Answered By: Jeremy McGinniss
Last Updated: Nov 22, 2022     Views: 1710

If you are looking for a specific assessment you will want to start by searching for it in the Mental Measurements Yearbook (MMY) or within APA PsycTests. The Mental Measurements Yearbook database only contains reviews of scales that are “commercially available”, which means you would have to pay for the full test. If you search for your desired assessment and it shows up in the MMY database, you will not find it online for free. However, APA PsycTests contains free tests that are available for non-commercial use. You will be able to find these tests in PDF format and you can also locate the article used to validate the test. Sometimes the test will require the author’s permission for use, so if you find a result that does not have a PDF available, there should also be instructions for contacting the author and obtaining permission.

If you are starting with a topic rather than a specific assessment, you can begin by searching within the Mental Measurements and PsycTests databases at the same time. Let us say you want to find an assessment that measures cognitive development. You would follow these instructions to find assessments on that topic:

  1. Start on the main library page here.
  2. To the right, under Databases by Subject select Browse All Databases.
  3. On the A-Z Databases page, select the letter M.
  4. Scroll down, find, and click the link for the Mental Measurements Yearbook with Tests in Print database.
  5. In that database, above the three search bars, select Choose Databases and then select APA PsycTests and click OK at the top.
  6. Type in “cognitive development” in the first search bar and select Search.
  7. On the results page, you can find which database the result is from by looking in the section under the title where it lists the authors, purpose of the assessment and then the database.

If you are still having difficulty finding the actual assessment for tests within the previously mentioned databases, you can also search ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. The theses or dissertations in this database will often list the specific measurements that they used within the appendix section of their paper. Follow these instructions to get to the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database:

  1. Start on the main library page here.
  2. In the Find Resources box, hover over Other above the Search button and click Dissertations & Theses.
  3. Scroll down, find and click ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global.
  4. You will then want to type in your topic in the search bar. As an example, type in (emotional intelligence or EI) AND (assessment or measurement or instrument or test). Then click the magnifying glass.
  5. When you pull up a dissertation, scroll down to the Appendix and it will tell you what, if any, tests were used and usually have the questions included.

If you find the test in a dissertation, since you have all of the questions, you could try to "create" a copy of the instrument yourself.  However, if the assessment uses a Likert scale with specific words attached to the numbers, (e.g. "Strongly disagree" "disagree" "agree" or "strongly agree" etc.) your scale should match the words they used.

Also, when recreating an assessment, be aware that some of the scores may be reverse scored. For instance, questions that point to a positive attachment would have a higher number on a scale of 1 to 5 where the higher the number shows greater attachment.  When you reverse score an item each score becomes the opposite.  So, if the highest score was a 5 on a 5 point scale, you would then change it to a 1.  Positively scored questions might be something like "I feel like I bond well with my child" but a negatively scored question might be "My child and I don't get along well."  If a question is meant to be reverse scored, you can't give the same points to all questions or you won't have a correct interpretation. So, to recreate the assessment, you will need the questions, Likert scale and descriptions, and the scoring instructions.

If you would like more information on the topic, check out our guide here.

If you have any additional questions, feel free to reach out to us at (434) 582-2220 or at research@liberty.edu.