Assurance Practitioners\u27 and Educators\u27 Self-Perceived It Knowledge Level: An Empirical Assessment

In September 2001, the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) Education Committee issued Exposure Draft IEG-1, which states, Information technology is pervasive in the world of business. Competence with this technology is an imperative for the professional accountant. This view was seconded by a leading visionary in the assurance profession, who recently stated that every aspect of the accounting profession is being pervasively affected by advances in information technology [Audit. J. Pract. Theory 21 (1) 2002]. Clearly, accounting/auditing education needs to incorporate these technology changes to stay relevant. Despite the apparent need for change, leading academicians have recently talked about the possible demise of accounting/auditing education due to a failure keep up with changes in the business world. Accounting/auditing education has been described as outdated, broken, and in need of significant modification (Albrecht WS, Sack RJ. Accounting education: charting the course through a perilous future. Accounting education series. Sarasota, FL: American Accounting Association, vol. 16, 2000). This study focuses on identifying appropriate information technologies (ITs) for auditing professors and audit practitioners and measuring their self-perceptions of knowledge about these technologies. We conducted a literature search that resulted in the identification of 36 critical information technologies. We then surveyed 1000 accounting information systems (AIS) and auditing professors and 1000 audit practitioners to determine their self-reported IT knowledge levels and perceptions about the best places to learn IT skills. The survey also solicited their views about the best place in the educational process for initially learning these technologies, as well as views about educational methodology. Response rates of 31.2% for professors and 24.7% for practitioners were obtained for the survey. After conducting factor analysis, we found a relatively low level of knowledge for e-commerce and advanced technologies and audit automation constructs by both educators and practitioners, but we found a relatively high level of knowledge for office automation and accounting firm office automation constructs. Results also indicate that the educators with more teaching experience, but lower reported IT knowledge levels, tend to teach auditing. Furthermore, we found a potential learning gap between educators and practitioners that may occur for 5 of the 36 technologies examined. The results of this research are important for auditing and AIS education because they strongly suggest that more attention needs to be paid to issues such as assigning courses based on knowledge level rather than seniority, technology training and awareness programs for educators and practitioners, and coverage of IT in the university curriculum