About this Guide
The resources described in this guide locate materials on psychological or behavioral instruments or locate the literature that discusses the use and validity of the test. Tests can also be referred to as inventories, measurements, psychometric tests, questionnaires, scales, surveys, and tools. Often a professional credential is required to administer the test.
Have a resource you would like to add? Contact Melissa Funaro melissa.funaro@yale.edu
What are psychological tests and measurements?
Psychological tests are standardized measures of a particular psychological variable. Tests can be purchased commercially or unpublished tests can be found in the literature using one of several resources.
- The American Psychological Association - "Finding Information About Psychological Tests"
- Advancing measurement sharing - Commentary: Copyright Restrictions versus Open Access to Survey Instruments
Specialized Resources & Tools
- APA PsycTests - serves as a repository of psychological tests and measures.
- Mental Measurements Yearbook with Tests in Print - provides a bibliography of commercially available psychology, education, business and leadership tests currently in print.
- APA PsycInfo (EBSCOhost) - contains information about the tests, some full text, and citation information to help you find the full text.
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CINAHL Complete - Cumulative Index to Nursing & Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) contains citations for unpublished and published tests and measures
- Health and Psychosocial Instruments (HAPI) - provides information about behavioral measurement instruments, including those from Industrial Organizational Behavior and Education. No full text of any instruments it references available.
- ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global - dissertations frequently include copies of a test or instrument used to collect research in the appendix
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Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) - surveys & tools to advance patient-centered care from the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality
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Decision Making Individual Differences Inventory (DMIDI) - a free, public resource that categorizes and describes the most common individual difference measures used in judgement and decision-making (JDM) research
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ETS Test Collection database - a database of more than 25,000 tests and other measurement devices. Also known as TestLink
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Measures Registry [National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research] - a searchable database of diet and physical activity measures relevant to childhood obesity research.
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RAND Health Care Surveys - all of the surveys from RAND Health Care are public documents, available without charge
- Social-Personality Psychology Questionnaire Instrument Compendium (QIC) - a collection of social and personality psychology measures
Books
Expert Search Tips
Use this search string to locate a tests or measure:
(assessment* OR checklist* OR instrument* OR inventor* OR measure* OR questionnaire* OR scale* OR score* OR survey* OR test OR tests OR tool*)
Add this search string to find validated and reliable tests or measures:
(psychometric* OR reliability OR reliabl* OR validate OR validation OR validity) AND (assessment* OR checklist* OR instrument* OR inventor* OR measure* OR questionnaire* OR scale* OR score* OR survey* OR test OR tests OR tool*)
For a more robust search filter, check out this article:
- Terwee CB, Jansma EP, Riphagen II, de Vet HC. Development of a methodological PubMed search filter for finding studies on measurement properties of measurement instruments. Qual Life Res. 2009;18(8):1115-1123. doi:10.1007/s11136-009-9528-5
Psychometric Properties: The following was created for a routine (non-exhaustive) [PubMed] search [taken from this page]:
("Psychometrics"[Mesh] OR psychometric* OR valid* OR reliab* OR responsiv* OR interpretab* OR “measurement error*” OR “error of measurement*” OR “errors of measurement*” OR consistency OR “factor analys*” OR “factor structure” OR “item analys*” OR “item response” OR “item functioning” OR “component analys*” OR “measurement invariance” OR “test construction” OR sensitivity OR specificity OR “statistical rotation” OR “oblique rotation” OR “orthogonal rotation” OR “varimax rotation” OR “split half” OR “test retest” OR interrater OR “inter rater” OR intrarater OR “intra rater” OR “known groups technique” OR stability OR equivalence OR “intraclass correlation coefficient*” OR “intra-class correlation coefficient*” OR icc OR kappa OR “coefficient of correlation” OR “coefficients of correlation” OR “correlation coefficient*” OR “pearson product moment” OR “spearman rho” OR “minimal detectable difference” OR “minimal detectable change”)