A psychology dissertation in India stands or falls on the instrument, and the choice usually comes down to a handful of published scales that every examiner recognises. The table below compares the ones M.A., M.Sc and M.Phil Psychology scholars reach for most, on the four things that decide the choice: what it measures, what it costs, whether it needs permission, and whether a validated Indian-language version exists. Prices and permissions were checked at source in August 2026; confirm against the publisher before you order, because licences change.
| Scale | Measures | Items | Cost and permission | Indian-language validation | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Perceived Stress Scale, PSS-10 (Cohen, 1983) | Perceived stress, past month | 10 | Free for academic research; the Carnegie Mellon lab now routes permission requests through Mapi Research Trust ePROVIDE, where the request itself is free of charge | Hindi version validated on an Indian sample | Stress in students, nurses, caregivers |
| DASS-21 (Lovibond and Lovibond, 1995) | Depression, anxiety, stress | 21 | Public domain; download from the UNSW DASS site | Hindi translation hosted on the UNSW site, with published validation | Three-construct distress studies |
| GHQ-12 (Goldberg) | General psychological distress | 12 | Copyright GL Assessment, UK; licence required via Mapi Research Trust ePROVIDE | Hindi standardisation published; Indian validation in workers, students and older adults | Screening in occupational and community samples |
| PHQ-9 and GAD-7 (Pfizer) | Depression; generalised anxiety | 9; 7 | Public domain since 2010; no permission needed | Hindi PHQ-9 validated in Indian clinical samples | Clinical or health-psychology samples |
| Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (1965) | Global self-esteem | 10 | Public domain; cite Rosenberg (1965) | Widely used in India; check the translation you adopt | Adolescent and student studies |
| MSPSS (Zimet, 1988) | Perceived social support: family, friends, significant other | 12 | Free for research with citation; no formal permission | Hindi version with published psychometrics | Support as a mediator or moderator |
| WHOQOL-BREF (WHO) | Quality of life, four domains | 26 | Distributed by WHO; download from the WHOQOL page and follow WHO’s terms | Hindi translation downloadable from WHO | Quality of life in patients and caregivers |
| Big Five Inventory-2 (Soto and John, 2017) | Five personality domains, 15 facets | 60 (30 short form) | Free for non-commercial research from the authors | English use common in India; translate and validate if needed | Personality as a predictor |
| Maslach Burnout Inventory | Burnout: exhaustion, cynicism, efficacy | 22 (16 in the general survey) | Licensed per administration through Mind Garden; paid | Indian studies exist; licence still required | Burnout where the publisher’s norms matter |
| Oldenburg Burnout Inventory (Demerouti) | Burnout: exhaustion, disengagement | 16 | Free for research | Used in Indian samples; validate on your own | Burnout on a student budget |
How to read the table before you choose
Two columns matter more than the others. The first is cost and permission, because an examiner will ask for the permission letter or the licence, and a scale you photocopied from a journal is a copyright problem in the appendix. The second is Indian-language validation, because a Hindi, Tamil or Marathi version that has been through translation, back-translation and a published reliability study is a defensible choice; a version you translated yourself over a weekend is not, unless you then do that work and report it.
Free is not a mark against a scale. The DASS-21, the PHQ-9 and the Rosenberg scale are among the most cited instruments in psychology precisely because their authors put them in the public domain, the PSS-10 costs nothing for academic use, and their reliability evidence runs to thousands of studies. What free does not buy you is a norms table for an Indian population; for that you either find a published Indian standardisation or you interpret your scores relative to your own sample.
The ranked shortlist, construct by construct
1. Stress: PSS-10
Who it suits. Any study where stress is a predictor or an outcome — students before examinations, nurses, teachers, caregivers of patients with a chronic illness. Ten items, five minutes, a free permission request through ePROVIDE, and a validated Hindi version. Where it falls short. It measures appraisal of stress, not stressors, so if your question is about which sources of stress matter, pair it with a stressor checklist. The four-item PSS-4 exists but its reliability is lower; use the ten-item version unless survey length is genuinely a constraint.
