Doctoral Research Support

The requirement to use a validated instrument to measure your research outcomes can be met by locating scholarly research articles that use your instrument.

• Search your instrument in the library collections, limiting to peer-review, scholarly research articles and preview the articles by clicking into the title to view the data describing the research methods.
• Be sure to confirm with your advisor/instructor that your chosen tool and validation meets the criteria for your project.
• Check with your advisor to confirm that your resources are adequate for validation.

FINDING articles by instrument name in the Library

• Use the IN (Instrumentation) limiter (by choosing it from the dropdown menu next to the search boxes)
• searches the database for statistical instruments that are discussed in  a scholarly journal article or used for the research instrument
• IN must be chosen in order to be searched – otherwise only content that cites or mentions an instrument will be returned in results 
• Select a Field searching will NOT search for instruments used in the article

Attribution: @kjparteger on Freepik

The United States University Library does not house test instruments nor grant permission for use in projects. 

• most instruments are commercially owned and available through test publishers 
• all measurement tools require permission to use  
• there are some exceptions, such as tools through RAND Healthcare (see list below)
• for commercial tests, allow time for order and delivery.
• out of print tests may belong to the original author; contact them or researchers who validated the instrument for information

Locate the Owner's contact information

• look in the text of an article that validated the instrument for researcher contact or instrument information
• look for author/owner information in one of the online repositories listed in this guide
• contact the copyright holder (could be an individual, a group or a company) for permission to use. It may cost $.