Webinar Alert: Exploring PsycTESTS

Posted on April 20, 2017April 19, 2017 by Marta Soto in For Librarians

Do you need a refresher on PsycTESTS®? Are you curious what our collection of tests & measures has to offer your users? Join us for a webinar!

The Exploring PsycTESTS webinar will help you:

Understand the structure of PsycTESTS records, including master records and child records, and how they are similar to and different from PsycINFO records
Locate full-text PDFs, supporting documentation, PsycINFO source documents, and author contact info
Use fields and limits to find tests to suit the needs of undergrad assignments, in depth research, and practicing clinicians or counselors.

We offer 30 minute sessions designed for librarians, with an overview of the PsycTESTS record structure followed by a live search demo on your platform.

Exploring PsycTESTS : APA PsycNET	Tuesday, May 9, 2017	2 p.m.
Exploring PsycTESTS : EBSCOhost	Friday, May 12, 2017	11:30 a.m.
Exploring PsycTESTS : Ovid	Wednesday, May 17, 2017	11:00 a.m.
Exploring PsycTESTS : ProQuest	Thursday, May 18, 2017	noon

All times are Eastern Time.

For information on these and other trainings: http://bit.ly/APAwebinars.

Can’t make the time scheduled for your platform above? Look for the recorded webinar to be added to the PsycINFO YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/PsycINFO

APA PsycTests – Reliability, Validity & Factor Analysis

Posted on April 10, 2017August 10, 2020 by Marta Soto in For Faculty, For Individual Subscribers, For Librarians, For Students

If you’re planning to cite or reuse a test you find in APA PsycTests®, you’ll want to check the reliability, validity, and factor analysis to make sure it suits your research.

Reliability is the ability of a test to measure an attribute consistently. If a group of people takes a personality test and many of them get different results from one day to the next, the test has low reliability.

Validity is the degree to which a test reflects what it is supposed to measure. If a test that is supposed to measure general intelligence actually measures the ability to recall classic literature, the test has low validity.

Factor Analysis is a mathematical procedure that reduces a set of interrelations among variables to a smaller set of variables. For example, a sociology survey might start with six factors of wealth (income, education, occupation, home value, parks in neighborhood, and crime in neighborhood) and, using statistical correlations, reduce them to just two factors: individual socioeconomic status and neighborhood socioeconomic status.

These three psychometric fields can be found in the Test Development Record. The Test Development Record provides details from the original article that discusses the development of the test. This information should help you determine if this test will fit your needs. (Note that if the authors do not report this information in the original article, then it will not be provided in the APA PsycTests record.)

Some tests will also have Test Use and Test Review records. Each APA PsycTests record pulls information from a different research article, so the reliability, validity, and factor analysis can be different from record to record, even if they describe the same test. View a sample APA PsycTests record to see where these fields are located within the record and the data they might contain.

If you need to find the full text of the original article, look in the Reported In or Source field. If you’re having trouble finding full-text for the original article, ask your librarian.

When choosing a test for reuse, don’t forget to check permissions!

From the Deck of . . . The ACRL 2017 Databases Lunch & Learn

Posted on April 4, 2017April 3, 2017 by Patti Avellanet in For Librarians

Welcome to “From the Deck of . . .” an irregular series in which we highlight search demos and other information from the slide decks we create for our live training sessions. You can view and download these materials from the PsycINFO SlideShare account.
At the recent Association for College and Research Libraries (ACRL) conference, we presented two training sessions. During our APA Databases Lunch & Learn, we looked at some of the fields and features added to PsycINFO® in August 2016. Among the search examples for this section of the presentation was an explanation of how and why you might use the Medical Subject Headings, or MeSH terms, that have been added to PsycINFO.

In PubMed, a health sciences database from the National Library of Medicine, articles are indexed with MeSH terms, which work similarly to the Index Terms in PsycINFO. (For a more in-depth explanation, see our post PsycINFO Expert Tip: Searching by Keyword, Index Term, and More.) About 30% of the articles indexed in PsycINFO are also included in PubMed. When you find one of those articles in PsycINFO, you’ll now see the MeSH terms assigned by PubMed, as well as the article’s PubMed Identifier (PMID). How can this information be of use to your health sciences researchers and students?

Researchers are increasingly aware that research relevant to their interests may be available outside their specialty. For example, perhaps you’re working with someone who’s looking at brain inflammation and its impact on mood. They’ve found some information in PubMed, but would like to recreate their search in PsycINFO to find additional resources from psychology.