2. General distress: DASS-21 over GHQ-12
Who the DASS-21 suits. Studies that want depression, anxiety and stress as three separate scores from one instrument, in a non-clinical sample. It is public domain, the UNSW site hosts a Hindi translation with a published validation paper, and the three-factor structure is well replicated. Where it falls short. It is not a diagnostic tool and should not be described as one.
Who the GHQ-12 suits. Occupational and community screening studies that want a single distress score with a large Indian literature behind it, including a published Hindi standardisation. Where it falls short. It is copyrighted by GL Assessment and licensed through the Mapi Research Trust’s ePROVIDE platform, which means an application, a licence and, for most uses, a fee. On a scholar’s budget the DASS-21 answers most of the same questions without the paperwork — which is the recommendation here unless your guide’s programme of research is built on GHQ data.
3. Depression and anxiety in clinical or health samples: PHQ-9 and GAD-7
Who they suit. Health-psychology dissertations with patient samples — diabetes, cancer, cardiac, palliative care — where a brief, well-known screener is needed and a Hindi version with Indian validation exists. Pfizer released both into the public domain in 2010, so no permission is required to reproduce or translate them. Where they fall short. Both are symptom screeners built around diagnostic criteria; in a non-clinical student sample the DASS-21 will give you more spread.
4. Self-esteem: Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale
Who it suits. Almost any adolescent or young-adult study. Ten items, public domain, and probably the most translated scale in the discipline. Where it falls short. The negatively worded items behave differently in some Indian samples, so run your own reliability check and report it; the value you need to defend is discussed in our explanation of what counts as an acceptable Cronbach’s alpha.
5. Social support: MSPSS
Who it suits. Studies where social support is a mediator or moderator — between stress and well-being, or between illness and quality of life. Twelve items in three subscales, free for research with a citation, and a Hindi version with published psychometrics. Where it falls short. It measures perceived support, not received support or network size.
6. Quality of life: WHOQOL-BREF
Who it suits. Patient and caregiver studies that need a four-domain quality-of-life score recognised across medicine and psychology. WHO distributes the instrument from its WHOQOL page, and a Hindi translation is available for download there. Where it falls short. Twenty-six items is long for a battery, and the scoring transformation must be done exactly as the WHO manual specifies.
7. Personality: BFI-2 over the commercial inventories
Who it suits. Any study with personality as a predictor. Sixty items across five domains and fifteen facets, with a thirty-item short form, free for non-commercial research from the authors. Where it falls short. There is no Indian norms table; interpret relative to your sample. The commercial alternatives — the NEO inventories and the 16PF — carry norms but are paid, per-form products, and for a Master’s dissertation the BFI-2 is the defensible choice.
8. Burnout: OLBI unless the MBI norms are the point
Who the MBI suits. Studies of teachers, nurses or IT employees where comparison with the publisher’s norms is central. It is licensed per administration through Mind Garden and must be paid for; a sample of 300 is a real cost. Who the OLBI suits. The same populations on a scholar’s budget: sixteen items, two dimensions, free for research, and a growing Indian literature. Validate it on your own sample and say so.
9. Indian-standardised commercial scales
Indian test publishers, several of them in Agra, sell standardised scales with Indian norms — anxiety, adjustment, emotional intelligence, achievement motivation — as consumable booklets with a manual. They are legitimate choices, especially where an Indian norms table is what your guide wants, and the same rules apply: buy the booklets, do not photocopy them, and report the manual’s reliability alongside your own. Our guide to choosing a standardised tool for an M.Ed dissertation covers the purchase, permission and adaptation mechanics for these publishers in detail, and every step transfers directly to psychology.
What the examiner checks in the tools section
- The permission or licence. Public-domain scales need a citation; copyrighted ones need a letter or licence in the appendix.
- The version. PSS-10 not PSS-14, DASS-21 not DASS-42, and the language version named exactly.
- Translation procedure. If you translated, describe forward translation, back-translation and the pilot, and report reliability on the translated version.
