Knowledge Acquisition in Auditing: Training Novice Auditors to Recognize Cue Relationships in Real Estate Valuation

This study examines novice auditors' knowledge acquisition. I investigate whether low-cost, informal training interventions improve knowledge acquisition in complex auditing tasks. I designed an experiment that tests the effect of two alternative training approaches on audit judgment performance: explanatory feedback (a replication and extension of Bonner and Walker [1994]), and self-explanation of the rationale underlying a judgment of reasonableness. The results suggest that each approach promotes procedural knowledge acquisition, and combining the two approaches provides more benefit than either approach alone. The effectiveness of the self-explanation approach is primarily attributable to the learner's level of reasoning. Adding explanatory feedback to self-explanations has no incremental effect after controlling for the effect of the learner's reasoning. The paper discusses the implications of these results for the design of audit training environments.