Special Education

BEST PLACE TO START when looking for NONCOMMERCIAL TESTS ***

Now that UNM Libraries subscribes to the APA's PsycTESTS database, identifying and accessing the full text of instruments is MUCH easier!  Try it out.  If you DO NOT find what you need there, try some of the other resources and strategies described in the other boxes below.

Commercial/Published Tests

Commercial/Published Tests are available directly from a commercial test publisher for a fee and typically are acccessible only to qualified/certified professionals.  You will seldom, if ever, find the items from these instruments in the public domain.  See the tab labeled Commercial/Published Tests for details on how to identify and locate commercial tests and measures.

Commercial Tests: Indexes & Reviews

Using Subject Databases to Find Unpublished Tests

CINAHL Complete An index of the literature of nursing and the allied health professions.  Sometimes, a search of CINAHL turns up an article in which the test or survey instrument is not only mentioned, but re-printed.

If the instrument itself is indexed in CINAHL the record will have the Publication Type of "research instrument," and one can perform a search using this as a limit in the SEARCH OPTIONS section under PUBLICATION TYPE. Note also that the Instrumentation (IN) field in a record includes the names of instruments used in research studies indexed by CINAHL. To search for articles with specific instrument titles, enter the title itself or the most unique word or phrase in the title .  For example, for the "Brief Pain Inventory" test:

Steps and Tips for Searching
  • From the CINAHL main search page, type your title or keyword(s) into the search box, then use the dropdown menu to specify the "IN Instrumentation" field.
  • Click on "Search."
  • The resulting set of documents will all contain the word or phrase searched in the Instrumentation field of each record.

ERIC (Educational Resources Information Clearinghouse) is a complete bibliography of educational materials available since 1966. Indexes published and unpublished sources on thousands of educational topics, with information from from RIE (Resources in Education) and CIJE (Current Index to Journals in Education), and including materials focused on every aspect of educational testing.

 Steps and Tips for Searching​

  • From the main search page, type in your search term(s)
  • Notice the "DOCUMENT TYPE" limit toward the middle of the page, check the "160 Tests/Questionnaires" box.
  • Results will be limited only to those which make some use of identifiable tests and/or questionnaires.

PubMed the database to search for biomedical articles.

MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) headings for the concept of tests and measurement include: questionnaires, psychological tests, psychometrics outcome, and process assessment (health care). Locating an instrument or test in Pubmed may also be done using important words from the title of a particular instrument.

PsycINFO the database to search for psychology related articles.  

Under search options there is a "Tests & Measures" field that allows you to search for words in titles of tests.  You can also use the search box's "Select a field" dropdown menu and choose the "TM Tests & Measures" field".  

The resulting set of documents will all contain the word or phrase searched in the Tests & Measures field of each record.  

To search for articles that have the full text of the test inlcuded, add the word "appended" to your search terms.

Google Scholar (be sure to use this link or the UNM Library's Google Scholar link in order to easily connect to UNM resources you find in Google Scholar). 

Google Scholar is often a good tool to use to search for a known item, such as a test or measure.

Books of Tests & Measurements