Enhancing audit students’ cognitive skills through website-based learning: Evidence from an experimental study in Indonesia

This study examines the impact of digitalization on the cognitive skills of accounting students in auditing, with a focus on the implementation of website-based learning in audit practicums. Motivated by the low number of auditors in Indonesia and limited technological integration in audit education, this research introduces a website-based audit learning model designed to enhance students' understanding of audit processes and working papers. Using an experimental method, 78 students enrolled in the Auditing II course at a leading university in East Java, Indonesia, were divided into two groups: a control group and an experimental group. To minimize potential sample bias, a single-blind procedure is applied, ensuring that students were not informed of the specific research condition assigned to their class. The experimental class utilized a website-based application to complete sales and billing cycle audits, while the control class followed conventional learning methods. Data were analyzed using paired and independent sample t-test to assess differences in pre-test and post-test performance. The results reveal that students in the experimental class experienced a significant increase in cognitive skill’s scores from an average of 50.69 to 82.12 compared to the control group, which showed minimal improvement. These findings confirm that website-based audit learning promotes higher levels of learning independence, collaboration, and active participation, resulting in superior academic performance. Future studies should consider expanding the research setting by involving multiple institutions and diverse students to enhance the generalizability, examining the effectiveness of audit software across various pervasive risk-based audit, and encouraged to control for individual-level factors, including student’ prior digital competence, learning motivation, and technology acceptance.