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Educational and Psychological Instruments

Links to databases and other resources for finding educational and psychological instruments. Also provides explanations, search tips, and other advice for locating and using instruments.

Contact the librarian at your campus for more help!

Ellysa Cahoy

University Park / World Campus:
Ellysa Cahoy
(ellysa@psu.edu or 814-865-9696)

Harrisburg / World Campus:
Bernadette Lear
(BAL19@psu.edu or 717-948-6360)

Introduction

There is a difference between finding a few questions quickly for a class assignment, versus identifying the BEST instruments for your thesis, dissertation, or research project. If you are doing deep research to make an impact on your profession, or you are hoping to publish your results, it's important to know which instruments are widely used and have been peer-reviewed by other researchers. Below are some resources.

Exploring Tests That Are Commonly Used and Peer Reviewed

Identifying Additional Instruments (if needed)

Search Tips

Finding the best instruments for your project can be challenging. As you work through the steps above, here are some general tips:

    “Truncate” (*) your keyword searches so that library databases will search for all forms of the root word
    • For instance, assess* will find books and articles that have “assessment” or “assessing” in the title
  • Try related and broader words, especially if you are finding too few results
    • For instance, if you’d like to measure problem-solving ability in 16 to 21-year olds, try both "adolescents," "high school," and related words. Also, you can try "intelligence" (a broader term) instead of “problem-solving ability”
  • Carefully note every clue you find regarding your instruments, their authors, and their publishers, including:
    • Abbreviations, popular names, and “official” or spelled-out names of your instruments
    • Names of all authors who were involved in the development of the instruments
    • Corporations that published the instruments, or universities where the instruments' authors work
    • Alternative versions and new editions of the instruments
  • On the internet, many free versions of tests are edited or shortened -- they are not the complete, original instruments that you are expected to use. Be cautious about using them