Guides: Special Education: Identifying Commercial Tests

Identifying Commercial Tests

Commercial tests can be found in two main resources, databases and books. Listed here are recommended resources for finding commercial tests.

Databases

Mental Measurements Yearbook with Tests in Print
Standardized tests covering educational skills, personality, vocational aptitude, psychology, and related areas and includes full text reviews from the Mental Measurements Yearbook.
Health and Psychosocial Instruments (HAPI)
This database describes both commercial and non-commercial behavioral measurement tests and instruments. Limited to 10 simultaneous users.
Provides information on approximately 15,000 tests (including questionnaires, interview schedules, checklists, coding schemes, rating scales, and more). Full-text tests are not included but references primary sources, secondary sources, and reviews.
HaPI can be searched to
- learn what tests exist,
- determine availability of validity and reliabilty data,
- track the history and use of a test over time, and
- find information about ordering tests.
Search by the kind of instrument you need (e.g., test anxiety) and change the drop-down box next to the search box to ME Measure.
Results of a HaPI search are typically headed by the test name rather than by the name of the publication in which the test is described.

ETS TestLink
Use this database to find descriptions of over 20,000 standardized tests and research instruments from the physical test collection held by ETS (Educational Testing Service). Each item provides directions for obtaining the test or instrument.

Books

Tests: a comprehensive reference for assessments in psychology, education, and business by Taddy Maddox
Call Number: BF176 .T43 2008 (Floor 3: Building Use Only)
A good place to start looking for tests. This reference is designed for quick identification of a test to meet a specific need. Unlike other test guides, it does not provide evaluations or reviews. Over 3,000 published English-language assessment instruments are listed under three broad subject categories (psychology, education, and business), with 87 subsections. Each entry provides a purpose, description, intended population, administration and scoring, cost and availability. Indexed by publisher, title, author, out-of-print instruments, availability of computer scoring, and tests composed for special population groups (e.g, visually impaired, non-English speakers, etc.).
Test Critiques by Keyser, Daniel J.; Sweetland, Richard C.
Call Number: BF176 .T418 - v.1 - 11 (Floor 3: Building Use Only)
A standard outline for critiques includes an introduction, practical applications and uses, technical aspects, and a critique of each test. Test Critiques contains scholarly reviews and includes information related to the reliability, validity and normative development of the measurements. Focuses primarily on psychology, education and business tests. It should be used in conjunction with a sister publication Tests. There is a cumulative title index as well as indexing for publishers, subject and author/reviewer.
Encyclopedia of Psychological Assessment by Rocio Fernandez-Ballesteros (Editor)
Call Number: Online
Publication Date: 2003
The two volumes of the Encyclopedia of Psychological Assessment contain a series of 235 entries, organized alphabetically, and covering a variety of fields. Each entry includes a general conceptual and methodological overview, a section on relevant assessment devices, followed by links to related concepts in the Encyclopedia, and a list of references.
Essentials of psychological assessment series by Wiley
Milner Library owns numerous books about specific types of tests and specific test instruments within the Essentials of Psychological Assessment Series published by John Wiley and Sons. This link lists what is available in the Library Catalog.