An Examination of Students’ Attitudes and Perceptions Towards Incorporating Computer Assisted Audit Techniques in an Undergraduate Auditing Course

The use of Computer Assisted Audit Techniques (CAATs) in the form of generalized audit software (GAS) for increasing both the efficiency and effectiveness of audits has been well recognized. With this recognition, changes have been made to the auditing curriculums of many business schools by devoting substantial time and resources towards integrating audit software. Despite these developments, the relevance and usefulness of these tools from the students' perspective has not been fully examined, which is imperative for appropriately designing not only the content, but also the extent of the treatment of CAATs in undergraduate audit curriculums. This paper attempts to fill this gap by examining students' perceptions and attitudes towards CAATs following the successful integration of a module on generalized audit software in the undergraduate auditing curriculum of an AACSB accredited business school. A survey instrument was utilized for this purpose, and analyzed by Paired Sample T-tests and One Sample T-Tests. The implications of a number of statistically significant perceptions are discussed in the paper that provide new insights into the perceived value of incorporating CAATs into the curriculum, which ultimately has a bearing on both curriculum development and instructional pedagogy