Locating Tests and Measures
The resources listed here will help you to learn about a test or measurement and read what others have said about it.
Mental Measurements Yearbook and HAPI are two sources of such information and are available through the Northeastern University online subscriptions.
- Mental Measurements Yearbook (EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new windowProvides users with a comprehensive guide to over 2,000 contemporary testing instruments. Allows for evaluation of test products in psychology, education, business, and leadership. T
- HAPI (Health and Psychosocial Instruments)(EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new windowInformation about behavioral measurement instruments, abstracted from hundreds of leading journals covering health sciences and psychosocial sciences.
Mental Measurements Yearbook (EbscoHost) and Tests in Print are considered standard sources for information about commercially available tests that are in print in the English language. MMY is a comprehensive guide to over 2,000 contemporary testing instruments. MMY is frequently used to locate critical reviews.
HAPI (Health and Psychosocial Instruments) covers 15,000 measurement instruments. HaPI can be useful to help you to: discover which instruments exist, locate evidence on their reliability and validity, track the history of a testing instrument over time, see what other instruments already have been developed in your field of study, and locate ordering information.
Note that neither of these resources includes the full text of the test or surveys. The actual psychological tests and surveys may be difficult to access. Some are available only by paying a fee. Some of the tests and measures are commercially available and some are published, but others are not.
If a published study refers to the survey you are seeking, however, HaPI or Mental Measurements Yearbook will point you to the name of the article and source that references the survey. Then, if you're lucky, you'll get the full text in a published journal to which Northeastern University subscribes, or in a book in the library's collection.
SEARCH TIPS: In HaPI and in Mental Measurements Yearbook, a common problem is getting no matching hits. If you get no results when you type in the test or survey name, try searching only the keywords that are absolutely necessary; for example, leave the word "survey" out of the search and try only the keyword in the survey name. Does the survey go by any other name? Try variations and use the asterisk for truncation.
It is also possible that the test is unpublished. In order to obtain it, you may need to contact the researchers who developed the test. The original journal article describing the study should provide the authors' addresses or affiliations.
Please contact me if you are having trouble locating a particular test or survey instrument.
Tips from APA
FAQ/Finding Information About Psychological Tests
from the American Psychological Association
APA Handbook of Testing and Assessment in Psychology
APA Handbook of Test Theory and Testing and Assessment in Psychology (Volume 1) by This three-volume handbook is a comprehensive presentation of the theory and application of tests in psychology and education. It begins with an in-depth portrayal of psychometrics: the quantitative underpinning of testing. It then provides thorough, up-to-date and informative chapters related to five general application areas of testing: industrial/organizational psychology clinical psychology (including health psychology) counseling psychology school psychology educational testing In each of these five areas, this handbook is probably the most comprehensive review of the use of testing and assessment in the subfield.
APA Books E-collection (Opens in new window) contains the full text of 80 books relating to behavioral sciences from the American Psychological Association.