & Measures Field tutorial for:
[…] field. We started off by describing the field and the information it includes – the topic of a post on this blog a little over a month ago. Then, we did a sample search in PsycARTICLES®, our database of […]