You can also go directly to the Mental Measurements Yearbook online for more search options. If you are off-campus, remember to enter your Banner number when asked for your university ID.
The Mental Measurements Yearbook can be found online, if you want to search for test reviews from experts.
The database isn't as complete as the books. To find complete information going back to the fifties on mental measures and other assessments and tests, you must go to the print Mental Measurements Yearbook books, available in the F. D. Bluford Library's reference section.
The Mental Measurements Yearbook, or MMY, can be a very confusing set of books to use. There are many misconceptions about this book. Let's clear up a few of them right away:
To explain a few of those points it is necessary to understand how tests work, and how the MMY is set up.
First, it is important to understand that the MMY in print is a "non-cumulative" book. That means that something published in one volume won't be repeated in the next volume. So if you want to find a test review of a test which was published in 1995, you need to look at the volume that covers that time period. The most recent MMY (the 17th MMY) only covers tests published or revised in 2005, 2006, and 2007. So you cannot use it to find any tests that were developed or revised before 2005 or maybe 2004 at the earliest.
To address that, and cover tests that didn't get reviewed in the MMY itself, there is a second series of books called "Tests In Print" that indexes the MMY. To find your test in the MMY books, start by looking in the Test In Print books. That will lead you to one or more volumes of the MMY.
Second, the online MMY does not include any volumes before the ninth MMY. So, anything reviewed in the eights MMY or previously will not be included. Furthermore, the online MMY only covers the most recent set of reviews. So if a test has been revised the more recent version will be covered in the online copy, but the older one will not be. If you wanted to trace the history of the Scholastic Aptitude Test, for example, you'd have to look at the print MMY because the online database would only have the new SAT reviewed.
Lastly, tests are usually developed through years of development, research, and verification. Since this is an expensive process most of the well-established, highly valid tests must be purchased. That is to say, they are not available for free. Sometimes you can find a sample by searching PsycInfo , but you should not count on that. More often you can write to the publisher and ask them to mail you a sample copy, but even that should not be relied on. The MMY will never include tests; it focuses on reviews of tests discussing the psychometric properties such as validity and bias.