Psychological Tests & Measures

According to the American Psychological Association (2025), "Psychological tests, also known as psychometric tests, are standardized instruments that are used to measure behavior or mental attributes. These attributes may include attitudes, emotional functioning, intelligence and cognitive abilities, aptitude, values, interests, personality characteristics, and more." 

See this page from the APA for more details.

Test and assessment are often used interchangeably when discussing psychological tests and measures. Though tests and assessments are related, they are two different components of psychological evaluation. 

Tests are more formalized and use tools like a questionnaire or checklist. The use of a questionnaire or checklist standardizes the test so that test-takers are evaluated in a similar way. Tests like this may be part of a psychological assessment. 

Psychological assessments contain components like tests, and may also include: 

• Informal tests and surveys
• Interview information
• School or medical records
• Medical evaluation
• Observational data

This information was adapted from the APA's webpage "Understanding psychological testing and assessment" (2013)

A helpful way to think of psychological tests and measures is to divide them into two categories. 

1. Published tests
2. Unpublished tests

Published tests are commercially available to practitioners for use. Sometimes these tests are limited to use by credentialed professionals. These are less likely to be freely available resources, and the copyright is typically held by a publisher. Some examples of publishers are Pearson, PAR, and MindGarden.

Unpublished tests are NOT commercially available. These are more likely to be found in academic resources like the appendix of journal articles and via resources like PsycTESTS, a database from the APA.

The library offers a variety of resources related to psychological tests and measures. The resources covered in this guide are:

• Books on psychological assessment
• The physical assessment test collection
• The database PsycTESTS
• The database Mental Measurements Yearbook with Tests in Print

The goal of this guide is to give an overview of what the library collection holds and how to use these resources as tools for your research.