Expertise (General)

What it measures

Four semantic differential pairs capture a person's self-assessed level of knowledge, experience, and expertise with a specified object or product category.

Response format

7-point semantic differential

Scale items

• Know very little about __________ / Know very much about __________
• Inexperienced / Experienced
• Uninformed / Informed
• Novice buyer / Expert buyer

Full scale items shown. Always cite the original source when using this scale in research.

Usage notes & scoring

Appears original to Mishra, Umesh, and Stem (1993). Alphas .90 for all three product classes in original study; .87 (Griffith and Chen 2004). Applicable across product categories; blanks should be replaced with the target domain.

Recommended companion scales

Citation

Mishra, S., Umesh, U. N., & Stem, D. E. (1993). Antecedents of the attraction effect: An information-processing approach. Journal of Marketing Research, 30(3), 331–349.

Keywords