Translate This Page
Head of Collections & Technical Services
Librarian for the School of Nursing, Public Health, & ALCI (ESL)
Hugh & Hazel Darling Library #210
701 E. Foothill Blvd., PO Box 7000
Azusa, CA 91702
Finding Research Instruments
Finding research instruments can be time-consuming. There are several possible places where you might find them. Some instruments may be freely available on the web. Others may be found in journal articles or dissertations (often as an appendix), which may or may not be available in the Library. Some are only available from the creator(s) of the research instrument. Some tests may only be purchased and/or restricted to qualified persons. As well as finding the instrument to use in your research, you also need to obtain permission in writing from the copyright holder.
Finding Instruments in Databases
For most databases, you can find articles describing and sometimes containing scales, questionnaires, surveys, and other research instruments with the following type of search strategy:
keyword or subject heading (such as coping) in the first search box
AND
SU (test* or measure* or questionnaire* or scale* or survey* or assessment* or instrument*) or TI (test* or measure* or questionnaire* or scale* or survey* or assessment* or instrument*)
Where the asterisk (*) is a truncation symbol. For example, measure* will search measure, measures, measuring, and measurement(s) all at once.
SU stands for Subject headings and TI stands for Title. This is considered Field searching, where you search specific fields for your keywords rather than the full text. So we want these particular words in only the subject terms field and the title field.
Below are other ways to find research instruments in specific databases:
- CINAHL Plus with FullText & Medline with FullText This link opens in a new windowThere are a few ways of finding research instruments in CINAHL & Medline. Aside from the search described above, to find an article or dissertation that uses a specific research instrument: 1) Search using the name of the instrument and choose "Instrumentation" in the drop down list beside your search. 2) Search using search terms of your topic. On the Search Options page choose Research Instrument and/or Questionnaire/Scale under the Publication Type menu box.
- HAPI (Health and Psychosocial Instruments) This link opens in a new windowMaterial on unpublished information-gathering tools for clinicians that are discussed in journal articles, such as questionnaires, interview schedules, tests, checklists, rating and other scales, coding schemes, and projective techniques. Under "source code" select "primary".
- APA PsycINFO This link opens in a new windowOn the advanced search screen, under "classification codes", select options that mention tests, scales, questionnaires, inventory, assessment, measurement, etc.
- ERIC This link opens in a new windowInternational literature in the field of education covering counseling, social work, educational technology, library and information science and child care.
- Nursing & Allied Health Database This link opens in a new windowFirst identify dissertations using a specific research instrument using CINAHL as described above. Then search for the dissertation by author and title in the search boxes and choose Dissertations & Theses under Source Type to see if the dissertation is available full text in this database.
