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October 6, 2010 1:54 PM Subscribe
How to systematically search for a psych measure in PsychINFO, etc.?
I have to make a systematic inventory of measures of social support for work. (I'm a research assistant in psychology.) I've been using PsychINFO and other search engines and searching for "social support" and "scale" or "measure." However, this leads to thousands and thousands of results, many of which are not applicable or overlap with each other. Is there a more systematic way of doing this?
Note: I really am looking for all the measures of social support that are out there, so this still needs to be a thorough search. I'm just trying to find a better way of sorting through it all AND finding the original source/article of a measure.
I have to make a systematic inventory of measures of social support for work. (I'm a research assistant in psychology.) I've been using PsychINFO and other search engines and searching for "social support" and "scale" or "measure." However, this leads to thousands and thousands of results, many of which are not applicable or overlap with each other. Is there a more systematic way of doing this?
Note: I really am looking for all the measures of social support that are out there, so this still needs to be a thorough search. I'm just trying to find a better way of sorting through it all AND finding the original source/article of a measure.
Do you have any time parameters? Have some measures that were popular in the past fallen out of favor? You might try sorting your findings by name of measure, i.e. Likert Scale. Look at a recent textbook on research methods in psych.
Unless you're doing a historical study of the research you probably want to look at stuff that's relevant today. For instance, I would imagine that research in the 1950s might have looked at the kinds of support that working men got from their stay at home wives, whereas today you'd find more studies of support for working couples.
If you're at a university go see the librarian for psychology. He or she will be able to help you.
posted by mareli at 2:19 PM on October 6, 2010
Unless you're doing a historical study of the research you probably want to look at stuff that's relevant today. For instance, I would imagine that research in the 1950s might have looked at the kinds of support that working men got from their stay at home wives, whereas today you'd find more studies of support for working couples.
If you're at a university go see the librarian for psychology. He or she will be able to help you.
posted by mareli at 2:19 PM on October 6, 2010
Are you looking for tests and measures, or more anecdotal info? Consult Buros' Mental Measurement Yearbook for tests.
I am a librarian. And I suggest you go to or call your library's reference desk--they will save you lots of time and angst plus provide you with the right resources, which hopefully you will use throughout your career.
posted by Riverine at 4:20 PM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]
I am a librarian. And I suggest you go to or call your library's reference desk--they will save you lots of time and angst plus provide you with the right resources, which hopefully you will use throughout your career.
posted by Riverine at 4:20 PM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: The goal of this is to have an inventory that would include all measures in the field, including scales that have fallen out of favor. Part of my research is determining whether specific scales are still being used.
I am not at a university; I work at a hospital. There is not a library here. I am only looking for actual tests that have been used in psychological studies. Ideally, these would all be available in an electronic database like the one I have been using. I was just trying to find a more systematic way of utilizing it.
posted by leedly at 7:03 PM on October 6, 2010
I am not at a university; I work at a hospital. There is not a library here. I am only looking for actual tests that have been used in psychological studies. Ideally, these would all be available in an electronic database like the one I have been using. I was just trying to find a more systematic way of utilizing it.
posted by leedly at 7:03 PM on October 6, 2010
It might be worthwhile to go to a local university or medical school to get access to the health and psychosocial instriments database, also called HAPI, it is a database that indexes exactly what you are looking for. Ask for help, it can be difficult to use but has much unique content.
posted by dipolemoment at 8:21 AM on October 7, 2010
posted by dipolemoment at 8:21 AM on October 7, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
There is very likely a handbook of psych measures that will be a good start.
I'd also try doing google scholar searches for "social support" metaanalyses as well as dissertations that study social support. The dissertations especially should have literature reviews that note multiple ways to operationalize social support.
I'd start with Thoits 1982 and look at citations from that.
O'Rielly 1988 also is a good earlier piece about the issues in operationalizing social support.
posted by k8t at 2:00 PM on October 6, 2010