Use the resources listed below to browse for tests on a specific topic, or identify a particular test or measure for your dissertation research, or for use as a practitioner. These resources also provide descriptive information about tests and measures such as reviews, norms, validity and reliability, and other psychometric properties.
Finding the right measure to use for your dissertation research can sometimes be a process, requiring time and patience. As you search for potential tests or measures to use for your dissertation, consider the following:
Please note: Commercially published tests and measures in The Chicago School University Library collection may not be used for dissertation research. Researchers need to obtain measures at their own at their cost. Publishers sometimes offer discounts to student researchers, and depending on required qualification levels needed to administer the measure, additional steps may be necessary. Librarians can help with any questions you may have with using commercially published measures for research.
There are a few approaches you can take to identify an appropriate test or measure to use for your dissertation.
This is often the best way to approach identifying an appropriate test or measure to use for your dissertation. Searching the literature means finding other studies that are related to your topic, and then determining if the authors used a test or instrument in that study by reading the Abstract or the "Methods" section in the article. It's helpful to understand how the constructs you are interested in have been measured in other studies. For example, while exploring the topic of employee burnout , read articles and take note of which burnout tests are used in these studies and why. This may then help you choose which burnout measure to use in your own study.
PsycINFO is a good database to use for this purpose. If a tests and measures used in a study, the entry for that article in PsycINFO will list those tests in the abstract/details of the article, and is also searchable in the Tests/ Measures limiter in the Advanced Search.
Another approach is to simply search the databases that specifically index tests and measures. Use the Find Information about Tests & Measures section below to search or browse for tests and measures on a topic.
Search the following databases to find information about commercially published tests, including full text reviews, bibliographies of studies that have used the tests, psychometric properties, and more.
Note: ETS includes both published and non-published tests and measures.
The Mental Measurements Yearbook (MMYB) is a comprehensive guide to over 2,700 contemporary testing instruments. Tests in Print serves as a comprehensive bibliography to commercially available tests currently in print in English.
The databases below provide information about unpublished tests and measures. They vary by kind of tests included and amount of information about each test provided.
The databases listed above are good places to search for information about the psychometric or other properties of tests.
Journals sometimes publish articles that investigate the validity or reliability of a test or measure. In most databases, to find articles discussing the validity or reliability of a measure, type the following into the search:
Line 1: the name of the instrument (place quotation marks around the test title to tell the database to search the words in that exact order)
Line 2:: validity OR reliability
The following databases are good places to search for these types of articles:
The largest resource devoted to peer-reviewed literature in behavioral science and mental health. Contains scholarly journal articles, book chapters, books, and dissertations. Provided by the American Psychological Association (APA).
Abstracts, citations, and full text in the field of education, including assessment and testing.
Index to nursing & allied health literature. Topics include biomedicine, alternative/complementary medicine, and consumer health. Content formats include lessons, evidence-based care sheets, CEU modules, and research instruments.
