Skip HSL Header
Return to Home Page
Need Help?  Ask a Librarian

Test Instruments and Measures

Internet Sites Publications Find Library Materials Find Articles

Internet Sites

FAQ/Finding Information about Psychological Tests (APA)
Does not sell or endorse testing instruments, but provides guidance in using available resources to find psychological tests.

Buros Institute
Provides information on locating tests, test reviews, or test publishers. Also includes a subject index for quickly locating tests in a specific subject area. The Mental Measurements Yearbook, published by the Buros Institute, is available online to UNC-CH affiliates.

PROQOLID, the Patient-Reported Outcome and Quality of Life Instruments Database
Free access gives basic information about instruments; advanced access is available to members only and offers more complete descriptions, review copies of most instruments, and some user manuals.

RAND Health - Surveys and Tools
All of the surveys and tools from RAND Health are public documents, available without charge (for non-commercial purposes). Some materials listed are not available from RAND Health. Links will take you to other websites, where you will find instructions for use.

Medical Algorithms Project
Developed by the Institute for Algorithmic Medicine, this site contains algorithms (including scales and surveys) taken from biomedical texts and journals. Topics are organized in 45 chapters. Contains brief descriptions and the ability to open algorithms in an Excel spreadsheet. Free registration.

GeroNurseOnline - Assessment Tools
Developed as part of the Nurse Competence in Aging initiative from the American Nurses Association, these resources include a growing list of short screening tools such as "Assessing Nutrition in Older Adults," "Predicting Pressure Ulcer Risk," and "Urinary Incontinence Assessment."

Finding Tests, Measurements, and Surveys
This reference guide from UNC-Chapel Hill Davis Library is designed to help you get started in finding reviews of tests, finding tests to suit a particular need, and obtaining actual copies of tests.

Tests and Measures in the Social Sciences: Tests Available in Compilation Volumes
This reference guide from the University of Texas at Arlington Library lists tests and measures available in over 100 compilation volumes, including Tests in Microfiche from the Educational Testing Service (available at UNC-CH Davis Library). Includes both published and unpublished tests and measurements.

Internet Sites Publications Find Library Materials Find Articles

Publications

Tests: A Comprehensive Reference for Assessment in Psychology, Education, and Business
LOCATION: HSL Reference -- CALL NUMBER: BF 176. T345 1997
Presents concise descriptions of thousands of assessment instruments in psychology, education, and business in a quick scanning format.

Test Critiques
LOCATION: HSL Reference -- CALL NUMBER: BF 176. T345.1
Contains critiques of what are considered to be the most frequently used psychological, educational, and business tests. Handles questions of reliability, validity, and test construction.

Directory of Unpublished Experimental Mental Measures
LOCATION: HSL Reference -- CALL NUMBER: BF 431. G619d
Directory of non-commercial behavioral and social science experimental instruments recently developed or recently used. Contents are from articles in 37 relevant professional journals.

Mental Measurements Yearbook
LOCATION: HSL Reference -- CALL NUMBER: BF 431. M549
Published as an ongoing series by the Buros Institute of Mental Measurement. Contains descriptive information, critical reviews, and references for commercially- available tests in English.

Tests in Print V: An Index to Tests, Test Reviews and the Literature on Specific Tests
LOCATION: HSL Reference -- CALL NUMBER: BF 431. T342
Serves as a comprehensive index to the Mental Measurements Yearbooks. Gives a descriptive listing of and references to commercially-published tests. Entries contain information such as purpose of the test, publication date, target population, scores, administration time, price data, and cross-references.

Handbook of Measures for Psychological, Social and Physical Function in Cancer, Volumes I & II
LOCATION: HSL Reference -- CALL NUMBER: QZ 200 H2364
Volume I contains global and disease-site specific instruments for measuring quality of life in persons with cancer. Includes references and suggested readings. Volume II contains tools for measuring cognitive impairment disorders, particularly delirium, and includes references.

Measures of Need and Outcome for Primary Health Care
LOCATION: HSL Reference -- CALL NUMBER: W 84.6 W683m
Guide to 40 measures of need and outcome in areas such as functioning, mental illness, social support, patient satisfaction, and sickness and disease. Includes copies or samples of the measures.

Measurement Tools in Patient Education
LOCATION: HSL Reference -- CALL NUMBER: W 85 M4845
Collection of approximately 50 patient education tools for measuring areas such as knowledge beliefs/attitudes, self-efficacy, and quality of life for various conditions including diabetes, arthritis, asthma, and pregnancy. Includes a summary, critique, and references, as well as full-text of each instrument.

Measuring Disease: A Review of Disease-Specific Quality of Life Measurement Scales (2nd Edition)
LOCATION: HSL Reference -- CALL NUMBER: WA 900.1 B787me
Provides commentary and guidance on a range of disease-specific scales.

