Computers can be very helpful in searching vast amounts of data for information relating to your topic. They can, however, yield so many "hits" that you have to be really creative to narrow the topic to a manageable size.
In general it is best to begin with the proprietary databases available through the KU Library, as you will usually get a richer quality of hits than with a general Web search engine like Google.com. Because our field is so wide, you will want to select several of the specialized databases, which can now be searched simultaneously with the Ebsco software.
ERIC is one that should always be selected, whether or not your topic has anything to do with education. ERIC includes a wealth of obscure papers presented at professional meetings held at universities, and reports on almost all research on any topic funded in any way by the Federal government. Anything with an "ED" prefix is an ERIC document, and most of these are available in the KU library on microfiche (an attractive feature for the compulsive).
Digital Dissertations is an electronic version of Dissertation Abstracts and may help you discover some of the "buzz words" that the academic world uses to describe aspects of your topic. It doesn't seem to contain the entire abstract for older dissertations, however, so you may still want to use the paper copies found in the Reference Dept.
Actually for any topic that has an historical component, checking the paper indices may help find some of the "foundation" research in the field that newer studies are based upon, but may not even bother to reference.
While there are many more databases available from Ebsco which you will probably find helpful, one last one to emphasize is the Mental Measurements Yearbook. This is a catalog of standardized tests and it may save you designing an instrument. At least it should give you some ideas on what has already been done in the field of attitude measurement.
If you get too few hits in an Ebsco search, try clicking on the boxes for searching related terms and searching in full text documents (rather than just in titles and keywords).
Scheduling a meeting with a reference librarian is probably a good idea if you are having trouble finding the quality of material you expect for your topic.
