Abstract The article presents information on the discussion of a reevaluation of the positive testing approach in auditing Smieliauskas 1990 discussed the positive and negative testing approaches in the context of audit substantive testing and purported to have shown the" irrelevance" of the former approach. Specifically, Smieliauskas argues that only the negative testing approach is consistent with the primary audit objective (i.e., control of the risk of incorrect acceptance of the book value). Before proceeding into a discussion of these issues, it is important to note that we are not attacking usage of the negative testing approach. The key issue, however, is not whether modification of the positive testing approach makes it equivalent to the negative testing approach, but whether it would be advantageous for the auditor to effect such a modification when the underlying statistical assumptions appear to have been violated.
Beck et al. (Sun,) studied this question.