The Incremental Benefits of a Forensic Accounting Course on Skepticism and Fraud-Related Judgments

36 Pages Posted: 21 Aug 2008

See all articles by Tina Carpenter

Tina Carpenter

University of Georgia - C. Herman and Mary Virginia Terry College of Business

Cindy Durtschi

DePaul University - School of Accountancy and MIS

Lisa Milici Gaynor

University of South Florida - School of Accountancy

Date Written: July 22, 2008

Abstract

This study examines the extent to which providing a course that emphasizes forensic accounting influences students skepticism and fraud-related judgments. We follow a cohort of students (trained students) who have enrolled in a forensic accounting course and examine their fraud judgments at various points in time - the first day of instruction, the last day of instruction, and seven months later. We compare these fraud judgments to a control group of students who have completed a typical audit sequence (untrained students) and to a panel of fraud experts. We find that when confronted with a non-conforming account, trained students provide significantly higher initial risk assessments post-training 1) than they did pre-training and 2) than did the untrained students. This suggests that the specialized course may lead to increased skepticism. We also find, in general, that post-training students assigned somewhat higher relevancy ratings to fraud risk factors than did a panel of experts; while the untrained students ascribed significantly less relevance than the experts did to these same facts. In addition, after exposure to fraud risk factors, trained students provided higher revised risk assessments post-training than they did pre-training. Finally, we find that seven months after the course, the trained students' performance is sustained, suggesting that the effects produced by taking a fraud-specific forensic accounting course persist.

Keywords: Risk Assessment, Fraud, Training, Skepticism

JEL Classification: M49, C91, M41, M43

Suggested Citation

Carpenter, Tina and Durtschi, Cindy and Gaynor, Lisa Milici, The Incremental Benefits of a Forensic Accounting Course on Skepticism and Fraud-Related Judgments (July 22, 2008). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1223662 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1223662

Tina Carpenter

University of Georgia - C. Herman and Mary Virginia Terry College of Business ( email )

230 Brooks Hall
Athens, GA 30602-6254
United States
706-542-3619 (Phone)

Cindy Durtschi

DePaul University - School of Accountancy and MIS ( email )

Chicago, IL 60604
United States
312-362-8789 (Phone)

Lisa Milici Gaynor (Contact Author)

University of South Florida - School of Accountancy ( email )

4202 E. Fowler Avenue, BSN 3403
Tampa, FL 33620-5500
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
1,247
Abstract Views
6,876
Rank
30,617
PlumX Metrics