Assessment & Diagnostic Processes

Finding assessments

A working tool for selecting an instrument defensibly. Work the seven steps in order, screen your candidates against the same criteria, and export a written rationale you can paste into a paper or a case file. Everything saves in this browser only — nothing is uploaded.

Frame the questions first

What the intake leaves unresolved — not what tests you already know.

Write the clinical questions before you look at any instrument. These become your inclusion filter for step 5 — a measure that does not answer one of these does not make the list, however familiar it is.

Referral question / presenting concern What the intake left unresolved What decision will the results actually drive?

Find the domain repository

Go where the field already keeps its measures.

Three reliable entry points, in rough order of efficiency:

Follow your clinical guideline's assessment section (APA, VA/DoD, NICE) — it will name the instruments the field considers standard.
Search APA PsycInfo with a structured string: [construct] AND (measure* OR scale*) AND (psychometric* OR validation) — worked examples below.
Look up who publishes a measure you already know — publishers cluster by domain, so their catalog surfaces the neighbors.
Find the repository for your domain. Many established clinical areas maintain a curated public measures list. The two linked below are examples for trauma and substance use — not a general starting point. If your domain has one, it is usually run by the relevant NIH institute, VA national center, or specialty association.

Worked example — social anxiety in adolescents

Field codes and truncation below are for APA PsycInfo on EBSCOhost. Ovid and ProQuest use different syntax. Regis licenses PsycInfo but does not state the platform — see Regis library access, and confirm on first login before pasting.

1. Cast a wide net for candidate instruments: SU("social anxiety") AND (measure* OR scale* OR inventor*) AND (psychometric* OR validat*) SU searches the APA Thesaurus controlled vocabulary, so you catch records indexed under the concept even when the authors used different words. * finds all forms of a root — validat* picks up validation, validated, validity.
2. See what instruments studies in this area actually used: SU("social anxiety") AND AG(adolescence <13 to 17 yrs>), then browse the Tests & Measures index The TM field lists the tests used in a study's methodology. Browsing it turns "what exists?" into "what do researchers in this area reach for?" — which is your step-3 inventory, assembled for you.
3. Find articles that include the instrument itself: SU("social anxiety") AND TM appended An instrument marked [appended] in a record means some or all of it is reproduced in the publication. This is the shortcut to seeing actual items without buying a kit.
4. Pull the validation evidence for one candidate: TM "Social Phobia Inventory" AND (psychometric* OR validat* OR reliab*) Searching the instrument name in TM (rather than anywhere in the text) returns studies that actually administered it. This is your step-6 primary-source hunt.

Swap SU("social anxiety") for your own construct and AG(...) for your client's age band. If a Thesaurus term does not exist for your construct, drop back to AB(...) or KW(...).

Start hereVA/DoD Guidelines APA Practice Guidelines NICE Guidance APA PsycInfo

Domain repos — examples onlyNC-PTSD Measures NIDA Screening Tools

Guideline / repository consulted Search string(s) used

Inventory the full field

You need this to say “I considered the field.”

List what exists by category before you narrow. The inventory is what makes your eventual choice a selection rather than a default.

Browse the fieldAPA PsycTests HaPI (Regis) ETS Test Collection

Paid — Regis does not license itSearch Buros reviews What Regis actually has →

Exposure / screening measures Structured & semi-structured interviews Self-report measures Collateral / observational / performance measures

Check the gold standard first

If you don't use it, you must justify why.

Check reviews & guidelinesBuros reviews (paid) VA/DoD Guidelines APA Practice Guidelines NICE Guidance

Buros reviews tests; it does not supply them. Per its purchase policy, the Buros Center “does not sell or otherwise make available specific tests (these must be obtained from the test publisher).” Use Buros to decide whether an instrument is defensible, then go to the publisher to actually obtain it.

The rule: identify the reference-standard instrument for this diagnosis before evaluating anything else. Deviating is often correct — time, cost, training, client capacity — but the deviation has to be named and defended, not silently skipped.

Reference-standard instrument for this question Using it? If not, why not?

Screen candidates

Same eight criteria, applied to every candidate.

Add each instrument you are seriously considering and check what it satisfies. Anything unchecked is a limitation you will name in step 7 — not a reason to hide the candidate.

Qualification levels & reviewsPearson quals PAR quals MHS WPS Buros reviews (paid)

Verify at the primary source

Never take psychometrics from a publisher page.