- Reliability on your own sample. The manual’s alpha does not transfer; compute and report yours.
- Scoring. Reverse-scored items identified, cut-offs cited to the source that established them.
- Sample size for the analysis. A scale with subscales run through factor analysis needs far more respondents than a two-group comparison; the calculation is set out in our guide to calculating sample size for a thesis.
The ethics question sits behind all six. Mental-health screening of students or patients is human-subjects research, and where your university has an ethics committee it must clear the protocol before the first questionnaire is distributed — the process is described in our walkthrough of obtaining ethics committee clearance for an Indian thesis. Include a plan for participants whose scores cross a clinical cut-off, because the committee will ask.
The recommendation
For a one-year M.A. or M.Sc Psychology dissertation in India, build the battery from free instruments with published Indian-language validation — PSS-10 for stress, DASS-21 for distress, PHQ-9 or GAD-7 in clinical samples, Rosenberg for self-esteem, MSPSS for support, BFI-2 for personality, OLBI for burnout — and reserve the licensed scales, the GHQ-12 and the MBI, for the case where your guide’s research programme depends on their norms. The saving is not only money; it is the weeks between writing to a licensor and receiving a reply, and that is time a one-year dissertation does not have. Whichever you choose, the scale’s reliability in your own sample is what the analysis rests on, and the table that reports it belongs in Chapter 3 in the form set out in our guide to reporting statistics in APA tables.
Write the tools section while the data comes in
The description of each instrument — author, year, items, subscales, scoring, permission, reliability — can be drafted before a single questionnaire is returned, because it describes decisions you have already made. Tesify turns your notes on each scale into a properly structured tools section in your department’s format, with every citation built as you write, so Chapter 3 is not waiting on Chapter 4. Before you submit, run the full draft through the Tesify Plagiarism Checker: scale items quoted verbatim are the commonest reason a psychology dissertation reads high on the department’s similarity software.
Draft your psychology dissertation tools section with Tesify — free to start
Frequently asked questions
Do I need permission to use the PSS-10 in my dissertation?
Academic use is free, but the Carnegie Mellon laboratory that distributes the scale now asks all users to submit a permission request through the Mapi Research Trust ePROVIDE platform; the request costs nothing and commits you to nothing. Cite Cohen, Kamarck and Mermelstein (1983) and, if you use a Hindi version, cite the validation study for that version.
Is the DASS-21 free to use in India?
Yes. The DASS is in the public domain and may be downloaded from the University of New South Wales DASS site, which also hosts a Hindi translation with a validation paper. No permission or fee is required.
Why does the GHQ-12 need a licence when it is so widely used?
Because it is copyrighted by GL Assessment in the UK and licensed through the Mapi Research Trust’s ePROVIDE platform. Wide use in published Indian studies does not change the copyright position; those studies obtained a licence, and an examiner may ask to see yours.
Can I translate a scale into Tamil or Marathi myself?
You can, provided the licence or public-domain status allows translation, and provided you follow the standard procedure: forward translation by a bilingual expert, independent back-translation, reconciliation, a pilot, and a reliability estimate on the translated version reported in your dissertation.
Which is better for a student sample, PHQ-9 or DASS-21?
For a non-clinical student sample the DASS-21 usually gives more usable spread and three constructs instead of one. The PHQ-9 is a diagnostic-criteria screener that performs best in clinical and health-psychology samples.
Do I have to report the scale’s original reliability or my own?
Both. The original figure shows the instrument is sound; your own figure, computed on your sample, is what your findings rest on. Report the original in the description of the tool and yours immediately afterwards with your sample size.
Is it acceptable to combine several scales into one questionnaire?
Yes, and most dissertations do. Keep each scale’s instructions and response format intact, present them in a fixed order, and watch total length: more than about eighty items produces fatigue effects in student samples.
What if a participant scores above a clinical cut-off?
Your ethics protocol must say what happens. The usual answer is a referral note to the institution’s counselling centre or a named clinician, given to every participant regardless of score, plus a specific follow-up for anyone whose responses indicate risk.