Acronym searching is best suited for known instrument acronyms (e.g., SPS - Social Provisions Scale; ISSB - Inventory of Socially Supportive Behavior).
To search for instruments using the AC Acronym index,
1) In the HaPI database, enter your acronym in the search box(es)
2) Scroll through the drop-down menu adjacent to your search term
3) Locate & select the index field AC Acronym (click to highlight)
4) Click the Search button to perform the search
To search for instruments using the ME Measurements index,
1) Enter your search term(s) in the HaPI search box(es)
2) Scroll through the drop-down menu adjacent to your search terms
3) Locate & select the index field ME Measurements (right click to highlight)
4) Click the Search button to perform the search
Instrument references in HaPI will appear in the record's title field.
Because it is a behavioral instrument index, the title field of a HaPI record indexes the title of the instrument, not the title of the article in which the instrument is discussed.
Instrument references are not all the same.
An article debuting a new instrument will provide more specific information about it than will an article reporting usage of the instrument to collect data.
HaPI records differentiate between the varying types of instrument references by tagging each with one of five separate source classifications:
1) Primary Source - debut publication of the instrument by its creators that includes (where available) "any coinciding (psychometric) testing information." (Health and Psychosocial Instruments, n.d.)
2) Publisher's Catalog - "Information that originated from a publisher's catalog." (Health and Psychosocial Instruments, n.d.) In other words, a promotional literature source.
3) Review Source - a source which discusses the instrument but did not actually use the instrument to collect data for the study.
4) Secondary Source - any source using the instrument to collect data for analysis.
5) Translated Source - version of the instrument in a language other than the language in which the instrument was first published.
A record's source classification will appear in the Source Notes field. The location of this field will vary depending on the classification.
For primary sources, the Source Notes field appears immediately below either the Authors or Attributed to field near the top of the record.
For publisher's catalogs, review, secondary and translated sources, the Source Notes field appears immediately below the Authors field.
HaPI does not provide information regarding corresponding authors in its records.
But you can track down this information using the documentation supplied by the record.
A. Procedure for Primary Source References:
1) Locate the citation information in the Source field (immediately below the Source Notes field)
2) Perform a Journals by Title search (of the article citation) to locate either
a) A record for the article in a literature database
b) The full text of the article itself
3) Locate the corresponding author information in the database record or article full text
a) Many databases provide corresponding author contact information in their records
i. A single author's email (and sometimes postal) address
b) Where a database fails to provide this information, the article full text of a new behavioral instrument almost always will.
B. Procedure for Other Source Categories:
1) Locate the reference to the Primary Source article in the record
a) This will appear in the References field (near the bottom of the record)
b) The Primary Source (where more than one reference is provided) is normally the earlier published work and is usually indicated by the following bracketed message:
i. [Reference provided by HaPI].
2) Perform the steps for finding Primary Source References (above)
HaPI is not a full text database. Almost every instrument record in the database has an embedded Borrow from Another Library link associated with it.
This does not necessarily mean, however, that the item in question is not full text accessible through another database subscribed by Muntz Library.
Before submitting an ILLIAD request for the article, its worth searching Journals by Title first.
To perform a Journals by Title search,
1) Locate and note the citation information for the article you are seeking
2) Navigate to the UT Tyler Library main page
3) Find and click the Journals by Title link (5th link from the top of the list of links at the bottom of the page)
4) In Advanced Search
a) Select the Journals Only limiter (beneath the search box)
b) Enter the title of the journal you seek in the search box
c) Click the Search button to perform the search.
i. If the search returns the message, "Sorry, this search returned no results," proceed with an ILLIAD request (we do not have full text access to the journal).
5) If the search returns a result, scroll through the results list and locate your journal title (if available)
6) Note the full text options and years of coverage (do they cover the publication date of your article?)
7) Click the link matching your coverage requirements
8) Select the volume link matching the volume of your article
9) Locate and select the issue link (or publication date) corresponding to the issue of your article
10) Scroll through the issue contents and locate your article by title (or page numbers)
Note: Remember, the articles to which HaPI references refer seldom if ever contain the full text of the instruments they describe. To locate instrument full text, you will need to consult resources like PsycTESTS, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, and Google.
However, you may still wish to obtain the full text of HaPI Primary Source articles since these frequently contain information regarding psychometric testing of the instruments.