Special Education: Tests/Measures

It can be challenging to find the full text of tests, instruments, and measures, and includes some confusing terminology. Many well-known tests are commercial property and must be purchased; these commercially available tests are described as "published" tests. "Unpublished" tests are simply tests not sold commercially, but rather available via research articles, handbooks or other means. 

You may also want to review The American Psychological Association's Finding Information About Psychological Tests guide for researchers. 

(The following is adapted from APA's Setting up a PsycTESTS Search.)

PsycTESTS provides information on tests mined from the scholarly literature in PsycINFO. Nearly 40,000 unique tests are represented in PsycTESTS, organized into 15 instrument types and 30 classifications.

There are a number of ways to search for a test, including the author name, keywords, test name, or test construct. (A construct is the concept the test is measuring, such as Confidence or Anxiety.)

PsycTESTS also includes limits, or controlled lists of values, that can be set before you run the search, toward the bottom of the advanced search page, or after you run the search, along the side of the search results page. Examples of these limits include:

• Administration Method – how the test is given to participants, such as Paper or Interview.
• Instrument Type – the primary testing category of the instrument, such as Checklist or Task.
• Supporting Documentation – supporting documentation types, such as instructor guide or answer sheet.