Subject Guide: Identifying and Finding Nursing and Psychosocial Instruments - Searching Tips
Prepared by Sue Hollander and Marilyn Hall
Revised for Fall 2006
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Questions and Responses to Explore |
Specific Article and Test Databases of Interest include:
SDSU Test Finder
Indexes complete tests contained in books with green sticker dots on their spines in the Reference Desk collection and Reference Stacks in addition to other locations in the SDSU Library. Also points to complete measures found in electronic and print journals owned by SDSU, as well as instruments that are available on the Web.
Tips for searching SDSU Test Finder:
- Search for key terms in the title of the instrument.
- Keep the searches relatively simple.
- To search as a phrase, use quotation marks, e.g., “McGill pain” Wildcard is a *, therefore nurs* retrieves scales with nurse, nurses, nursing, etc in them. Click on the blue hyperlinked title of the book to see the table of contents and get the call number. Hint: You may want to check multiple books if your instrument is in more than one as the reviews and descriptions vary from source to source.
CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health)
Key subject headings to search in CINAHL include: scales or behavior rating scale, research instruments, surveys or survey research, behavioral research, health status indicators, instrument validation, internal consistency, random sample.
For best results, search each concept individually and then combine your subject term(s), e.g. depression and spirituality, with headings related to measurement, e.g. scale or surveys. Useful publication types to which to limit include: questionnaire/scale, research instrument, research instrument utilization, and research instrument utilization.
NOTE: If you have already identified an instrument and are searching for reports of studies using that specific instrument, search CINAHL and other databases using important words from the title of the instrument, e.g.”Spirituality Assessment”. Don’t forget to use acronyms as well as other names for that test if applicable. Also, you can limit this search to the instrumentation field to only located articles in the last few years using this instrument.
Tips for searching CINAHL:
- Perform a Subject search using the key words of the topic, e.g. spirituality, in the Instrumentation Field.
- Limit the results of your search to Publication Type - Research.
- Scan the Cited References of the results of a search to see which instruments other researchers used in their articles.
PsycINFO
Key subject headings to search in PsycINFO include: psychological tests, psychometrics, psychological testing, behavioral assessment, neuropsychological tests, personality tests, and psychiatric rating scales
Tips for searching PsycINFO:
- Perform a subject search using key words of your research topic, e.g. spirituality, then click on “More Limits” and select Tests and Measures
- If you want, you can limit to “peer reviewed journals”, however many good descriptions of instruments are also in book chapters and dissertations. Be sure you want to remove these from your searches if you limit to journals.
- The instruments used in this database are listed in the Tests and Measures field in the description of the article (complete reference).
- Find a good article, then click on “Find Similar Articles” and “Find Citing Articles”.
Medline
Key subject headings to search in Medline include: program evaluation, measurement, psychological tests, psychometrics, questionnaires, rating scales, data collections, health surveys, nursing assessment, health status indicators, psychiatric status rating scales, severity of illness index
Tips for searching Medline:
- Limit the results of your search to research oriented Publication Types, e.g. clinical trial, randomized controlled trial, meta-analysis.
Mental Measurements Yearbook
Tips for searching MMY:
- Type in the name of the test or a key phrase from the test.
- Limit to TI Test Name if you want the term in the title of the instrument.
Note: This database provides access to reviews of over 2,000 tests and measures, however they are only from MMY Volume 9 (1998) to the present. To search earlier editions of the MMY (which we own in print in the Reference collection), you will need to use the Test Review Locator database (listed below).
Education Fulltext
Keywords or subject terms to search include: questionnaire, tests and scales, psychometics. Some words, such as instrument, are not helpful to search as they are not common terms in classroom education.
Tips for searching Education Fulltext:
- Browse the thesaurus – headings include tests and scales, tests and scales/validity, tests and scales/reliability.
- Also, you can search for a specific term/tests and scales, eg., music preferences/tests and scales.
ETS Test Collection (Test Locator)
Index to more than 10,000 tests and research instruments used primarily in education. Some tests are available in the Tests in Microfiche collection (C-731) in the Library. An index to this can be found under LB3051 .T4419 2000 in Reference Stacks. Some of these tests can be found in journal articles or ERIC documents, and some only from the publisher.
Test Review Locator
Index to reviews of educational and psychological tests found in Buros Mental Measurements Yearbooks (MMY), Tests in Print and Test Critiques. The full text of MMY, from Volume 9 to present, are available online in the Mental Measurements Yearbook database.
Tips for searching Test Review Locator:
- Browse the alphabetical list, examine the 18 categories or search for keywords in various fields including title of instrument, acronym, etc.
- Click on the hyperlinked name of the instrument and make note of the source in which it is reviewed, e.g. MMY 7, MMY14 or Test Critiques 2. NOTE: DO NOT PURCHASE THESE REVIEWS UNLESS YOU WANT TO. The Library owns them in print, and they’re available in Reference on Table 11A.
ArticleFirst
Multidisciplinary database covering health, psychology, business, education, etc. Does not contain abstracts.
Tips for searching ArticleFirst:
- Search for keywords from the title of the instrument. You can limit the search to “Title” or “Title Phrase” if you want.
- To find the full text of the article, click on "See more details for locating this item," then "Find Full Text".
- From the results screen (list of search results), you can click on the Journal Articles (ECO) tab to automatically search for related articles in a different database called Electronic Collections Online.
Electronic Collections Online (ECO)
Multidisciplinary database of journal articles.
Tips for searching ECO:
- Search for keywords from the title of the instrument. You can limit the search to Title or Title Phrase if desired.
- To find the full text of the article, click on "See more details for locating this item," then "Find Full Text"
