The most recent recipient of the APA Librarian Conference Travel Award, Stacey Smith from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, used the award to defray the cost of attendance at the Library Assessment Conference earlier this fall. Alison Cody, assistant manager of APA’s Databases & Electronic Resources Customer Relations group, recently talked with her to get her impressions of the conference. The following transcript of our conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and context.
Category: For Librarians
APA Style CENTRAL – Accessing the Publication Manual
APA Style CENTRAL® incorporates all of the references and content from the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, currently in its sixth edition. When future editions of the Publication Manual are released, APA Style CENTRAL will also be updated with the new rules and features.
Within APA Style CENTRAL’s Learning Center, each of the quick guides, or short training videos, is linked to one or more sections from the Publication Manual that cover the same topic.
You can find the link to the Publication Manual in the Learn More feature for each quick guide.
The Publication Manual section with related content opens in a new window or tab (depending on your browser settings):
For more information, see our Handout about APA Style CENTRAL and the Publication Manual.
New in PsycBOOKS: November 2016
In November 2016, APA added 4 new APA books to PsycBOOKS®:
- Clinical Neuropsychology: A Pocket Handbook for Assessment, 3rd Edition, ©2017 by Parsons, Michael W. (Ed.); Hammeke, Thomas A. (Ed.). ISBN: 1-4338-1688-1
- Handbook of Rehabilitation Psychology, 2nd Edition, ©2017 by Frank, Robert G.; Rosenthal, Mitchell; Caplan, Bruce. ISBN: 1-4338-0444-1
- Research Methods in Language Acquisition: Principles, Procedures, and Practices, ©2017 by Blume, Maria; Lust, Barbara C. ISBN: 3-11-041522-4
- Transforming Long-Term Care: Expanded Roles for Mental Health Professionals, ©2017 by Carney, Kelly O’Shea; Norris, Margaret P. ISBN: 1-4338-2366-7
Bibliographic records are available through your PsycBOOKS vendor. You may also download RDA records directly from APA by following the instructions in the APA PsycNET® Administrator Help Menu.
View the past monthly PsycBOOKS update lists, a list of sample PsycBOOKS titles, and the full coverage list for PsycBOOKS.
Setting up a PsycTESTS Search
PsycTESTS® is a research database that provides information on tests mined from the scholarly literature in PsycINFO®. Nearly 40,000 unique tests are represented in PsycTESTS, organized into 15 instrument types and 30 classifications.
There are a number of ways to search for a test, including the author name, keywords, test name, or test construct. (A construct is the concept the test is measuring, such as Confidence or Anxiety.)
PsycTESTS also includes limits, or controlled lists of values, that can be set before you run the search, toward the bottom of the advanced search page, or after you run the search, along the side of the search results page. These limits include:
- Administration Method – how the test is given to participants, such as Paper or Interview.
- Fee – indicates whether or not there is a fee for test use.
- Instrument Type – the primary testing category of the instrument, such as Checklist or Task.
- Permissions – the level of permissions needed in order to use a test. The Permissions statement may grant use for non-commercial research and teaching, or it may specify who to contact to obtain these permissions.
- Supporting Documentation – supporting documentation types, such as instructor guide or answer sheet.
These next three limits may seem familiar from PsycINFO:
- Age Group – specific population age groups that were the focus of the test.
- Population Group – populations to which the test was administered. Possible values are Human, Animal, Male, Female, Inpatient and Outpatient.
- PsycTESTS Classification – the general area of psychology that the measure is designed to assess, such as Human-Computer Interaction or Personality. (The PsycTESTS Classification system was created using the same principles behind the PsycINFO Classification Codes, but the codes and descriptors are different for these databases.)
There is also a Full Text Test Available checkbox that limits your search to records that have the PDF of the test attached to the descriptive record.
Opening a record from the search results takes you to the Test Master Record, which provides a profile and descriptive summary of the test.
Test Master Records have one or more Test Child Records that include information related to the test’s development, use, or review.
Child records may be:
- Test Development: discusses the development of the test. You’ll see this for most of the tests in the database.
- Test Review: reviews the test – this is available for a small percentage of the tests.
- Test Use: reports on a new use of the test – for example, a researcher may have taken a test designed for adults and administered it to teenagers. This is also available for a small percentage of tests.
For more detailed information for your platform – APA PsycNET®, EBSCOhost, Ovid or ProQuest – please view our presentation on SlideShare.
Webinar Alert: PsycINFO Sessions for Students & Faculty November 30-December 2
Our next series of PsycINFO® webinars for students and faculty will run on November 30, December 1, and December 2 from 11 – 11:30 a.m. EST (UTC -5). The sessions may be taken separately, but we encourage those who are interested to take all three, and offer them on consecutive days:
- Wednesday, November 30: Basic Search
- Thursday, December 1: Advanced Search
- Friday, December 2: Results Management
We will provide information relevant to all search platforms including APA PsycNET, EBSCOhost, Ovid, and ProQuest. The platform used will be based on the needs of the attendees of each session. For more information on this series, including full descriptions, please visit our website.
These webinars are an ideal way for students to get a refresher on PsycINFO if they have had a previous training session. Please help us spread the word to interested students and faculty!