Q: I need to find some examples of surveys or scales for a social research methods class.
A: Searching for scales, measures, questionnaires can range from really straightforward to tricky. If you want to browse surveys you know to be available to you, search a data repository like ICPSR or the web sites of government agencies that produce and disseminate studies to the public.
If, however, you are looking for specific survey instruments, try the following strategies:
- Data archives like ICPSR (Carleton is a member and as a member of the campus, you can download datasets described in the online catalog. Just sign up for your own account. Accompanying documentation such as survey instruments and codebooks are available for download.)
- The journal article in which results were published. Often researchers publish their survey instrument with their article — but not always. You can search library databases (Sociological Abstracts and PsycInfo come to mind for this topic) and Google and Google Scholar for the names of the datasets and their primary investigators. You’ll be looking for a citation to the journal article. For example, I searched for “Social Behavior Questionnaire” (in quotes) on Google and discovered a citation to the article: Original Reference(s):    Tremblay, R. E., Loeber, R., Gagnon, C., Charlebois, P., Larivee, S., LeBlanc, M. (1991). Disruptive boys with stable and unstable high fighting behavior patterns during junior elementary school. Journal of Abnormal Child Psyhcology, 19 (3), 285-300. Trouble is, our library doesn’t have this article, so you’d need to request it via Interlibrary Loan. You can request the article, but you might end up waiting a couple of days only to find out that the instrument was not included.
- The web site of the journal in which results were published. If you have the citation to the article, but can’t access the article, look for the web site of the journal in which it was published. Once there, look for a “data” or “datasets” or “replication datasets” section of the web site. Some journals’ web sites publish free access to the data referred to in research articles. If you find the dataset, the documentation (including the instrument) should be nearby.
- The library. Try searching for the name of the dataset in the library catalog. The library might have a print copy of the questionnaire. If it’s not there, check WorldCat, which is a shared catalog of all nearly all academic libraries in North America. If you find it there, you could request it via Interlibrary Loan. WorldCat is linked from the library’s databases page.
- The web site of the PI. By now you should know the full name of the investigator. Search Google to see if they have a web site (limit to .edu web sites, see next bullet for how to do this) and look for a section called “data” or “publications” or “cv.” Sometimes researchers post datasets and/or their documentation on their personal web sites.
- A web site for the Dataset. Use Google to search for the name of the dataset and limit the search to .edu domains. You can do this either in Google’s Advanced Search or by adding ‘site:.edu’ (no quotes) to the end of your search terms. Example: “self-reported delinquency scale site:.edu”
- Articles that cite the dataset. Use the Social Sciences Citation Index to find any journal articles that cite the dataset in their bibliographies. Sometimes they publish a variation of the instrument, which may or may not be helpful to you. If you skim their Data section, you may get clues to the availability of the original dataset (e.g. they may mention that they got the data directly from the PI)
- The Funding Agency or Research Center. In your searching so far, have you noticed that the research was done in the context of a particular research center or was funded by a particular group or agency? Sometimes the web sites of these organizations publish datasets and their documentation.
- The Primary Investigator. Consider contacting the primary investigator directly and ask for a copy of their survey instrument. Do not do so before trying all of the strategies above, though. Write the request with the care that you would give to a resume cover letter and have someone proofread it for you. Busy researchers have other priorities and you’ll need to make a case to them why they should go out of their way to help you, so let them know that you’ve done the footwork before asking.