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Unraveling the Variability in Expertise Definition and Its Use in Human Factors Research

DescriptionDespite the heavy reliance on expert knowledge, especially in complex decision-making, ‘expert opinion’ is often cited without sufficient definition or justification of what makes someone an expert. This is also critical in human factors and ergonomics (HFE) research, as expertise is facilitated as an important variable in many HFE studies these days. The limitations that resulted from the lack of a standardized definition of expertise became more apparent in our observational study conducted at an industry’s high-fidelity oil and gas training facility. Based on our observation and research, we propose to make a distinction between two types of experts—system experts and task experts. System experts possess a holistic understanding but may lack recent hands-on experience, while task experts excel in specific skills through recent and frequent practice despite limited systemic knowledge. The distinction between the two types of experts emerged when “expert” participants in the observational study struggled with routine tasks that “novice” participants performed effortlessly. Based on these findings, we also propose that expertise assessment must expand beyond traditional metrics (e.g., years of experience and accreditation) and include two additional dimensions: frequency and recency. These factors significantly impact task proficiency and should be explicitly measured when operationalizing expertise.

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