One easy way to find the relevant terms from the PsycINFO Thesaurus is to start by looking at some of the useful articles the researcher has already found in PubMed. By using the PMIDs to find some of those articles in PsycINFO, you can review the MeSH terms and the PsycINFO Subject Headings assigned to the article. From there, you can rebuild the search using terms from the PsycINFO Thesaurus.

To review the full search example, take a look at the slides from our APA Databases Lunch & Learn. You’ll also find some sample search scenarios for PsycTESTS®, and a brief review of APA Style CENTRAL®.

From the Deck of . . . The ALA Midwinter 2017 Lunch & Learn

Posted on February 13, 2017February 13, 2017 by Patti Avellanet in For Faculty, For Individual Subscribers, For Librarians, For Students

We recently presented our Lunch & Learn training session at the American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter Meeting & Exhibition. During the session, we reviewed PsycTESTS®, an extensive collection of psychological tests, measures, scales, surveys, and other instruments. Over 42,000 tests are represented in the database, and a full or partial version of the measure is available for about 50% of them.

PsycTESTS is a wonderful resource for students learning to conduct measures, or researchers developing their own tests. In addition, many of the tests included can be used for non-commercial research and educational purposes, which includes general clinical use. (For more information, see our post How Permissions Work in PsycTESTS.)

During our session at ALA Midwinter, we reviewed the record structure of PsycTESTS, which is very different from a database like PsycINFO®. In PsycINFO, one article is represented by one record, which contains information about the article, taken from the article itself. In PsycTESTS, a test can be represented by multiple records, which contain information about the test, taken from a source document. A source document is typically a journal article, book chapter, technical report, or dissertation.

Visual representation of PsycTESTS record structure at http://www.apa.org/pubs/databases/psyctests

A visual representation of the record structure for PsycTESTS.

Every test in PsycTESTS is represented by a Test Master Record, which displays basic information about the test. You’ll also see either a Test Development Record or a Test Primary Data Record, which provide additional information about the test.

The Test Master Record provides basic information about the instrument and links to other records, which contain information from source documents, such as a journal article or book chapter:
- Test Development Record: provides information describing the development of the measure
- A Primary Data Record is provided for commercial tests, or tests with no source document (for example, a historical test)

A small number of tests will have an additional record or records:

Test Use Record: provides information describing a new use of the measure (for example, an article that reports on using a test developed for adults with children)
Test Review Record: provides information about an evaluation of the measure

The way these records are connected, and how they interact with one another, varies widely depending on how you access PsycTESTS: via APA PsycNET®, EBSCOhost, Ovid, or ProQuest. To see what a PsycTESTS record looks like on your platform, take a look at the slides from our Lunch & Learn. You’ll also find some sample search scenarios for PsycTESTS.

The presentation also included an overview of incorporating APA Style CENTRAL® into your teaching, and a look at some new and forthcoming publications.

Related Resources:

A “Getting Started with PsycTESTS” guide is available for each of the major vendor platforms. This handout demonstrates the various fields and features in PsycTESTS. To download or link to this resource, visit our Search Guides page.

How Permissions Work in PsycTESTS

Posted on December 21, 2016April 7, 2017 by Marta Soto in For Faculty, For Individual Subscribers, For Librarians, For Students

PsycTESTS® is a research database that provides information on tests that originated in the scholarly literature. Tests are mined from the journals currently covered in the PsycINFO database.

PsycTESTS records include citations and links to articles that discuss the development of the test and how it can be used. Each PsycTESTS record includes a Permissions field with information about how the test can be used in your research or clinical work.

Currently, over 24,000 PsycTESTS records (almost 60%) grant the permission “May use for Research / Teaching.”

The test PDF has a cover sheet with a longer description of Research / Teaching use:

Test content may be reproduced and used for non-commercial research and educational purposes without seeking written permission. Distribution must be controlled, meaning only to the participants engaged in the research or enrolled in the educational activity. Any other type of reproduction or distribution of test content is not authorized without written permission from the author and publisher. Always include a credit line that contains the source citation and copyright owner when writing about or using any test.

Examples of permitted use include:

Using the test for educational purposes, for example in a school project
Publishing the results of research using the test, as well as the test itself, with a copyright notice giving credit to the original test authors
General use in a clinical setting

Examples of nonpermitted use include:

Posting the test online
Implying or stating that the test is your original work
Publishing the test or selling the test to a commercial publisher
Using the test in research intended to support commercial gain

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