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Article Excerpt
Abstract
This paper examines the relationship between experience and its differential effects on the types of knowledge that drive an auditor's expert-like behaviors during performance of field tasks. A descriptive model showing how the accessibility of an auditor's environmental and strategic knowledge are affected by task experience is presented. Properties that account for the accessibility of an auditor's knowledge are defined and an experimental methodology proposed whereby the effects of exposure to a task environment are quantified. The model and methodology are then applied to an analysis of the task behaviors of four first-year auditors who performed audit-related tasks in simulated auditing environments. Findings provide insight into the process of expert development and limitations on the rate at which expertise can be acquired. (JEL M41)
Introduction
What does field experience do to an auditor's knowledge that changes the level of expert performance and how can these effects be observed and quantified? The ostensible explanation for the first part of the preceding question is that exposure to a variety of practice situations produces auditors who know more and whose knowledge is better organized, in consequence of which they produce better outcomes. As to the second part of the question, an extensive literature has evolved documenting attempts to observe and quantify these effects through comparative studies of expert/novice differences in substantive knowledge content, task strategy, and the cognitive processes by which knowledge content affects auditor judgments and decisions [see Arnold and Sutton, 1997; Ashton and Ashton, 1995 for reviews]. However, while these studies provide useful state information, a comprehensive quantitative model of the expert-development process has so far failed to emerge. In a 1989 review of expertise research in auditing, Bedard [1989, p. 128] suggested that future research in expertise examine the way expert knowledge and its organization change as auditors acquire expertise. In a similar review almost a decade later, highlighting a glacial rate of progress, Bouwman and Bradley [1997, p. 120] conclude that little is actually known about what is involved in becoming an expert. Perhaps what is needed to stimulate progress is a new approach.
Russo [1999, 1997], in a departure from the dominant cognitive-based judgment/decision making paradigm of recent auditing behavioral research, approaches the study of expert development from a perspective that is more strictly behavioral in that it explores the development of expertise in novice auditors by examining the effects of their experience performing simulated audit-related field tasks on their observed expert-like task behavior. Adapting the behavioral psychologists's definition of learning as any relatively permanent change in behavior resulting from experience [Reber, 1985], and employing the widely accepted notion of automaticity in the performance of a task as indicative of expertise [Alba and Hutchinson, 1987; Anderson, 1982; 1987; Mayer, 1992, p. 305; Davis and Solomon, 1989; Bedard, 1989], Russo shows that experienced-induced changes in the properties of the knowledge demanded by an auditor's task behaviors are responsible for changes in that auditor's observed expertise during performance of a field task. The properties of knowledge examined are its organization, content, and availability. The foregoing demonstrates how the link between experience, learning, and an auditor's task behaviors can be exploited as a quantitative tool for acquiring insight into the process by which expertise evolves.
This paper builds on the preceding research by examining the relationship between experience and its differential effects on the knowledge that drive auditors' expert-like behaviors during performance of field tasks. It is proposed that experience changes the knowledge driving task behaviors along two dimensions: Knowledge structure, which addresses the properties of the knowledge demanded by task performance, and substantive content, which addresses its purpose and intentionality. Empirical evidence is presented showing how experience performing a task affects knowledge along both dimensions. The research question posed is: What insights about the development of expertise can be gained from observations of an auditor's expert-like behaviors during performance of a task? This question is answered by proposing a descriptive model of auditor behavior during performance of a field task. The model is then applied to an analysis of the task behaviors of four first-year auditors who performed audit-related tasks in simulated environments to show how experience affected their knowledge accessibility.
This paper presents basic research contributing to an understanding of the process of expert development. In using observed behavior as a criterion of expertise, the appropriateness of behaviors and the quality of task outcomes are not considered. Therefore, the behavior studied can only be described as being relatively expert-like. Findings reported reveal both highly individualistic effects of experience on the knowledge driving expert behavior and analytical differences between effects along the structural and substantive dimensions of knowledge. The findings also provide diagnostic information about the progress of expert development and insight into limits on the rate at which expertise can acquired.
The following sections present a model of auditor behavior during performance of a field task, the null hypotheses, and a description of the experimental procedure and findings The final sections discuss the implications of the findings for the expert development process and a concluding comment.
Model
The model proposed in this paper consists of two major components: A behavior module and a learning module. The behavior module operationalizes the properties of an auditor's knowledge and how the effects of experience are quantified. The learning module proposes a process whereby new information acquired as a result of task experience is assimilated into an auditor's knowledge base, thereby, influencing subsequent task behavior.
Overview of Behavior and Learning Processes
Task behavior is modeled as a sequence of observable target behaviors (reading, inquiry, calculating, writing, etc.) mediated by episodes of subconscious (automatic) and conscious (cognitive) mental activity. Measures of the properties of knowledge are based on analysis of the mental activity components of mediating episodes. Experience is operationalized as repetition in performing the various target behaviors. The effect of experience on knowledge is measured by separating the task behavior sequence chronologically by behavior, and within behavior, by semi-frequency, producing two groups of equal frequency for each target behavior. Behaviors in the below-median group are the inexperienced or "naive" instances, and those in the above-median group are the experienced instances. The type and properties of knowledge utilized in the episodes of mental activity mediating the transition between the observed behaviors in each group are identified and enumerated. The effect of experience on each knowledge property is measured by the ratio of the experienced group's property metric to that of the inexperienced group.
Learning is modeled as a three stage process. When a knowledge base is stimulated by cue reception, the state of the knowledge at each stage is marked by a response, a distinctive form of mental activity. On an initial exposure to cues failing to elicit a consistent knowledge base response (stage 1),...
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