Perceived Usefulness (TAM) — Davis (1989)
Perceived Usefulness is one of the two core beliefs in the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), developed by Fred Davis (1989). It captures how far a person believes that using a system improves their job performance.
What it measures
Perceived Usefulness (PU) is defined by Davis (1989) as the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would enhance their job performance. In the Technology Acceptance Model it sits alongside Perceived Ease of Use as a key driver of attitude, behavioral intention and actual use of technology.
PU is a reflective construct: the items are seen as interchangeable effects of one underlying belief, so they should correlate highly and you can run reliability and factor analysis on them. It is one of the most replicated scales in information systems research.
Scale items
The item wording is under the publisher’s copyright, so we do not reproduce it here. You can find the full items in the original article (see the citation below). In Explonia, signed-in users get this scale complete in the built-in library and can add it to their own study — no need to find the items yourself. For use in your own research; please cite the original source.
How to use and cite it
Cite the original author in your Methods section — Davis (1989), MIS Quarterly — and report any adaptation (for example, changing "job" to your study context). The exact item wording is copyright; access it through the published article rather than copying it from a secondary source.
In Explonia (Academic tier) you can add a validated scale to a study, collect responses, and run reliability and CFA on it, then export the result and an APA "Article description" paragraph. Not sure which scale fits? See the guide on finding a validated scale.
Reporting reliability and validity
For a reflective scale like PU, report internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha, or preferably McDonald's omega / composite reliability) with the common .70 rule of thumb as a floor. For convergent validity in a CFA/SEM, report AVE ≥ .50 and check discriminant validity (for example HTMT). Remember that reliability is not the same as validity — a scale can be consistent yet measure the wrong thing — and keep at least three items per reflective factor so the model is identified.
Reference table
| Property | Detail |
|---|---|
| Construct | Perceived Usefulness (TAM) |
| Type | Reflective |
| Number of items | 6 (final refined scale) |
| Response format | 7-point Likert (likely–unlikely / agree–disagree) |
| Original source | Davis, F. D. (1989). MIS Quarterly, 13(3), 319–340. |
| DOI | 10.2307/249008 |
| Reported reliability | Very high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha around .97–.98) in the original validation |
| Domain | Technology acceptance / information systems |
Frequently asked questions
How many items are in the Perceived Usefulness scale?
Davis (1989) refined Perceived Usefulness to a 6-item reflective scale measured on a 7-point Likert format. Because it is reflective, the items should correlate highly and you can run reliability and confirmatory factor analysis on them.
How to cite this page
If this page helped your research, you can cite it (APA 7):
Szymkowiak, A. (2026). Perceived Usefulness Scale (TAM, Davis 1989). Explonia. https://explonia.com/scales/tam-perceived-usefulness/
Last updated: July 2026
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