Psyctests - Fees, permissions, and other factors - Via apa psycnet

One of the most striking features of PsycTESTS is that you can easily find the instruments themselves in the database. A question we hear often is, “Can I use the tests in my research?” To help answer this question, we’ve included fields for permissions, fees, reliability, validity, and other details unique to tests and measures. For any individual test, whether you want to use the test and whether you are able to reuse or adapt the test will depend on the answers to a few questions: First, what permission are needed? A test’s inclusion in the database does not indicate that permissions have been "cleared." It is the responsibility of each researcher to seek and follow the permissions guidelines. There are a number of options in the permissions field. They are: May use for Research/Teaching, Contact Corresponding Author, Contact Publisher, Contact Publisher and Corresponding Author, and Not Specified. You can limit your search to one or more of these permission possibilities. Or look for the permissions field within the records of tests you find in your search results. These labels are useful for limiting your searches. But once you've found a test you're interested in using, be sure to see the cover sheet of the test for more detailed information about the permissions needed. The cover sheet is the first page of the PDF. Second, is there a fee? You'll also want to find out whether there is a fee to use the test. You can limit your search by the three possibilities in the fee field: Yes, No, and Unknown. Or look for the fee field within the records of tests you find in your results. In the overwhelming majority of records, the fee field indicates that there is no fee needed. However, some of the tests are commercially available, and those will require a fee. You cannot purchase them through the PsycTESTS database directly, but the publisher's website is listed in the record. In most cases, tests with a fee are from commercial publishers. But for a small number of tests, although the test is not published by a commercial test publisher, the test's author requires a fee. If the Fee field says "yes," but the Commercial field says "no," you'll need to contact the test's author for details. Finally, in a limited number of cases, the Fee field says "unknown." You'll need to contact the publisher and/or the author to determine whether a fee is required. Third, is the full text of the test available? The large majority of PsycTESTS records include a PDF that you can read or download. Most of these contain the complete test, whereas others contain a partial list of test items or of sample items. When you open the PDF, the first page is APA's cover sheet, and this provides additional information about the test, including whether the test shown is full, partial, or a sample. For Test Shown: Full, the entire test is shown in the pages that follow the cover sheet. For Test Shown: Partial, only some of the test items are included. This is often because the test was not printed in full in the literature or has not yet been found. That is, if an author discussed his or her test and provided the wording for only some of the items in the article, we've included these. We encourage authors to submit the full text of their tests. For Test Shown: Sample, only sample items are shown. Some commercial publishers will include sample items to provide the researcher with information about the test's design, without giving the actual wording of test items. And authors sometimes do this in their published articles as well. In all cases, APA is committed to providing as much information as possible, when it can be found in the literature or provided by the test author or publisher. Fourth, is this a good test to use? Finally, you'll want to read about the reliability and validity of the test to determine whether you think the test is appropriate for your use. A test's inclusion in the database is not a guarantee of its reliability, validity, or applicability to your research needs. Because our goal is to capture all tests, it's important that you check the reliability and validity of a test you want to reuse or adapt. You can find reliability and validity information in the literature about a test's development and in later research in which a test was reviewed or used. For more detail on how to find this information in the database, see the following tutorial. For more about PsycTESTS and search tips and strategies, please see our YouTube channel or the APA website. Thank you.