Getting Started with PsycINFO

Tips for finding articles with appended tests in PsycINFO

If you don't have a specific test in mind, put in words that describe your interests, combined with words like (assessment* or survey* or instrument* or evaluation* or measure* or questionnaire* or scale*). This will find a mixture of results-- some articles whose authors used a test but don't include it, and some that do. Not finding what you need? use alternative words to describe what you are looking for--the thesaurus shows preferred terms, called subjects or descriptors.

If you put in a descriptive term such as depression in one of the search boxes, and then put the word appended in the next search box and choose "tests and measures" from the dropdown menu for that search box, you should retrieve articles that have the particular test or measure attached to the article.This works *most* of the time.

Alternatively, you may type in the title of a test with the word 'appended' at the end of the search box line, such as smoking cessation appended, and then choose "tests and measures" from the dropdown menu of that search box.

In some cases, and particularly with older records, the word 'appended' may show up in other fields. You may try putting it in a search box without specifying where it will occur.

Tests and Measures as a limit

PsycINFO has added another option for identifying tests and measures associated with articles. Once you do a search, there will be a limits sidebar to the left of the results. Tests & Measures is on the list of limiters, with the name of the test and the number of results alongside it. I searched for articles using Beck AND depression, and we got articles with the first edition, second edition, and some articles with Beck's other measures attached. Click on the checkbox to retrieve those articles. Please NOTE: many of the tests aren't available, or aren't available unless you have a personal subscription to APA's test database and the relevant credentials to use them. 

illustration of sidebar to limit to articles with tests attached