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Finding Research Instruments

This guide discusses how to search for research instruments using library databaes, books, and websites.

Once You've Identified a Tool

  • Research instruments and tools are frequently NOT published openly. See the Section on Published or unpublished for more information.
  • Permission may be required to use an instrument or tool. This would apply regardless of whether tool is published or unpublished. See the Copyright section for more information.
  • Most tools are NOT freely available. There may be costs associated with using a tool
  • Contacting authors is challenging, finding a useable email address falls by 7% per year after publication*

*Vines, T. H., Albert, A. Y. K., Andrew, R. L., Débarre, F., Bock, D. G., Franklin, M. T., Gilbert, K. J., Moore, J. S., Renaut, S., & Rennison, D. J. (2014). The availability of research data declines rapidly with article age. Current biology : CB, 24(1), 94–97. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2013.11.014

Published or Unpublished

Published Instruments

Published research instruments are owned by commercial publishers. These tools are available for purchase from the publishers. Some instruments have additional restrictions on the number of uses, who can administer the test, etc. Make sure to confirm those restrictions before purchasing.

Data on the reliability and validity of most published research instruments can be found in the Mental Measurements Yearbook (MMY), along with other test reviews.

Unpublished Instruments

Unpublished research instruments are non-commercial tools that may appear in books, dissertations, and journal articles. 

Finding data on the reliability and validity of unpublished tests is slightly more difficult. It is possible that there is no data available. This LibGuide suggests specific search terms that may be help locate this information in some useful databases - they all have different keywords.

Copyright

Both published and unpublished research instruments are copyright protected. To use them in your research, you MUST get permission from the copyright holder.

For published instruments, the copyright holder will normally be the publisher. The purchase of the instrument will often grant you permission, but be sure to review.

For unpublished instruments, the copyright holder will often be the author of the article/book/dissertation where the unpublished instrument was held.