Measuring Health: A Guide to Rating Scales and Questionnaires
LOCATION: HSL Reference -- CALL NUMBER: WA 900.1. M138m
Provides a guide to leading socio-medical measurements for use in clinical and research applications. Includes copies of the test instruments.

Handbook of Neurologic Rating Scales
LOCATION: HSL Reference -- CALL NUMBER: WL 141. H2358
Provides information on rating scales used in neurology and neurologic clinical trials. Also provides introductory information about the history, purpose, and types of clinical trials and explains how to select scales appropriately when conducting clinical research.

Handbook of Psychiatric Measures
LOCATION: HSL Reference -- CALL NUMBER: WM 34 A512
Designed primarily for clinicians in mental health and primary care settings to assist in selection and evaluation of assessments for patients with mental disorders. Includes a CD-ROM with copies of over 108 measures and the text of the book in searchable form.

Assessing Children's Well-Being: A Handbook of Measures
LOCATION: HSL Reference -- CALL NUMBER: WS 39 A846
Single source of key screening instruments for clinicians and researchers who work with pediatric populations. Appendix includes measures that are not copyrighted and those that the authors have given permission to reproduce.

Measurement of Nursing Outcomes (2nd edition), Vol. 1: Measuring Nursing Performance in Practice, Education, and Research, Vol. 2: Client Outcomes and Quality of Care, Vol. 3: Self Care and Coping
LOCATION: HSL Reference CALL NUMBER: WY 16 M4839
Includes nearly 80 tested instruments for assessing nursing outcomes in a variety of settings and situations. Each tool is accompanied by an essay describing its purpose, administration, scoring, and reliability and validity.

Instruments for Clinical Health Care Research (2nd Edition)
LOCATION: HSL Reference -- CALL NUMBER: WY 20.5.I59
Provides information on clinical research tools for health care professionals in educational, clinical, and research settings, particularly nursing.

Tests in Microfiche
LOCATION: Davis Library - Microforms Collection -- CALL NUMBER: Serial 1-215.
Index is in printed form in Reference and in Microfilm Reading Room. Provides microfiche reproductions of tests and measurements not commercially available. Indexes include subject, title, and author.

Internet Sites Publications Find Library Materials Find Articles

Find library materials

Search the UNC-Chapel Hill Libraries Catalog for books and reference materials.
  • Use subject headings such as public health - evaluation, health surveys, questionnaires, educational tests and measurements, psychological tests, or neuropsychological tests.

  • Also, try a keyword search using the name of a test (e.g., SF-36) or a combination of terms (e.g., newborn AND screening).

  • Another strategy is to combine a topic with keywords such as questionnaire* or test* or inventory or survey* or assess* or measure* or scale* or profile. (* denotes a wildcard to search for multiple word endings simultaneously.)

Internet Sites Publications Find Library Materials Find Articles

Find journal articles

Journals often contain articles that discuss the application and validity of specific tests. Sometimes the actual instruments or scales are included as part of the article, or a contact name and address are given.

TIP: Check the UNC-Chapel Hill Libraries Catalog to see if a campus library has a journal. Many articles are linked directly from citations in these indexes, but the E-Journal Finder provides the most complete list of electronic journals available to UNC-CH.

Health and Psychosocial Instruments (HaPI)
Indexes journal articles on measurement instruments in the health fields, psychosocial sciences, organizational behavior, and library and information science. Includes information about number of test questions, subscale titles, source of the instrument, references from the instrument, and the analyst of the instrument.
Search tip: Primary sources are articles by the authors of the test, and they often include the entire instrument. Limit to Primary Source.

Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health (CINAHL)
Indexes journals in nursing and allied health fields. Includes evaluation, history, methods, standards, and utilization of research instruments.
Search tip: Search by topic or name of test, selecting the field "IN Instrumentation" from the drop-down box. Also, search by topic and limit by Publication Type to "Research Instrument" or "Questionnaire/Scale".

PsycInfo
Provides information on psychology and psychological aspects of related disciplines such as medicine, law, education, sociology, and linguistics.
Search tip: Search by topic or name of test, selecting the field "TM Tests & Measures" from the drop-down box.

PubMed
Includes citations for biomedical journal articles from MEDLINE and additional life science journals.
Search tip: Search by topic or by Medical Subject Heading [MeSH] term and combine with MeSH terms such as "Questionnaires"[Mesh] or "Psychological Tests"[Mesh] or "Reproducibility of Results"[Mesh].

Getting Help

Call (919) 962-0800 during library hours.
Email a question to Ask a Librarian.
AskHSLChat: Ask a question using online chat.
Schedule an appointment for individual help.