Primary sourcesAPA PsycInfo APA PsycTests Buros reviews (paid)

Pull the validation article and confirm the numbers yourself. Publisher pages and secondary summaries routinely quote the most favorable sample, omit the population the cutoff was derived on, or carry forward a figure from an earlier version of the instrument.

Validation article(s) read — full citation Psychometrics confirmed at source Cutoff, and the population it was derived on Discrepancies found between the primary source and secondary summaries

Document the tradeoff, not just the choice

“I selected X over Y because ___, accepting ___ as a limitation.”

Standards to citeAERA/APA/NCME Standards ACA Code — Section E

Selected instrument Selected over — and why Limitations accepted How limitations will be mitigated

★

Where to look

Reference table — what each resource is actually good for.

The Regis column was verified against the A-Z database list on 2026-08-21. Subscriptions change — the access page is the single place that gets updated when they do.

Resource	Regis	Use it for
APA PsycTestsapa.org · open via Regis	Licensed	The instruments themselves — APA describes it as focused primarily on unpublished tests, with downloadable instruments and, where the source document reported them, reliability, validity, and factor-analysis data. Start here. It is one of only two databases Regis tags as tests & measurements, and it costs you nothing.
HaPI — Health and Psychosocial Instrumentsopen via Regis	Licensed	Behavioral measurement instruments, abstracted from hundreds of journals across the health and psychosocial sciences, plus instruments from industrial/organizational behavior and education. The other half of what Regis tags as tests & measurements — check it when PsycTests comes up empty.
APA PsycInfoapa.org · open via Regis	Licensed	Validation studies and psychometrics. Regis flags it a “Best Bet” and links out to full text in PsycArticles and Academic Search Premier. The step-2 worked example runs here.
ETS Test Collection / TestLinkets.org	Open	More than 25,000 tests, including unpublished ones. Searching is open, but obtaining a given test depends on its Availability field — some are orderable from ETS, some must come from the publisher, some only via library holdings or interlibrary loan.
Mental Measurements Yearbook (MMY)search: marketplace.unl.edu · about	Not licensed	Critical expert reviews — is this test defensible? Most tests carry two independent reviews. Buros Test Reviews Online covers more than 3,500 commercially available tests, over 2,800 of them with reviews available for purchase. Regis does not license MMY (verified), so a review costs money at the Buros shop or has to come through interlibrary loan. Reach for guidelines and PsycInfo validation studies first; buy a Buros review when you need the review of record.
Tests in Print (TIP)search: marketplace.unl.edu · about	Not licensed	Directory of what commercially published tests exist — use it to confirm an instrument is still in print and who publishes it. Bundled with MMY in the EBSCO product Regis does not carry, and searchable through the same Buros shop interface.
Publisher catalogsPearson · PAR · MHS · WPS	Open	Pricing, forms, qualification requirements. The Pearson and PAR links go straight to their A/B/C qualification pages.
Domain repositoriesexamples: NC-PTSD (trauma) · NIDA (substance use)	Open	Curated measure lists maintained per clinical area — whichever covers your domain, not these two specifically. They typically give a description, sample items, versions, references, and how to obtain each measure; check that per-measure information rather than assuming any given one is free to use.

Access claims on this page are verified, not assumed — see Regis library access for the check date and sources. The PsycInfo field codes and truncation rules in step 2 follow APA’s own EBSCOhost guide; the TM appended technique follows the University of Portland library guide. MMY and TIP are published by the Buros Center for Testing (University of Nebraska–Lincoln); many university libraries subscribe through EBSCO, but Regis does not. Per its purchase policy, Buros “does not sell or otherwise make available specific tests (these must be obtained from the test publisher)” — Buros tells you whether an instrument is defensible, the publisher supplies it. The ETS Test Collection holds more than 25,000 tests, including unpublished instruments. Publisher catalogs assign qualification levels A, B, and C, which determine whether your credential permits purchase (Pearson, PAR) — that is the step-5 “can you legally obtain it” check.

Rationale

Copy this into your paper or case file. Empty steps are omitted.

Personal study tool. The seven-step method and screening criteria are a study framework, not a published protocol — the authoritative instrument-selection standards are the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (AERA, APA & NCME, 2014; open access since 2021) and Section E of the ACA Code of Ethics — notably E.2.a on limits of competence, E.6.a on instrument appropriateness and multi-method assessment, E.9.a on reporting reservations, and E.11 on obsolete measures.