Evaluate the effectivity of a newly developed audit simulation to improve the perceived broad competence of audit students

Abstract

Audit education is in need of change with regard to the teaching methodologies utilized at universities including other institutions of higher learning, both locally and globally. This need is evident by the robust volume of research highlighting the current criticisms against audit education in the form of the out-dated teaching methods employed by audit lecturers. These methods include a passive learning approach. Moreover, the fact that the teaching is concept-oriented, often results in students' having difficulty in understanding audit concepts through the lack of a clearly developed and adequate frame of reference. This study forms part of a bigger project, in that an audit simulation was developed to meet these needs. The objective was to evaluate whether the newly developed audit simulation would assist to enhance audit students' perceived broad competence, and to draw conclusions as well as suggest recommendations on the use thereof in the audit classroom in light of the current criticisms. The research approach included the classic quasi-experimental (pre-test/post-test) design to reach the objective of the study and a group-administered questionnaire to collect data from the respondents. The results of the pre-test/post-test evaluation revealed that change is needed of the manner in which auditing is taught at universities and other institutions of higher learning. Furthermore, it was found that by adopting teaching methodologies such as this newly developed audit simulation, positive change can be brought to the audit education environment. Certain areas for further research and development were also identified together with recommendations on the use of simulation in the audit classroom.