Finding Measurement Tools | NDSU Libraries

Introduction

What are measurement tools?
Measurement tools are instruments like surveys, questionnaires, or scales to help collect data from a population—whether patients, students, clients, or subjects. They help quantify variables that are not normally quantifiable with technology and equipment. For example, we can draw blood and run a lipid panel to measure cholesterol levels. However, concepts like anxiety or pain or satisfaction cannot be measured by any equipment or technology so we must rely on measurement tools.

Do note that many measurement tools are protected by copyright. If planning to use a tool for research or practice, you may need to get copyright permission or pay for a license. Talk to your librarian for further information.

Terms to know:

Reliability: The extent to which a measurement is free from error. The result for a person who has not changed also doesn’t change when retested at different intervals, by different people, or in different situations.
Validity: the degree to which an instrument is measuring the thing it claims to measure. For example, does a test for student engagement actually measure that, or is it measuring something else, like extroversion or intelligence?

Where to Find Measurement Tools

Health and Psychosocial Instruments

Health and Psychosocial Instruments is a multidisciplinary database that contains records about 50,000 different measurement tools, covering subjects such as health, psychology, education and business. It includes just the records for instruments, not the full instruments, which must be found elsewhere in most cases.

Mental Measurements Yearbook

Mental Measurements Yearbook contains records and reviews of thousands of measurement tools used in disciplines like psychology, education, and business. The tools found in this database are commercially available products and usually require purchase from a publisher.

Searching Other Databases

There are many other ways and places to find measurement tools. One good option is using keyword searching in subject databases. Simply do a keyword search as you would normally, but add terms that indicate you are searching for a measurement tool, such as the following:

Reliability
Validity
Test
Measure
Survey
Questionnaire
Scale
Inventory
Instrument

Examples:

"test anxiety" AND ("oral interview" OR questionnaire)
"website usability" AND (validity OR reliability) AND (test OR survey OR instrument OR measurement)

Further Databases for Finding Measurement Tools

Database	NDSU Login Required	Description
APA PsycArticles	Yes	Behavioral science and related fields, including education, nursing, business, neuroscience, etc.
APA PsycInfo	Yes	Index of peer-reviewed literature in behavioral sciences and mental health.
CINAHL	Yes	Database of nursing and allied health literature, including measurement tools used in the health sciences.
ERIC	No	Education literature database that includes articles regarding measurement tools used in K-12 and higher education settings.
ETS Test Collection	No	Database of thousands of measurement tools primarily focused on education but encompassing multiple disciplines; includes tests from countries other than the US.
PubMed	Yes (for links to NDSU resources)	Large database covering a wide variety of health and medical specialties, including literature related to measurement tool development and use.
Rand Health	No	RAND, a non-profit research organization that works to improve health around the world, makes their measurement tools available without charge
Scopus	Yes	Broad database covering the hard sciences, social sciences, health sciences, and more.
Sociological Abstracts	Yes	Database of social and behavioral sciences literature, including measurement tools commonly used by social sciences researchers.
Substance Use Screening & Assessment Instruments Database	No	Smaller collection of measurement tools used by researchers and care providers in the area of substance abuse prevention and treatment.
Web of Science	Yes	Broad database covering the hard sciences, social sciences, health sciences, and more.