Finding Tests & Measurement Instruments

Test reviews can be found in reference works and in journal articles.  This page will help you to locate test reviews.  NB: not every test will have a published review!

Search Health and Psychosocial Instruments (HaPI) - points you to reviews of tests in other sources

Consult Test Critiques - [print, not online] similar to MMY but includes some noncommercial tests

Search for journal articles using PsycInfo, CINAHL and ERIC - evaluations and reviews of commercial and unpublished tests.

Health and Psychosocial Instruments (HaPI)

HaPI indexes journal articles, reference book chapters, and other sources that refer to tests and measurement instruments.  Some of these sources are test reviews. 

Enter your test's name in the top box.  Select Review Sources from the Source Code selection box.

NB: HaPI classifies several kinds of items as review sources:

• Test reviews from two major reviewing sources: Mental Measurements Yearbook and Test Critiques
• Articles that evaluate a test or a set of tests.
• Articles that are "meta-analyses" which review a number of studies in terms of methodology employed, etc.  These articles do not critique test instruments specifically; they critique studies that use test instruments.
• Entries in reference books that provide detailed information on tests and instruments.  These reference books (e.g., Handbook of Multicultural Measures) do not evaluate tests, although they describe them in detail.

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Test Critiques

Test Critiques is a set of reference books in which tests are described and evaluated by subject experts. Covers thousands of tests in psychology, education, and business.  Ten volumes, pub. 1985. Some volumes are temporarily available in HathiTrust Emergency Temporary Access Service. Check the Library catalog for availability.

Hatcher Reference Reading Room, Floor 2: BF 176 .T4191 1985

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PsycINFO (Psychology and related fields)

Researchers sometimes publish articles that analyze a test, sometimes in comparison to other tests dealing with the same constructs.  There is no standardized way of limiting to this type of analysis, but the following search will help you retrieve them.

Enter the name of your test in the top box.  Enter the terms reliability and validity in the next box, and change the drop-down to SU Subjects. 

Click the Tests/Measures/Assessment box near the bottom of the screen.  This limits your results to items that deal with issues of testing and measurement.

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CINAHL (Health-related topics, including mental health)

Researchers often publish studies in which they evaluate an instrument or set of instruments.  You can find such studies for instruments measuring issues of physical and mental health and all areas that touch on the nursing and allied health professions in CINAHL.

Type "Instrument Validation" in one box, and change the dropdown to MM Exact Major Subject Heading.  Enter your subject term or the name of the test in another box.  Click Search. 

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ERIC (Education)

The ERIC database provides a standard term for finding reviews of tests: "test reviews." 

To find these, go to the Advanced Search in ERIC.  Type "test reviews" in one box and change the dropdown to Descriptors, DE:.  Type your test name or subject term in the other box.  Click Search.

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