Developing Skill in Finding Disconfirming Evidence in Internal Control Testing

• In Event: Internal Control

Abstract

In this study, novice auditors attempted to identify the disconfirming evidence in an internal control-testing task patterned as a Wason selection task. Confirmation bias and truncated search risk were controlled for by informing participants that two pieces of evidence were needed. This approach deterred participants from the typical tendencies of selecting confirming evidence and stopping the search for evidence too soon. The results show very low initial hypothesis-testing ability in novices, who were undergraduate AIS and auditing students. Participants with higher GPAs were no better at evaluating evidence than their lower-achieving colleagues. The experiment shows that even when participants were not permitted to truncate the search too early and were not permitted to notice only confirming evidence, those without instruction or with only a single practice round improved only slightly. Highly motivated participants that self-selected to work multiple practice rounds or participants in the single practice plus instruction group improved their ability to find disconfirming evidence dramatically. Teasing out low hypothesis-testing skill differs from lack of persistence or professional skepticism may help to develop a corrective strategy likely to improve audit effectiveness and efficiency.

Authors

• Carol Springer Sargent, Middle Georgia State College

• A Faye Borthick, Georgia State University